Attendance
Doubles at Gay GOP Event
Associated Press, May 12,
2003
SUMMARY: A gay GOP group is trying to get beyond the
flap over Sen. Rick Santorum’s remarks, yet that very controversy helped
double attendance at its annual convention.
WASHINGTON—A gay Republicans
group says it is trying to get beyond the flap over Sen. Rick Santorum’s
derogatory remarks about homosexual behavior, yet it is that very controversy
that helped double the attendance at its annual convention.
Comments by the conservative Republican from
Pennsylvania, the GOP takeover of the Senate last year and the upcoming
presidential race were the main topics that lured more than 200 people to the
Log Cabin Republicans’ annual convention, which ended here Saturday night.
That’s more than twice the attendance of last year’s meeting.
Santorum has been a center of attention since an April 7
interview with The Associated Press in which he brought up a pending Supreme
Court case over a Texas sodomy law and likened gay behavior to incest and
polygamy.
“It was a reminder to all that we had work to do,”
Patrick Guerriero, director of the group, said Saturday about the increased
attendance.
On Friday, about 200 gay members of the GOP met for more
than an hour with three White House officials at the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building—Joseph O’Neill, the White House AIDS czar, Brett Kavanaugh,
associate White House counsel, and Holly Kuzmich, associate director of the
White House domestic policy council.
Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, downplayed the
meeting, saying it was one of many policy meetings requested by groups looking
for ways to further the president’s initiatives. The group talked about
AIDS, education and judicial nominees for the federal bench, he said.
Guerriero said the Bush administration has invited gay
Republicans to discussions about AIDS, judicial nominations and other policy
issues. Still, the Log Cabin Republicans believe the White House could have
distanced itself further from the Santorum controversy.
“If we were completely satisfied that the Republican
Party was as inclusive as we wished, we would cease to exist,” Guerriero
said. “It’s obvious that the issue of inclusiveness in the Republican
Party is going to be a major issue.”
An estimated 1 million gay and lesbian Americans voted
for President Bush in 2000, he said. The gay Republicans attending the annual
convention, complete with get-out-the-vote workshops and congressional
briefings, are convinced that gays and lesbians, if they don’t vote for
Bush, could be partly responsible for “losing the White House,” he said.
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