LOU CHIBBARO JR  Washington Blade
Friday, August 31, 2007

 

Gay Democratic activists in Florida appear to be backing a decision by the Florida Democratic Party to defy national party leaders and refuse to reverse a decision to choose national convention delegates at the state's presidential primary on Jan. 29.

By siding with their state party, Florida gay Democrats are at odds with most of the gay members of the Democratic National Committee and its Rules and Bylaws panel, which has threatened to strip Florida of all 240 of its delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

"The national party has to be serious about this," said Rick Stafford, chair of the DNC's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus. "If they are not, Michigan will jump in and other states will follow and we'll have chaos in the nominating process."

Stafford was echoing concerns by national party leaders that strict rules on the timing of primaries and caucuses were needed to retain a carefully crafted agreement reached by the DNC and all state parties, which allows Iowa and New Hampshire to continue holding the earliest contests.

If the DNC backs the Rules and Bylaws panel decision, among those likely to be barred from the convention are 25 or more gay delegates expected to be chosen in Florida under a party delegate selection plan aimed at reaching out to minorities, including gays.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Aug. 25 to ban the Florida delegate contingent from being seated at the Denver convention unless the state party separates its delegate selection process from the Jan. 29 primary and adopts another system for selecting delegates at a later date, such as a party convention or state-wide caucuses.

The committee gave the Florida party 30 days to come up with an alternate plan before the ban on its delegates would take effect.

Ron Mills, a member of the GLBT Caucus of the Florida Democratic Party, noted that the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature moved the state's primary date to January 29, and Democratic lawmakers didn't have the votes to challenge the proposal. He said holding caucuses at a later date, as the DNC wants the state party to do, would cost as much as $8 million and result in far fewer people turning out than they would for a primary.

Presidential nominating caucuses are usually held in a single meeting place in a congressional district, which often covers several counties.

Advocates of primaries note that they are held in the same voter polling places as general elections and are more accessible to voters, which encourages a larger turnout.

"We are not going to disenfranchise our voters in a caucus," Mills said. "We are a primary state."

Mills and Michael Albetta, president of the GLBT Caucus of the Florida Democratic Party, said they believe any DNC ban on Florida's delegates from the 2008 convention would be reversed soon after the Democratic Party's presidential nominee is identified in February or early March. At least a dozen presidential primaries and caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 5, known as "Super Tuesday." Most political observers expect one of the candidates to win enough delegates that day to secure the nomination.

Traditionally, the presidential nominee consolidates enough support within the party to take over the party apparatus and leadership before the national party convention in July or August. Mills and Albetta said they were certain that the nominee would not want to risk alienating Florida's Democratic voters by barring the Democratic delegates from the convention.

Gay DNC member Gary Shays of California, who is a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, told the Washington Post it would be unfair to other states if the DNC made an exception for Florida.

"Rules are rules," the Post quoted him as saying. "California abided by them and Florida should as well."

 

 

After Roll Call broke the story on Monday that Republican anti-gay Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho had pled guilty to misdemeanor lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport men's room, leading conservatives were quick to throw him overboard.

 

At townhall.com, Hugh Hewitt rejected Craig's denials and called for his immediate resignation. "I realize," Hewitt said, "that I did not say this about Senator [David] Vitter [R-La., who apologized in July for 'a very serious sin in my past' after his telephone number appeared on the client list of the so-called 'D.C. Madam'], but Craig's behavior is so reckless and repulsive that an immediate exit is required." On Tuesday morning, the group bloggers at National Review Online (NRO) were quick with the wisecracks. John Podhoretz said, "Couldn't Craig just have called an escort service? Oh ... wait ...." Jonah Goldberg made fun of Craig's spokesman for describing the men's room arrest as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and suggested alternate denials like, "This is all a terrible misunderstanding. The Senator is a bus station man."

 

Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, used the occasion as a teaching moment. After slamming Craig's hypocrisy, he said, "There is sad irony that a United States senator from Idaho has been caught up in the same kind of thing that destroyed the lives of dozens of men in Boise in the 1950s, so tragically chronicled in 'Boys of Boise.'"

 

What strikes me as I watch Craig's denials is the depth of his self-deception, which apparently goes back at least to 1982 when he served in the House of Representatives. That year, he proposed to the then-Suzanne Scott six months after he responded to a scandal by publicly denying having had sex with congressional pages. Craig's arrest in June of this year, just eight months after denying gay sex charges by Mike Rogers of blogactive.com, suggests a recklessness all too familiar in the closeted and powerful.

