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In this issue:
-NY Times Articles
Two articles from today's NY Times.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 - It was a first for gay Republicans. Last week's inaugural events included a breakfast honoring the Republican Unity Coalition, a new political group that includes gay members of the party. The master of ceremonies at Friday's celebration was a respected Republican elder, former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a close friend of both the Bush and Cheney families. In his opening remarks, Mr. Simpson noted, "Not one of us doesn't have someone close to us who is gay or lesbian." Then he invoked Mary Cheney, the daughter of the vice president, who attended the inauguration with her partner. Mr. Simpson said that after Ms. Cheney said she was a lesbian, her father, Dick Cheney, "protected and loved her as his very special, special daughter." But Ms. Cheney did not attend the breakfast. Nor did any top Bush campaign or administration officials. Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona, the one openly gay Republican member of Congress, was there. Mr. Kolbe, though, declined to speak, only waving to the crowd. In August, Mr. Kolbe had addressed the Republican convention in Philadelphia - another first for an openly gay man or woman. His speech was about international trade, not gay issues, but members of the Texas delegation protested by bowing their heads in prayer. The breakfast illustrated both the promise and tensions in the relationship between the Republican Party and gay voters. While some gay Republicans emphasize the inclusive language of George W. Bush and hope his administration will include gays (two openly gay Republicans served on Bush transition teams), other equal-rights advocates are already bitterly denouncing the new administration for early moves they view as alarming, especially the attorney general nomination of John Ashcroft, who has said he views homosexuality as a sin. "I get all kinds of e-mails telling me I'm working with the Nazis," said Kevin Ivers, a member of another gay group, Log Cabin Republicans, who attended the inauguration breakfast. "But we're optimistic that President Bush will keep a dialogue going with the community." At this juncture in their fight to be accepted in their party, many gay Republicans have accepted a civilian variation of the military policy of "don't ask, don't tell" that accepts them in the name of inclusion, but prefers to put aside that they are gay and leaves unclear whether policies, especially civil rights enforcement and military codes, may change from the Clinton era. At the luncheon, Mr. Simpson promised a sexuality-blind approach, saying that "one fine day sexual orientation will be a nonissue in the Republican Party." For some gay Democrats, however, the Republican goal of proclaiming that homosexuality does not matter raises the possibility of a rollback, not a step forward. "The best I can hope for is that President Bush will do nothing," said David B. Mixner, a Democrat and Los Angeles gay-rights advocate. With Bill Clinton, Mr. Mixner said, gays had a champion who broke new ground bringing gays into political life. He was the first to appoint openly gay and lesbian officials to his administration, naming more than 150 in his eight years in office. He issued executive orders, which are still enforced, explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in federal hiring practices and in granting government security clearances. It is a legacy that the new administration has neither praised nor condemned. President Bush, who did not appoint any openly gay people to top state jobs as governor of Texas, has yet to decide whether he will review the orders protecting gay rights, Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said, adding that Mr. Bush will not consider sexual orientation when choosing members of his administration. "Every person in his administration will be treated with dignity and respect," Mr. McClellan said. "President Bush is reaching out to people of all walks of life who believe in common goals." The nomination of Mr. Ashcroft, who, among other things, opposed the appointment of James C. Hormel, a gay businessman, to serve as ambassador to Luxembourg, has ignited sharp opposition from gay organizations. A report in The Washington Post today that as governor of Missouri Mr. Ashcroft asked a job candidate about his sexual orientation has also prompted criticism. Some lawyers and advocates of civil rights for gays have also criticized Gale A. Norton, the interior secretary designate, for the way her office handled a case while she was Colorado attorney general. The case involved a challenge to a state constitutional amendment, approved by voters. That