Because They Say So

THE BRYANT PARK GRILL quickly filled with hot air on Sunday, and it wasn't just because the air conditioning system couldn't accommodate several hundred perspiring Republicans on a muggy August day. The Log Cabin Republicans hosted a "Big Tent" event with Mayor Bloomberg, honoring so-called "inclusive" Republicans-from Arnold Schwarzenegger to George Pataki-on the eve of the Republican National Convention.

Why the former Democrat Bloomberg-who told the audience that he had happily "come out" of the closet as a Republican, to chuckles and applause-is considered so pro-gay is mystifying to some. But the reason is because he simply says he is, and the press does little to show otherwise.

This is a man who, after all, has vetoed the Equal Benefits Bill, which requires that city contractors give domestic partnership benefits to gay employees. When the city council overrode Bloomberg's veto, he threatened to take it to court. Bloomberg also recently vetoed an anti-bullying bill that would protect school students based on sexual orientation and gender identity; the city council is expected to override that veto too. Though Bloomberg has tried to make it appear that he supports the rights of gay couples, he has refused to offer a clear opinion on same-sex marriage. He's supporting George W. Bush for president, and brought the Republicans here for their convention in the middle of a hostile election campaign in which gays are cannon fodder.

Nonetheless, at the "Big Tent" event, Bloomberg once again talked about how pro-gay he believes he is. Log Cabin leader Patrick Guerriero thanked him for his alleged support and talked about how we have to keep the Republican Party "from being hijacked." It was a curious verb tense to use, because the last time anyone grounded in reality had checked, the hijacking took place long ago. The Christian right has worked for 30 years to take over the party and has reached its apex with an evangelical in the White House who is stripping away abortion rights and making laws against people who don't follow the sexual straight and narrow. Bloomberg and the rest of the alleged moderates are window dressing, faux faces of moderation helping to reelect George Bush at a convention whose theocratic platform-calling heterosexual marriage the foundation of civilization-was quietly hammered out by the delegates last week and put to bed.

As I stood there in the sweaty Bryant Park Grill, watching gay Republican delegates flash their Pepsodent smiles, I couldn't help but think about what Cardinal Egan might be doing down in the vaults of St. Patrick's Cathedral. While all of these pro-choice Catholic Republicans-who have prominent speaking slots at the convention-were cavorting in a park with known homosexuals, Egan was getting ready to lead the Republicans in prayer, giving the benediction one night during the convention. How curious, since Cardinal Egan has been caught red-handed letting known child molesters get off, something the RNC seems to have forgotten. But the mega-hypocrisy is this: Just last April, Egan, taking orders from the Vatican, told the New York Daily News that John Kerry might not be invited to the archdiocese's annual Alfred E. Smith Dinner in October because of his abortion stance. Now here we have Egan promoting a convention that is giving prominence to pro-choice Catholic Republicans, including Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani, who also were honored at the Big Tent event.

The order coming out of the Vatican back in April was that John Kerry was to be denied communion because of his stance on abortion and his support for gay rights. But Egan and the rest of gang that attacked Kerry-including the Catholic League's snarling pit bull William Donahue-don't seem to mind Gov. Pataki's running with a queer crowd at the convention. Pataki spoke at the Log Cabin event and positively glistened when Guerriero said that some people there "liked the sound of a President Pataki." If such fantasies even came close to reality, it would make Pataki a presidential candidate whose stated views on abortion and gay rights aren't much different than John Kerry's. Perhaps Catholic leaders realize that Pataki is a Republican who, like Bloomberg, has a reputation for being pro-gay even as he really does little to push gay rights. It took years for Pataki to force the hand of state senator Joe Bruno to make sure New York State passed a gay rights bill, after breaking several promises to do so. And maybe the Catholic leaders' larger agenda is to simply defeat Democrats. After all, a few nominally pro-choice and pro-gay Republicans aren't going to stop the right-wing juggernaut, and may even help make the party look tolerant, which is of course what the convention is all about.

Writing on the Washington Monthly's blog last week, Amy Sullivan pointed out how much Donohue rails against Kerry but stays silent about Republican Catholics who are pro-choice, while much of the media doesn't seem to notice.

"Look at the line-up for next week's Republican Convention. On three out of the four evenings, the primetime programming stars a high-profile Republican Catholic who also happens to be pro-choice," she notes. "Between Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Pataki, their states are responsible for 35 percent of the abortions performed in the U.S.? How many reporters do you think are going to ask Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki or Arnold Schwarzenegger if they should refrain from taking communion?"

The role the press has played in allowing the double standard has been reprehensible, as I wrote here last spring when reporters were going after Kerry regarding the Vatican's decrees but not questioning the pro-choice Catholic Republicans. Then there was the story a couple of weeks ago regarding George W. Bush's advisor on religious issues, Deal Hudson, who resigned after admitting that reports of a past sexual harassment complaint from an 18-year-old Fordham student were true, a story much of the media buried. Hudson, who was mapping out the Bush campaign's "Catholic strategy," had ranted against Bill Clinton for his infidelities, and has been a vocal proponent of the federal marriage amendment, even as he harbored his own secret of having sex with a student while he was married and out on a drunken binge.

The ongoing sexual hypocrisies of the Republicans are no great revelation. Nor is it a shock to anyone that Republican politicians like Bloomberg-the so-called moderates-aren't so pro-gay after all, or that their greater impact in the end is to help elect the party's right-wing Republicans. But just because it's nothing new doesn't mean the media should let them get away with the charades while holding Democrats to an entirely different standard. o