Washington Blade - December 31, 2004
Kevin Naff and Ken Sain

Presidential candidates debate gay issues

Gay issues, most notably marriage, played a role throughout the 2004 presidential campaign. In a discussion of homosexuality during an October presidential debate, President Bush and Senator John Kerry grappled over whether people are born gay or choose their sexual orientation, with each calling for compassion while opposing gay marriage.

Both said that gays should be free to live as they choose, but Bush reiterated his support for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which Kerry opposed. During the debate, Kerry referenced Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"[S]he would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as," Kerry said. "I think if you talk to anybody, it's not a choice."

Kerry's reference to Mary Cheney drew a sharp rebuke from her mother. Lynne Cheney, speaking to a cheering crowd at a rally in Pittsburgh, called the Kerry reference a "cheap and tawdry political trick" that left her to conclude he was "not a good man."

Just before the election, the president hinted in a television interview that he has no objection to states adopting civil unions, a rough equivalent to marriage that gay rights advocates have mostly opposed as amounting to second-class citizenship.

Outing campaign hits Capitol Hill

Mike Rogers, a D.C.-based gay activist, launched an outing campaign in 2004 targeting closeted members of Congress and their staff members he perceived to be anti-gay. He was joined in the effort by fellow activist John Aravosis.

Congressman Ed Schrock, a conservative Republican congressman from Hampton Roads, Va., quit his re-election bid in August over allegations that he is gay, which Rogers posted to his blog.

Schrock, a two-term congressman, cited unspecified allegations that "called into question my ability to represent the citizens of Virginia's Second Congressional District."

Rogers alleged on his site that Schrock is gay and had called into a local phone sex line. A graphic audiotape purportedly of Schrock calling a phone sex line was included on Rogers' site to download.

Schrock, who is married, has opposed gay civil rights, earning a "0" score on the Human Rights Campaign report card for the 2001-02 session of Congress.

Schrock wasn't the only target of the campaign. Jonathan Tolman, a senior aide for the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, chaired by conservative Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, was outed.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Republican Congressmen Mark Foley of Florida and David Dreier of California were also targeted in the campaign, which panicked many gay Hill workers and prompted some staffers to contact Capitol Police for help in ending Rogers' phone calls and e-mails.

None of the three members of Congress cited by the campaign would confirm whether or not they are gay, but neither would they confirm they are heterosexual.

Robinson becomes bishop

Early this year, V. Gene Robinson, who is gay, assumed the post of bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church after a contentious year of church infighting.

In an effort to prevent a schism in the Anglican Communion over Robinson's consecration, an international church commission released the Windsor Report in October urging apologies and reconciliation.

"There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart," states the Windsor Report, released by the Lambeth Commission of the Anglican Communion.

The report came after a yearlong discussion and review by 17 primates of the Anglican Communion. The U.S. Episcopal Church represents 2.4 million members of the Anglican Communion, which includes 77 million people worldwide.

The archbishop of Canterbury ordered the commission to meet and issue a report after church provinces throughout the world - particularly in Africa and Asia - objected to Robinson's consecration, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop who is also living in a committed relationship.

Ronald Reagan's death rekindles AIDS debate

As the nation mourned the death of former President Ronald Reagan in June, gay and AIDS activists revisited the debate over whether Reagan could have helped save the lives of many gays had he responded differently to the AIDS epidemic.

Reagan's death on June 5 at age 93 of Alzheimer's disease came on the 21st anniversary of the U.S. Center for Disease Control & Prevention's first published report of gay men contracting a rare form of pneumonia in Los Angeles - an illness that would later be named AIDS.

Gay critics - including AIDS activist Larry Kramer - recalled the early years of the epidemic, when friends and loved ones in New York and San Francisco started dying from Pneumocystis carini pneumonia and Kaposi's Sarcoma, conditions linked to a weakened immune system.

"There was no research into our health. Even as we were dying like flies," Kramer wrote in a column published by the Advocate. "How could he not have seen us dying? The answer is he did see us dying and he chose to do nothing."

Reagan's supporters called the criticism unfair, saying the Reagan administration sought to address a mysterious new disease as scientists and public health officials scrambled to learn how best to respond.

'Down-low' goes mainstream

The "down-low" phenomenon caught fire in 2004, following publication of a 16,000-word story in the New York Times Magazine and a visit to Oprah Winfrey's talk show by author J.L. King, who wrote a best-selling book about the subject of black men who have sex with other men, then return to relationships with women.

The much-hyped "down-low" craze was blamed for a spike in HIV rates among black women, a claim that was later challenged by some public health experts.

