GOP Panel Backs O.C. Legislators’ Anti-Gay Stands

After three years of rejection, a coalition of conservative Orange County legislators succeeded Saturday in passing two anti-gay resolutions through a state Republican Party committee.

Former opponents of the measures, including a gay Republican organization, said a week of delicate negotiations before the state party’s semiannual convention led to a compromise that essentially made the resolutions meaningless.

But the authors, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), were claiming victory Saturday and predicting that the measures would be passed today at a meeting of all the delegates attending the convention.

“We now have an expression of the state party on the issue, and the state party speaks for all of us,” Dannemeyer said. “Anybody who wants to be a leader in our party should recognize that traditional family values have been encouraged and that’s the direction he or she should be going.”

Dannemeyer’s resolution would prohibit the granting of “special privileges” to individuals or groups based on sexual preference. It is aimed at ordinances prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals in areas such as employment, housing and education.

Ferguson’s resolution is intended to prevent the party from recognizing organizations based on sexual preference, such as the Log Cabin Club, a gay Republican organization.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and the Rev. Louis Sheldon, head of Orange County’s Traditional Values Coalition, also attended the committee meeting and supported the resolutions.

Under the negotiated agreement, Ferguson removed a specific reference to the Log Cabin Club from his resolution. As a result, Orange County’s Log Cabin President Frank Richiazzi said he does not believe the measure will affect his organization.

Dannemeyer agreed to remove graphic descriptions of sex acts that had been included in his measure. Richiazzi said he is not opposed to a ban on “special privileges” because gays only request that they be treated equally in the party.

“There is nobody in the gay community that is asking for special privileges,” Richiazzi said. “It’s meaningless now. This small little Bible-thumping group is in a fantasy world.”

Saturday’s vote came after more than a week of negotiations aimed at heading off the divisive battles the resolutions have sparked at past conventions between party conservatives and moderates.

The negotiations included state party Chairman Frank Visco, staff members from gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson’s campaign, the Orange County authors of the resolutions and the Log Cabin Club.

During the previous convention, “there were people who thought . . . things got out of hand,” said Otto Bos, campaign manager for Wilson. “We kind of worked to encourage them to talk to each other.”

After that convention, held last September in Anaheim, party leaders, including national GOP Chairman Lee Atwater, condemned the resolutions, saying they were in conflict with the party’s intention to be inclusive and reach out to minority groups.

Saturday, Visco said he now supports the resolutions. “The Republican Party is an all-inclusive party within the guidelines of practicality,” he said.

Visco said gays are welcome in the Republican Party but he does not believe a group organized on sexual preference should be a chartered Republican club.

Party leaders were also concerned that the resolutions might aggravate Wilson’s difficult relationship with the conservative wing of the party, since he has supported the Log Cabin Club.

Bos said he does not believe the resolutions will cause any problems because they were approved by all sides.

“We have a good feeling about what happened,” Bos said. “There are going to be differences from time to time, but we’re all Republicans.”

Dornan warned, however, that if Wilson criticizes the resolutions, “he will increase the percentage against him . . . and that’s something for the Democrats to feed off.”