 

A classic consequence of self-repression is that one's underlying nature, being unchanged, inevitably bursts out in inappropriate ways. It is no surprise that Craig would resort to sleazy restroom sex, since he is unwilling to see homosexuality in a more favorable light. As Matt Foreman observes, this is pathetic. It reminds me of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who believes that if he prays hard enough, the Blue Fairy will make him into a real boy. Craig's own denials hint at the fairy-tale connection: twice during a contentious interview with the Idaho Statesman, he exclaimed, "Jiminy!"

 

Fate stepped in, as Jiminy Cricket would say, but not in the way Sen. Craig might have wished. On Aug. 27, the same day that Craig was definitively outed, another kind of conservative — prominent Washington pundit Andrew Sullivan — married his partner Aaron Tone in Provincetown. Here we have a nice juxtaposition: On one hand, a man who has consistently opposed any legal protections for gay citizens even as he engaged in furtive gay sex in restrooms. On the other hand, a self-affirming gay man who has advocated marriage equality for nearly two decades. The gods have a fine sense of irony.

We are witnessing a cultural shift: Henceforth, the Washington establishment will have in its midst a living exemplar of same-sex marriage, which just by refusing to hide will be a continual rebuke of the slander that only straight people are family. It is precisely because the public institution of marriage confers respectability and makes our relationships harder to dismiss that homophobes have sought so strenuously to cut gay couples out of the Constitution.

 

To be sure, cultural change does not automatically translate into victory at the polls. The latter, as Congressman Barney Frank likes to remind us, requires organizing and persuading and getting out the vote. There are still millions of Americans who would prefer that their gay children suppress their desires and choose an opposite-sex spouse. People in denial like Craig are surrounded by enablers. We may be at a turning point, but our struggle is far from over.

 

On another off note, this week's famous groom has made his share of enemies. But the attacks against him from left and right have been going on for years, and Andrew Sullivan is still standing. A quick search of the blogs this week turns up catty comments, salacious rumors, and entries like "Did you see the pic Aaron painted of Andrew's bottom?" I personally prefer the picture Andrew himself posted of the handsome, bearded Aaron asleep on a sofa with their two beagles.

 

The glare of the spotlight can be hard on any relationship, and even the most obscure of marriages can fail (though I happily note that the divorce rate is lower in Massachusetts than in the Bible Belt). Failure is a risk that we take whenever we set sail. Of course, Andrew would have to work overtime to catch up with the multiple marriages of various anti-gay politicians. All that really matters is that he and Aaron have taken the leap together.

A real marriage is not a Disney fantasy. We are not carried along by fate. We are responsible people capable of summoning forgiveness and generosity and humility to overcome our baser instincts. Like any worthy enterprise, a marriage takes devoted effort. So here's wishing Andrew and Aaron perseverance and grace to help them through the inevitable rough spots.

 

As for Larry Craig, whose career lies in ruins: Notwithstanding his contemptible coupling of squalid gay encounters with opposition to gay rights, he is more pitiful than anything else. In the end, the greatest victim of his lies is himself.

 

The person who was perhaps the most renowned HIV activist in Broward County passed away Friday August 17 , 2007 at Broward General Medical Center. Steinsmith, who turned 50 on March 15, entered the hospital earlier in the week and appeared to be recovering when he suffered a fatal embolism. The Victoria Park resident was a key personality and major philanthropist in the LGBT movement, lending his support to Congregation Etz Chaim ,past president Dolphin Democrats, and also serving as a founder of Center One, who would later name a lifetime achievement award in his honor. He also wrote a spirited column.

Diagnosed with HIV as early as 1982 when the disease was still called GRIDS (gay related immunity deficiency syndrome), Gary's funeral was held by his mother's side in a private ceremony in New York on Sunday morning.

 

As New Jersey marks the six-month anniversary of the civil unions law this Sunday, a new statewide Zogby Poll shows majorities of voters favoring          changing the law to full marriage equality for same-sex couples. The poll of 803 New Jersey voters was taken from August 8th through 10, 2007, with a margin of error of +/- 3.5%. Though Garden State Equality commissioned the poll, Zogby collected the data independently.

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