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By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
 
The White House and the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans have so far remained
mum on a report by the New York Daily News that President Bush has named a gay
man to become an assistant secretary of commerce and head of an international
trade office.
In a June 24 column, Daily News columnists George Rush and Joanna Molloy reported
that Israel “Izzy” Hernandez, 35, a White House adviser and personal
aide to Bush during his term as Texas governor, came out to the president last
year.
“One source tells us Hernandez waited until Bush was sworn in for a second
term to formally tell him he is gay,” the columnists reported. “By
then, says a source, he’d brought his partner to several official events.”
A White House spokesperson did not return Blade calls seeking comment on the
Hernandez appointment.
During his first term as president, Bush appointed two openly gay men to head
the White House AIDS office and named a gay foreign service officer as U.S.
ambassador to Romania. The president also appointed several gay members to the
Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and named a New York gay Republican
activist and businessman to the National Commission on Fine Arts.
The gay appointments stopped as the 2004 presidential election approached,
and Bush’s chief White House political adviser, Karl Rove, helped orchestrate
Bush’s support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage as part of a strategy
to woo evangelical Christian voters.
If the Daily News report is true, Hernandez, a Texas native, becomes the first
known gay appointee to a major post in the Bush administration since the election.
He also becomes the administration’s first known gay Latino appointee.
Prior to being nominated for the assistant secretary’s post, Hernandez
worked from 2001 to May 2005 in the White House as an assistant to Rove as well
as a deputy assistant to the president.
Hernandez is the second Rove deputy whose sexual orientation has become the
subject of interest in the media.
Ken Mehlman, who worked as Rove’s No. 2 assistant at the White House
and managed Bush’s re-election campaign, has refused to answer questions
about his sexual orientation. Mehlman now chairs the Republican National Committee.
From 1995 to 1997, Hernandez served as a personal aide to then Gov. George
W. Bush in Austin, Texas, according to a questionnaire Hernandez submitted to
the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, which is overseeing
his confirmation.
According to news reports, he worked as Bush’s travel aide during Bush’s
2000 presidential campaign and often provided the candidate with breath mints
before speaking engagements, earning him the nickname “Altoid Boy”
from the future president.
In his June 16 confirmation hearing, Hernandez told members of the Senate commerce
panel that his sister, mother and father were present at the hearing, but he
made no mention of a domestic partner.
In the questionnaire submitted to the committee in advance of his testimony,
he listed his residence as a Falls Church, Va., townhouse that, according to
tax records, is owned and occupied by another man, Albert A. Gallegos.
A male voice on the telephone answering machine of the home identified himself
as “Al,” but messages left seeking comment about Hernandez’s
nomination were not returned by Blade deadline.
Christopher Barron, a spokesperson for Log Cabin Republicans, said the group
had no comment on reports about Hernandez’s sexual orientation. In the
past, Barron has said Log Cabin opposes the practice of “outing”
public officials or other people.
Daily News columnists Rush and Molloy did not return a call seeking comment
about their basis for claiming Hernandez was gay or “openly gay.”
Hernandez received a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy
at the University of Texas at Austin in 1992 and a master’s degree in
public administration from Texas A&M’s George Bush School of Government
in 1999, he stated on the questionnaire.
Gay Republican activist Carl Schmid said Hernandez accompanied Bush during
the 2000 campaign when Bush met with a dozen gay Republican leaders at his campaign
office in Austin. The gay attendees became known as the “Austin 12.”
Schmid said he does not know whether Hernandez is gay.
“He goes back with Bush a long time,” said Schmid, who added that
White House observers consider Hernandez ...
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