amendment tried to throw out state and local laws forbidding discrimination against gays. Ms. Norton's office defended the constitutionality of the amendment, which was struck down by the United States Supreme Court. But Mr. Bush avoided another showdown with gay advocates by deciding against appointing Daniel R. Coats as secretary of defense. Mr. Coats, the former Republican senator from Indiana, wanted to ban gays from serving openly in the military and do away with the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The Bush administration did not want to sacrifice its first year in office fighting the same battle over equal rights for gays in the military that crippled Mr. Clinton, a Republican official said. "We don't expect the Bush administration to open the military with a policy of nondiscrimination, but we hope the door remains open and that Secretary Rumsfeld is committed to uphold the law as it was intended in 1993," said Dixon Osburn, executive director of Service Members Legal Defense Network, a nonpartisan gay group. Michael E. Colby, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, said that while he welcomed the inauguration breakfast and the formation of a new gay Republican group, he was afraid it was window dressing. "I hope they really are advocates and do not continue to kowtow to a Bush administration that hasn't included gays and lesbians and hasn't answered any of the tough questions," Mr. Colby said. But in November, gay men and lesbians inched closer to the Republican Party, giving Mr. Bush a quarter of their votes, more than any previous Republican presidential candidate, and helping the party hold on to Congress with 35 percent of their vote in Congressional elections, according to exit polls by Voter News Service. "Politics is a game of addition, not subtraction," said Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, the keynote speaker at the breakfast, who headed the Republicans' Congressional election campaign and actively sought the gay urban vote, inviting gay Republicans to his monthly strategy sessions. "In the close presidential election," said Richard Tafel, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, "every vote counts and our votes mattered." During the campaign, Mr. Bush refused to meet with gay Republicans until he was assured the nomination. Then he bypassed the better- established Log Cabin group and spoke instead to an ad hoc group of gay Republicans assembled by Charles Francis, a family friend from Texas who also organized the inaugural breakfast for gays. The ad hoc meeting fitted Mr. Bush's preference to view gays as fellow Republicans and not an interest group. "George W. Bush walked out of our meeting and declared that he judges people by their heart and their character, one at a time," Mr. Francis said. "He said sexual preference won't matter for his appointments - we nailed that down." In an interview with The New York Times shortly before he took office, Mr. Bush said, "I believe that someone's sexual orientation is their private business." Even if Mr. Bush knew the sexual orientation of a job applicant, he said he would judge the person "upon whether or not the person could do the job" and whether the person shared a philosophy with him that was relevant "to the particular job that they were seeking." During the presidential debates, Mr. Bush said he opposed gay marriages, saying "I think marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman." In the vice-presidential debate, Mr. Cheney took a different stance, saying that "people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into," and that it was up to the states to decide whether to legalize gay marriages. And though he was criticized by conservatives for those remarks, Mr. Cheney included the partner of his daughter Mary at his swearing-in as vice president last week, giving her a seat among family members. As governor of Texas, Mr. Bush opposed gay marriages and gay adoptions and refused to back an effort to get rid of an old anti- sodomy law that made homosexual acts a crime. He also let die legislation to impose special penalities on hate crimes against gays and racial minorities. While social conservatives argue that civil rights for gay people amount to special treatment, the Wall Street wing of the party has already begun instituting equal rights and benefits for gays in the private sector. Few Republicans better exemplify that change than Mary Cheney. Until last year, she was a corporate-relations manager for the Coors Brewing Company whose duties included convincing gay men and lesbians that Coors was not anti-gay and was offering its gay employees many of the benefits other corporations give them. She was an aide to her father in the campaign and now plans to attend business school in Colorado.
