The Gay Vote Is Hotly Pursued in Governor’s Race : Elections: Hard work in building political muscle is paying off for homosexual groups. A close contest makes their backing especially sought after.

Last month, the gubernatorial campaign of Sen. Pete Wilson issued an unprecedented invitation to two openly gay California Republican Party activists.

Would the pair travel to Washington to attend the White House signing ceremony for the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, the first federal law that equates sexual orientation with other protected categories such as race and religion?

“Can you imagine the excitement and the honor?” asked invitee Frank Ricchiazzi of Laguna Beach, executive director of the Log Cabin Political Action Committee.

Two weeks later, Democratic candidates Dianne Feinstein and John K. Van de Kamp stumped for votes and dollars at the annual dinner of the Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles, a gay political action committee that once had trouble getting candidates to accept its money--let alone attend its dinners.

With Gov. George Deukmejian not running and a close race in prospect, gay men and lesbians who could make a difference in this year’s election are being wooed as never before by candidates in both parties.

The biggest change is on the Republican side, where Wilson--ignoring barbs from his party’s right wing that he is “pro-homosexual”--has welcomed the largely gay Log Cabin clubs into the GOP with a number of symbolic and substantive gestures.

Wilson campaign director Otto Bos, for instance, holds strategy sessions regularly with gay Republican leaders. “They are excellent partisans and go to bat for the party and its candidates,” Bos said.

Although Ed Zschau made overtures to gays in his 1988 Senate race, Wilson is breaking new ground for a Republican gubernatorial candidate. He stands in marked contrast to fellow Republican Deukmejian, who has had frosty relations with gays.

And while gays have enjoyed a friendly reception in the Democratic Party for at least a decade, this year they are being courted more ardently than ever. For one thing, more gays are out of the closet--and acting as key fund raisers and workers--than ever before.

For another, the tight primary race this year has forced both candidates to pay attention to gays; in the last two gubernatorial elections, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was the heavy favorite and could take the support of many gays for granted.

In addition, this is the first state election in several years in which gays are not pinned down fighting repressive AIDS initiatives sponsored by extremist Lyndon Larouche or Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), freeing activists to contribute to and work for candidates.

“We’re moving to the front of the bus,” said David Bell, co-chair of The Alliance, a gay PAC in San Francisco.

Although it is debatable whether gays are winning broad acceptance among voters--gays lost five key referendums last November across the country, three of them in California--they continue to make inroads in city councils and state legislatures. Earlier this year, the cities of San Diego and Pittsburgh added protection based on sexual orientation to local human rights ordinances, as did Massachusetts last year.

Not debatable is the fact that, faced with the deadly AIDS epidemic, gays are better organized and financed than ever--and that politicians are taking notice. The national Human Rights Campaign Fund expects to pull in $3.5 million this year--up from $2.2 million last year, when it ranked as the nation’s eighth largest independent PAC.

Local gay PACs throughout California--in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Long Beach and the Inland Empire--along with the statewide Republican Log Cabin PAC, will bring in an additional $500,000 to $1 million.

“You really have to admire them. They have an excellent organization,” acknowledged Brett Barbre, special assistant to Dannemeyer, the gays’ most implacable foe in Congress.

“We are not on par with the insurance companies, but we are giving enough to have access,” said attorney John Duran, a board member of the Election Committee of the County of Orange.

“In a city council or state Assembly race, even 500 bucks lets the candidate know there’s a gay community around,” added Don E. Sloan, former co-chair of the Sacramento-based Lobby for Individual Freedom and Equality.

Thirteen years ago, when MECLA was founded as the first gay PAC, “some candidates refused to accept our money,” recalled attorney Diane Abbitt. “Others would only take it after the deadline for reporting.”

“Twenty years ago, what gay people expected from government were bar raids, police dogs and beatings in the alleys,” added insurance consultant Larry Sprenger. “Now, we are being courted by politicians and invited to the White House.”

Other gays are skeptical. “We may have influence but we don’t have real power,” said Steve Schulte, the former mayor of West Hollywood. “That won’t change until a lot more of us are in elected and appointed office.”

“The argument that ‘he or she is open to our community’ doesn’t wash with me anymore,” said Century City attorney Bill Weinberger. “It doesn’t tell me about the level of a candidate’s commitment and how they will perform once they are in office.”

Gay wish lists in the governor’s race include support for state equal rights legislation, increased funding for AIDS care and appointments of openly gay and lesbian judges and officials. A look at the three candidates and their records reveals key differences.

Among Democrats, Van de Kamp is the choice of most gay power brokers and political organizations. Van de Kamp campaign sources said the candidate hopes to take in $150,000 from gays during the primary race and, should he win, another $350,000 for the general election.

As attorney general, he helped further gays’ quest for equal job and housing rights and hired several openly gay lawyers. And gays are particularly grateful to Van de Kamp for authoring the 1988 state law that has permitted speedy testing of new AIDS drugs and vaccines in California, bypassing the sluggish U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Though lacking the support of gay organizations, Feinstein is backed by key gay leaders such as Schulte and MECLA co-chair Jackie Gelfand.

