Jul 04, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

Members of the “Austin 12,” the group of prominent gay Republicans who famously met with George W. Bush in 2000, are not exactly rallying around John McCain.

Several members of the group told the Blade this week that they are considering voting for Barack Obama in November, while others announced tepid support for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

In all, three said they either would vote for Obama or are seriously considering it; three are undecided between McCain and Obama; three are backing McCain and three others declined to comment.

The “Austin 12” gained notoriety after meeting with Bush in Austin in April 2000, when Bush was still governor of Texas and a candidate for president.

During the meeting, the “Austin 12” urged Bush to appoint open gays to federal offices, include an openly gay speaker at the 2000 Republican National Convention and maintain President Clinton’s executive order banning discrimination against gays in the federal workforce. Bush complied with each of those requests during his presidency.

But Bush’s record, most notably his endorsement of the Federal Marriage Amendment, has soured some members of the “Austin 12” so much that they refuse to support the Republican Party’s presidential choice, even though McCain voted against the FMA in the U.S. Senate.

David Greer, who was appointed to Bush’s AIDS advisory board in 2003, left the Republican Party that same year and has been a registered Democrat since then. He said gay Republicans would never be a strong enough voice to influence the GOP and that the party is more interested in exploiting gay Republicans for political gain.

“As long as there’s a far right in the party, gay Republicans are way too small in numbers … to have any effect on the party,” he said. “We actually end up doing greater and lasting harm to the whole GLBT community.”

Greer resigned his position on Bush’s AIDS council after the president endorsed the marriage amendment. He now works as a speechwriter for the National Association of Realtors.

The former Bush adviser said supporting the Democratic Party is the best way to achieve gay equality, but he added that Democrats are “mediocre on our issues at best.” Greer said he would have voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton had she won the Democratic presidential primary, but he is not quite ready to embrace Sen. Barack Obama as a candidate.

Greer argued that McCain “doesn’t care a lot” about gay issues, and since the GOP candidate is having trouble mustering support from its conservative religious base, McCain will probably let the “far right” control his positions on those issues.

David Catania, an at-large City Council member for the District of Columbia, was similarly skeptical that McCain would change GOP policy on gay issues.

“I wouldn’t give supporting him a second thought,” he said. “The cards are on the table. I think gays are kind of kidding themselves if they think John McCain is going to be any better for the gay community than George Bush.”

Like Greer, Catania left the Republican Party in 2004 after Bush announced his support for the marriage amendment. He now identifies as an independent. Catania said he will vote for Obama in the general election.

Brian Bennett, head of the ABC Advocacy Group, a public affairs consultant company in California, argued that McCain is more hostile toward gays than Bush was in 2000. He compared Bush’s efforts at reaching out to the “Austin 12” in 2000 to McCain’s recent endorsement of a California ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.

Protectmarriage.com, the organization leading the campaign for the amendment, announced on June 25 that McCain sent an e-mail to the organization expressing support for the measure.

By endorsing the initiative, McCain is “alienating himself from the gay and lesbian population that he had a fairly decent reputation with,” Bennett said.

“I think he needlessly injected himself into this race to pander to the [James] Dobsons and others on the right,” Bennett said. “Is he going to take a position on the rest of our ballot initiatives? I don’t think so.”

Bennett is one of the plaintiffs in the case recently brought to the California Supreme Court known as Bennett v. Bowen, in which petitioners are arguing for the removal of the amendment from the November ballot. The high court is expected to make a decision on that case before Aug. 8.

Bennett still considers himself a Republican and voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, even though he disagrees with Bush’s support for the marriage amendment. But Bennett is undecided on how he will vote in the general election this year. He recommended that the Log Cabin Republicans not endorse McCain.

Daniel Stewart, head of the ...