Coors sponsored last week's inaugural breakfast celebrating Republican
gay men and lesbians, along with Microsoft, Verizon and Pfizer.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 - A prominent gay philanthropist who is the former American ambassador to Luxembourg, James C. Hormel, said today that Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft misled the Senate Judiciary Committee last week about his involvement in an effort to block Mr. Hormel's ambassadorial appointment. Mr. Hormel said he had concluded that Mr. Ashcroft had opposed him because he is openly gay, even though Mr. Ashcroft testified last week that Mr. Hormel's sexual orientation was not the reason for his opposition. At the hearing Mr. Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, said Mr. Hormel was unsuitable for the job based on the "totality of the record." Republicans quickly mobilized to respond to the criticism from Mr. Hormel and leading gay rights advocates. In a statement to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, Mr. Ashcroft said, "I will vigorously enforce the nondiscrimination policies of the Department of Justice which protect gay employees." The statement, issued on Mr. Ashcroft's behalf, said, "I have hired gay people to work for me throughout my career and I welcome qualified individuals to work at the Justice Department regardless of their sexual orientation." Mindy Tucker, a spokesman for Mr. Ashcroft, said he had testified truthfully about his misgivings about Mr. Hormel. The Bush transition office also released a letter to Mr. Ashcroft written by Senator Tim Hutchinson, Republican of Arkansas. Mr. Hutchinson said that while Mr. Ashcroft voted against Mr. Hormel's nomination in committee, he did not place a hold on the appointment, which denied Mr. Hormel a full Senate vote. Mr. Hormel's criticism came on a day in which a Georgetown University professor, Paul Offner, said at a news conference that Mr. Ashcroft had asked him about his sexual orientation at the start of a job interview in 1985. Mr. Offner recalled that Mr. Ashcroft said, " `Do you have the same sexual preferences as most men?' I said that I did." The account by Mr. Offner, a former Democratic state senator in Wisconsin and aide to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Democratic senator from New York, appeared to be at odds with Mr. Ashcroft's statements in the confirmation hearings. Mr. Ashcroft testified that as governor and attorney general of Missouri, he never discriminated against anyone based on sexual preference and that he would follow the same practice at the Justice Department. Mr. Ashcroft disputed Mr. Offner's account. "Sexual orientation was not raised as a factor in the interview with Mr. Offner or any other job applicants I've interviewed," he said in remarks released by the Log Cabin Republicans. At the same time, President Bush's transition office released a statement attributed to Carl Koupal, who was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's gubernatorial transition team in 1985. "I attended the meeting between Governor John Ashcroft and Paul Offner," the statement said. "Governor Ashcroft did not ask Paul Offner any questions with regard to his sexual preference." But Mr. Offner, a health policy expert who is a professor of public policy at Georgetown, said he recalled the question even after more than 15 years because of what he said was Mr. Ashcroft's phrasing, which Mr. Offner recalled as "odd." Mr. Offner said Mr. Ashcroft also asked in the interview whether he had "used an illegal controlled substance." Mr. Offner said he had not. Mr. Offner, who did not get the appointment to head Missouri's social services department, said Mr. Ashcroft told him at the end of the interview that as governor he would have difficulty explaining Mr. Offner's hiring to his supporters. Mr. Offner said he believed the remark referred to his party affiliation as a Democrat. Mr. Offner's account was first reported by The Washington Post. The effort to undermine Mr. Ashcroft's Senate testimony on gay rights issues coincided with a renewed effort by liberal groups to defeat Mr. Ashcroft's nomination. Some organizations are shifting their focus away from his conservative record to the issue of his credibility. Ms. Tucker said the latest criticism represented a final effort by Mr. Ashcroft's opponents to thwart his nomination. "They wanted to go after his record," she said, "and he went before the committee and had an opportunity to set the facts straight." The criticism of Mr. Ashcroft appeared to be aimed at what some lawmakers said was a large bloc of undecided Democratic senators who have said they are reluctant to vote against Mr. Ashcroft based on ideology alone. Ralph G. Neas, head of People for the American Way, one of the largest groups in the campaign to defeat the nomination, said Mr. Ashcroft had misrepresented facts about Mr. Hormel and several other matters. "That is an integrity issue and a fairness issue that goes to his character," Mr. Neas said, "and this is a big deal for a significant number of senators, and for some it will be decisive." Mr. Hormel was the subject of numerous questions in the hearings. At one point, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, asked Mr. Ashcroft whether he had blocked Mr. Hormel because he is gay. "I did not," Mr. Ashcroft replied. Mr. Ashcroft was a vocal critic in the Senate of Mr. Hormel's appointment, and he voted against him when the nomination was considered by the Foreign Relations Committee. The panel's vote was 16 to 2, with Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, joining Mr. Ashcroft. Mr. Hormel said today that he wrote to Mr. Ashcroft after the panel's vote requesting a meeting, but received no answer. Mr. Hormel said he also telephoned several times. "He never called back, and never gave me the courtesy of a meeting to address his possible concerns," Mr. Hormel said. In June 1999, President Bill Clinton named Mr. Hormel to the Luxembourg post, sidestepping the Senate by using his authority to make appointments during a Congressional recess. Mr. Hormel's appointment expired last month, when the last Congress went out of session. Today, Mr. Hormel, a descendant of the Hormel meatpacking family and a former associate dean of the University of Chicago law school, said he took particular issue with Mr. Ashcroft's statement in his testimony that he had known Mr. Hormel for a long time, having been "recruited" to the Chicago law school by him. Mr. Hormel said that "recruited" was a term that he believed was deliberately chosen by Mr. Ashcroft. "I think that comment is odd in two ways," he said. "First, no one needed to be `recruited' to Chicago, but more importantly, `recruited' is a loaded word to describe what some opponents of homosexuals describe falsely as the way young men are enticed into" homosexual behavior.
