Washington Blade - September 10, 2004
Adrian Brune, abrune@washblade.com.

The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force cited Bush's "across-the-board opposition to any form of legal equality for gay people" as its main reason for ranking Bush below all of his recent predecessors, including his father, President George H.W. Bush.

However, some gay historians and political experts disagreed with the Task Force's assessment and said the organization's claim was predicated on little more than election-year hyperbole.

"If calling this administration the most homophobic means some fence-sitting queers will participate in the election, then it's useful. But I don't expect NGLTF to do history; that's what we do," said Jonathan D. Katz, a professor of gay history at Yale University and the executive coordinator of the Larry Kramer Initiative on Lesbian & Gay Studies.

The late Ronald Reagan displayed far more contempt toward gay rights issues, some scholars said, faulting Reagan for inaction in fighting AIDS. Moreover, they contended that Reagan set in motion a chain of events that would provide social conservatives with an open door to the White House during the last decade of the 20th century, paving the way for Bush's domestic agenda.

"Reagan was the worst on gay issues, of course," Katz said. "In his administration, we see the template for the family values platform. And, when it came to AIDS, Reagan drew a distinction between the potentially infected and the community at large. It's a distinction that exists today, and I put the blame squarely on who started this."

Task Force officials said it was not some empirical survey, but the Republican leadership's strategy to put a more moderate face on its party motivated the informal designation by the group, which was founded during Richard Nixon's second term. The Task Force took into account a number of Bush's policies regarding gay rights and his relationship with social conservative activists.

"This administration has attacked equal rights for gay people and gay families on all fronts, including consciously using gay marriage as a wedge issue to divide the nation, win re-election, and fuel anti-gay organizing," said Matt Foreman, the executive director of the Task Force, who disagreed with Katz's opinion.

"Reagan cracked the door to allow in some influence from the radical and evangelical right. Bush threw it wide open."

No worse than Clinton?

Gay supporters of the president point to a number of openly gay appointments Bush has made, including former Romanian Ambassador Michael Guest. They also highlight Bush's stated commitment to fight global AIDS.

Bill Leap, a professor of gay studies at American University, argued that the Bush administration possibly proved no worse on gay rights than that of former President Bill Clinton, who promised an accretion of new laws favoring gays, but instead signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act and the military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

"In some ways to me, Clinton is worse than Bush because Clinton was dishonest. On the campaign trail, Clinton acted as if he was the gays' best friend, then he gave us [the Defense of Marriage Act] and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'" Leap said. "At least Bush is direct. When gay lobbyist groups go in to propose legislative change, they know they are standing at a position of zero."

Leap added that the brief and nascent history of gay civil rights attaches further difficulty to a clear ranking of American presidents on gay-rights issues, especially since few have had to address them on the same scale as Bush.

He equated positions on women's health and women's suffrage with those of gay rights, saying they indicated the direction in which a former commander-in-chief would have swayed if confronted with gay rights in the early 20th century.

Since the Stonewall riots in 1969, however, Leap agreed with Katz that Reagan, who died last June at the age of 93, was much worse on gay issues than Bush.

Though gay men began dying in droves of AIDS shortly after public health officials identified the disease, Reagan did not publicly address AIDS policies in a major speech until 1987 after 30,000 lives had been claimed by the disease.

Critics say Reagan and his handlers inflated the Republican Party ranks with strident, anti-gay conservatives who fueled hysteria about the epidemic, including former White House director of communications Patrick Buchanan, who once argued that AIDS consisted of "nature's revenge on gay men."

The historians said Reagan's conservatism still lingers in the halls of the Supreme Court, but his appointees have a mixed record. Antonin Scalia, and William Rehnquist, whom Reagan elevated to chief justice, are predictably hostile to gay rights.

But Sandra Day O'Connor has been a swing vote on gay rights as on other issues, and Anthony M. Kennedy authored sweeping gay rights victories in Romer vs. Evans and Lawrence vs. Texas.

In contrast, outside of his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment and abstinence-based sex education, Bush has had little opportunity to demonstrate his views on gay rights issues, Katz said.

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