Gay GOP Club Bucks Prejudice in Bid to Join County’s Political Mainstream

Alex Wentzel spoke softly but with a trace of anger as he recounted a story from the first meeting of the Log Cabin Club of Orange County, the county’s first organization for gay Republicans.

A supervisor’s aide had attended the December reception at Wentzel’s Laguna Beach home. Later, when she told her co-workers where she had been, some were shocked. “Weren’t you afraid of getting AIDS?” they had asked.

Because of incidents like that, Wentzel, the president of the fledgling club, said its mission involves more than endorsing candidates and registering voters. Part of its job, he said, is to work within the Republican Party, educating party members and trying to eliminate prejudice against gays.

After all, the retired interior decorator said, “I’m not going to embarrass (other Republicans). I’m really just like them in every sense of the word.”

As Wentzel described the club, he and its 66 members are the image of Republicans. A mix of doctors, lawyers and businessmen, they are fiscal conservatives, favoring a balanced budget, a strong defense and individual freedoms, the basic Republican ideals. Just one trait separates them from the mainstream of the Republican party: they are gay.

And in Orange County, where some Republican legislators have made a career out of denouncing homosexuals, the Log Cabin Club’s sexual preference could be a major barrier to its acceptance.

In Los Angeles, the 8-year-old Log Cabin Club of Los Angeles County is thriving with 400 members. It has been officially chartered by its county central committee for several years. But the Orange County chapter is not yet officially recognized by the Republican Central Committee of Orange County.

And some local party leaders last week said they hope it never will be. For instance, Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) said he doesn’t want another special interest to fragment the party--particularly not one that encourages homosexuality. “Personally, I consider it (homosexuality) to be basically an illness,” Lewis said.

Another foe is Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton). “God made Adam and Eve--not Adam and Steve,” he said again and again during his recent unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate, as he denounced the homosexual life style.

Gays had the right to organize a Republican club, Dannemeyer said Friday. But he said he would oppose any effort to sanction them as an official county Republican organization.

County party Chairman Thomas F. Fuentes gave the group a cool reception when Wentzel visited him last fall to announce its formation. Fuentes said he has “no official liaison” with the group at the moment and he has so far declined Wentzel’s invitations to hear guest speakers at the club’s cocktail parties.

Like Lewis, Fuentes said he is not eager to charter another minority organization. The local county party already has chartered clubs for blacks, Arab-Americans, Vietnamese and others. Besides, Fuentes said, “I don’t think sexual preference has ever been a particular matter of interest or concern for political membership in Republican clubs. It has just not been an issue.”

Still, Fuentes left the door open for the Log Cabin Club to participate some day. “If they are to have a role in the party, one earns that by walking precincts and regular Republican contributions to the financial success of the party.

Earning Wampum

“I said to them (last fall), that is the proper role by which an organization earns its wampum in the party councils. Until you do that, you can have all the cocktail parties you want but you’re not much of a viable entity” in the party, Fuentes said.

Orange County’s Log Cabin Club is the third and newest such club in the state. Besides the powerful organization in Los Angeles, there is a Log Cabin Club in San Diego that is not yet chartered by the San Diego County Republican Party.

The name Log Cabin is said to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s origins and his strong stance for individual rights. The club originally was called the Lincoln Club, but since the Republican Party already had an elite fund-raising group by that name, the gay Republicans were asked to change their club’s name.

Wentzel vows his group will bring in as many as 1,000 votes for candidates of their choice by the November election. But Wentzel, 59, and a Republican for 37 years, also admits his practical political experience is limited. Mostly it consists of “behind-the-scenes phone work” for some congressional campaigns in Dallas several years ago, he said.

Before Wentzel and several friends organized the club, he lived a quiet life with Dick Alexander, his partner of 26 years. He played bridge, did volunteer work at the Laguna Beach animal shelter and didn’t get particularly involved in local politics until this fall.

Outraged at Remarks

Two factors led him to action, Wentzel said: a movie about Harvey Milk, the gay supervisor from San Francisco who was murdered, and repeated news reports of Dannemeyer calling homosexuality a sin.

Outraged by Dannemeyer’s remarks, Wentzel first wrote a letter to Fuentes saying he no longer wanted to contribute to the county Republican Party. Then he and several friends organized the Log Cabin Club in hope of “bringing a balance to the Republican Party of Orange County. We want people to know that the Republican Party is not made up of bigots.”

For all his optimism, Wentzel admitted to some nervousness about running this new club. He has never run a political organization before and “I’m not sure I know what the president of an organization is supposed to do,” he said.

Still, he has been getting advice and support from Log Cabin leaders in Los Angeles. Not only has that group been chartered by the Los Angeles County Republican Party, its political action committee in 1984 raised $70,000 for candidates of their choice, and its delegates have affected decisions at California Republican Party conventions.

Frank Ricchiazzi, a founder of the Los Angeles club and its political action chairman, predicted that in two to three years Orange County’s Log Cabin Club could achieve the clout of the Los Angeles club. Certainly, he said, it should “surpass Los Angeles County in the largest number of members. . . . You really have good sources of high-quality professionals--gay Republicans who will really get things going in Orange County,” he said.

Plans Endorsements

Meanwhile, Wentzel and his members are just beginning to figure out what they should do. Saturday night, they held a dinner meeting in Huntington Beach with Niels Merton, publisher of the gay newspaper, The Advocate, as guest speaker. Wentzel plans to endorse candidates later this year and to hold a voter registration drive this spring.

It is all a learning experience, he said recently. But he was confident that, with the club’s drive and its low-key style, eventually the Republican hierarchy in Orange County would yield and welcome his club in.

For now, “I’m treading softly,” Wentzel had said one night in January when he had attended a meeting of the Republican Central Committee and sat, unrecognized, in the last row. “I’ll get my message across eventually.”