Mr. Hormel said that as the dean of admissions at the law school, he made
several dozen trips to colleges to promote the law school. He said he had
no recollection of meeting Mr. Ashcroft at any of those trips.
--- Digital Artistry deusex@earthlink.net wrote:
--- ndk1438@yahoo.com wrote from New Zealand:
--- Digital Artistry deusex@earthlink.netwrote:
--- ndk1438@yahoo.com wrote back from New Zealand: Thanks Ben for the Australia Day wishes. Australia has come a long way on the world stage from jsut a prison island 200 years ago. Australia Day this year is part of our Centenary of Federation celebrations. We were merely a collection of independent states before then. To many Australians, Anzac Day is a day of greater significance, due to its deep impact upon our psyche when we were a young nation. Many oindigenous people refer to Australia Day as Invasion Day, the day the British invaded Australia. However, evidence abounds that maybe the Dutch found us over one hundred years earlier. We have long held a cultural cringe about our place in the world, but that is slowly disappearing. For years we terrorised the Poms with the spirit of Bazza McKenzie, the ultimate expat who travelled to England and guzzled Fosters and chased shielas. His creator Barry Humphries also brought Dame Edna to life. She was originally Barry's Auntie Edna,a simple housewife. Come to think of it we still terrorise the English with our relentless occupation of Earls Court, known to us as Kangaroo Valley. We are now quite confident of our place in the world. Our drive to secure peace in East Timor was at great risk to us in our relationships with our neighbours. (Admittedly we should have acted earlier). Our Australian of the year 2001 is Major General Peter Cosgrove, the leader of our INTERFET troops. Many Australians play on the world stage from sport to music, media to politics. You only have to hear the names Rupert Murdoch (although technically now a US citizen), Richard Butler at the UN, Pat Rafter, Mark Viduka in tennis and soccer, and musicians as diverse as David Helfgott, the Newsboys,and Savage Garden. And don't forget the Australian impact in Hollywood, Mel Gibson, Bruce Beresford, Peter Weir, Cate Blanchett, Frances O'Connor and so on. Strictly speaking, Russell Crowe and Sam Neill are Kiwis. We have always been keen to prove ourselves to the world, and last year we took the oppportunity to do so with the Sydney Olympics. I think we did okay with that one, don't you? The discussion about the quintessential Australian has been a tough one. We like to think of us as sun bronzed with a link to the bush that flows in our veins. But surveys reveal more of us live in cities than the bush and we are increasingly less and less Anglo Saxon in our origins. Even our language is not exactly the Queen's English. And the monarchy is always going to be a divisive issue amongst us all. Anyway mate, Australians are a widely travelled bunch and we can be found anywhere, including home.
Cheers mate,
Headline:
Text: Cheney became the focus of fierce criticism from conservative quarters for making generally supportive comments about gay marriage in his campaign debate with Democratic vice presidential rival, Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Asked whether gay men and women should have all the constitutional rights enjoyed by other citizens, Cheney said that "people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into" and that the issue of gay marriages should be decided by the states, as was the case recently in Vermont. In introducing his repeal measure with almost humorous understatement, Rep. Frank said he agreed with Secretary Cheney's comments on gay marriage. "Unfortunately," he said, "the law misnamed the Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress adopted in 1996 and President Clinton signed into law, contradicts Vice President Cheney's position on this issue..." "I welcome Vice President Cheneys recognition that the appropriate policy is for the states to decide for themselves whether or not to give official sanction to same sex unions," Frank said.
"I have therefore filed legislation to repeal the
section of the Defense of Marriage Act which
contradicts Vice President Cheneys position. I
will be looking for other areas of agreement
between myself and high-ranking members of
the Bush administration on which we can work
together."
End of silverfoxesclub-digest V1 #120
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