As a San Francisco supervisor, Feinstein authored the nation’s first equal rights ordinance for gays in 1972. As mayor, she worked with her gay appointees and community groups to help create the city’s compassionate, cost-effective AIDS care system.

But many gays have never forgiven Feinstein for her 1982 veto of a domestic partnership ordinance that would have extended city recognition to unmarried couples, gay or straight.

Van de Kamp and Feinstein both say they would boost state spending for AIDS care and have pledged to sign state legislation that would explicitly extend equal employment and housing rights to gays.

Wilson’s claim to gay support rests largely upon his AIDS record. He backs anti-discrimination legislation for people infected with HIV, helped persuade Ronald Reagan to establish his presidential commission on AIDS and has supported more funding to combat the epidemic.

But Wilson voted to put Robert Bork, widely viewed as hostile to privacy rights, on the U.S. Supreme Court and has refused to co-sponsor federal civil rights legislation that would extend protection based on sexual orientation.

Also, he won’t say whether he would sign similar state legislation as governor. Campaign director Bos said that, pending further research, Wilson believes that the current patchwork of state regulations, court decisions and attorney general opinions may be enough to combat discrimination--a view that is disputed by legal experts and most politically active gays.

Despite Wilson’s lack of open support, gay Republicans and their opponents within the GOP predict that Wilson would sign a state bill granting equal rights to gays, if it were passed by the Legislature.

Said Dannemeyer aide Barbre: “The conventional wisdom in Sacramento is that whoever is elected governor will sign an AB-1 type (equal rights) bill--and that there will be a repeal effort in 1992.”

Gay Republicans hope to win support for the legislation within the party by casting the issue in the free-market terminology Republicans understand.

“Our economy is most vibrant when the largest number of people can participate, free of legal or social constraint or discrimination,” said Marty Keller, chairman of the United Log Cabin Clubs of California.

When ideological arguments won’t work, Keller trots out electoral arithmetic: “About 40% of California gays are Republicans, and it is insane for the party to throw away their votes.”

But far-right elements in the GOP aren’t buying Log Cabin’s arguments. Indeed, led by Dannemeyer, they have repeatedly tried to exclude the organized gay clubs from the party but were stymied after Wilson and national GOP chair Lee Atwater intervened.

The battle within the party continues to simmer. The gay Republicans “give the Republican Party a black eye,” Barbre charged.

Gays return the insult. “It’s these right-wing wackos who are on the fringe,” Ricchiazzi said. “The religious right hates us because we destroy their stereotype of gays as left-wing, liberal Democrats.”

Certainly, whoever is elected will be friendlier to gays than Deukmejian, who vetoed the gay equal rights bill in 1984 and has repeatedly thwarted legislation to protect the HIV-infected from bias. Deukmejian also slashed millions of AIDS-care dollars from the Legislature’s budgets and supported Dannemeyer’s restrictive AIDS initiative, Proposition 102, which was defeated in 1988.

While the subject of homosexuality still stirs controversy, “generally speaking, a majority seems to be emerging that believes that what people do in their own private lives is not the government’s business,” said Wilson campaign director Bos.

Indeed, as early as 1978, California voters soundly defeated Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which would have permitted the firing of gay teachers. “Bible Belt issues command a core of support, but never, never a majority, in California,” said one top Republican strategist.

Pollster Richard Maullin said the level of public support for issues of concern to gays depends upon the individual issue and on how the question is framed.

“We also find fairly broad concurrence to a simple statement like: ‘nobody should be denied a job because they are gay,’ ” said Maullin, a principal in the Santa Monica firm of Fairbank, Bregman & Maullin. “But if you ask the more ticklish questions--should gays be allowed to adopt children--the broad support evaporates.”

Others suggest that the baby boomers who are coming to power are more liberal on social issues than their parents--witness the resurgent abortion-rights movement. “It is a generational shift,” said Eric Rofes, a board member of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

But the biggest reason cited for the candidates’ new openness is 20 years of hard work by gay men and lesbians. “We have picked and shoveled our way into the belly of the (Republican) party,” said Ricchiazzi.

Ironically, some of gays’ greatest gains have come in a decade in which AIDS has killed many gay leaders. While gays initially feared that the epidemic would have a chilling effect on their efforts to secure equal rights, the epidemic has taught people that gays are everywhere--and not terribly different than their neighbors.

Within gay communities, leaders say, people who were once on the sidelines have become politicized, and new leaders are emerging to replace those who have fallen.

“When members of a community are fighting for their lives, they are more likely to take a stand,” said Ron Smith, a Republican political consultant who managed Zschau’s senatorial race in 1988.

Consider Los Angeles real estate developer Randy Klose. He was roused to action in 1983 after reading AIDS activist Larry Kramer’s groundbreaking polemic, “1,112 and Counting,” in the New York Native.

Where were the gay millionaires, Kramer demanded, and why weren’t they giving their money to gay charities and political causes as the death toll mounted?

Said Klose, who is fund-raising chairman of the Human Rights Campaign Fund and has given the organization $350,000 of his own money: “I read the article and said to myself: ‘Here I am.’ ”