The notion that these "down-low" men are serving as a "bridge" for HIV from gay men to black women is largely based on media hyperbole and the anecdotal testimony of King, David Malebranche, an assistant professor at Emory University's School of Medicine, told the Blade late in the year.

Malebranche, who studies how race, gender and sexual orientation impact health disparities in America, said that media reports were leading black women to a place of fear and confusion with misleading information.

"What [King has] done is taken his life and made broad, general, sweeping generalizations, and people took it and ran with it," Malebranche said. "One good story sent the media into a frenzy.

"I think everybody is loving this bridge theory where the main predators are 'these evil homosexuals bringing HIV to the black community,'" Malebranche told the Blade. "It creates this whole predator and victim motif. It becomes problematic because there is really no substance to that because we have no reports on down-low brothers."

Cheryl Jacques: You're fired

Technically, Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Cheryl Jacques was not fired. She resigned. But, it was the HRC board of directors that asked for Jacques' resignation, reportedly due to differences over "management philosophies."

Jacques had replaced Elizabeth Birch in the first month of 2004. She was a state senator in Massachusetts and left that position just before a crucial vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. Before her HRC appointment, Jacques had vowed to lead opposition to the ban, which passed by five votes. Jacques' replacement has promised to oppose gay marriage.

Jacques' supporters point to the successful effort to stop the Federal Marriage Amendment in Congress as a major accomplishment during a difficult year for gay rights advocates.

The FMA was defeated in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. HRC had opened up a "war room" on the Hill to coordinate its lobbying efforts against the measure.

Jacques' critics claimed she was not well versed in the ways of Washington; that she had an arrogant and ineffectual management style that led to the resignation of many key staffers; and that HRC did not do enough to fight the 11 state constitutional amendments that ban gay marriage that voters approved on Election Day. Eight of those 11 also ban civil unions.

She was also criticized for being too partisan after failing to endorse long-time gay rights supporter Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in his re-election bid and in pushing the "George W. Bush: You're fired" campaign slogan.

Hilary Rosen, a well-known Hill lobbyist and partner of Birch, and Michael Berman, a straight Democratic political consultant, were named by the HRC board to run the organization on an interim basis until a new executive director can be found.

The search is scheduled to start in early 2005.

McGreevey resigns

On Aug. 13, Democratic New Jersey Governor James McGreevey shocked the nation by announcing that he is a "gay American."

McGreevey consulted with HRC officials before holding a news conference where his wife stood by his side as he told the world that he had had an affair with a man and that he intended to resign his office in November.

HRC later acknowledged that the "gay American" line had been previously tested by the organization with focus groups.

McGreevey had appointed the man media reports later claimed was McGreevey's male lover, Golan Cipel, to lead the state's homeland security office despite dubious qualifications for the post. The job paid more than $100,000 per year.

When officials realized Cipel was not qualified for that office, McGreevey then reportedly helped him get a job with a major campaign donor.

The father of two who had been married twice made clear that his resignation was due to the extramarital affair, not his newly revealed sexual orientation. And once he came out he became the highest-ranking U.S. politician to ever publicly acknowledge being gay.

"At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is," McGreevey said.

"And so, my truth is that I am a gay American."

Despite pressure by Republicans to resign earlier so voters could elect a new governor during the Nov. 2 election, McGreevey held firm to his Nov. 15 resignation date. Richard J. Codey, who was the president of the state senate, became governor once McGreevey's resignation took effect.

HIV rates among gay men on rise

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention announced on World Aids Day (Dec. 1) that HIV rates in men who have sex with men are on the increase once again.

The CDC reported an 11 percent increase in the number of gay or bisexual men testing positive for the virus that causes AIDS between 2000 and 2003. Gay and bisexual men comprised 44 percent of the 125,800 new diagnoses in the 32-state study.

Many gay activists worried that the increase showed that current HIV and AIDS medications have become so effective that many people are no longer protecting themselves.

But gay and bisexual men were not the only group that saw an increase.

During the course of the new study, 125,800 people were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the 32 states. More than half of the diagnoses were among African Americans, although they account for only 13 percent of the population in the 32 states, said Dr. Ronald O. Valdiserri, director of the CDC's HIV/AIDS prevention program.

In comparison, 32 percent of the new diagnoses were among whites and 15 percent were among Latinos, who represented 72 percent and 11 percent, respectively, of the population in these states, he said.

Lou Chibbaro Jr., Joe Crea, Ryan Lee and Dyana Bagby contributed to this report.

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