Primary Offers Chance to End Dannemeyer’s Career

It’s never too early to get jazzed up about politics, especially when the prospect looms of ending the career of such an antisocial officeholder as William E. Dannemeyer.

That’s the enticing possibility that the June, 1992, Republican primary offers, now that Dannemeyer, the six-term U.S. congressman from Fullerton, is out to get the U.S. Senate nomination away from John Seymour.

Logic dictates that Seymour (or perhaps some as-yet unannounced other candidate) will win the nomination and Dannemeyer can retire to a position of president emeritus of some “traditional values” coalition that will save the rest of us from ourselves.

At this stage, the only peril for Seymour, the newly appointed senator, would seem to be that just by showing up at the same debate with Dannemeyer, he may come across as having the politics of Karl Marx.

I would love to cut Dannemeyer some slack. The only time I ever interviewed him, I enjoyed his forthrightness and his rugged amiability. I can also respect the steadfastness of his conservative politics. There are no trick mirrors and trapdoors with Dannemeyer--what you see is what you get.

All of which would be fine, except for his unrelenting anti-homosexual agenda. It is on that basis that, to my mind, he should be invalidated as a public servant.

Dannemeyer’s views on gays surfaced again last week at the state GOP convention, during which he pressed the party to dedicate itself to the “heterosexual ethic.” Even as a card-carrying heterosexual, I find that rankly offensive.

It’s too bad that Dannemeyer’s anti-gay agenda gets caught up in liberal-conservative delineations. It has nothing to do with politics; it has to do with his view of his fellow man and his apparent willingness to virtually dehumanize any homosexual.

No one with that view of humanity should be charged with the public trust.

Frank Ricchiazzi, an activist for a group of moderate-to-conservative gay Republicans called the Log Cabin Club, isn’t worried about the prospect of Dannemeyer getting elected. But he knows the dire consequences for gays in the Republican Party if he does.

“If you’ve got people like (Gov. Pete) Wilson and Seymour, the average Joe will listen to them. And when Seymour and Wilson say, ‘Gays are like everyone else; all they want is equality,’ the average person says, ‘Maybe they’re right. We don’t need to be afraid.’ But the Dannemeyers and the Lou Sheldons (Sheldon heads another group that condemns homosexuality)--they try to instill fear in people. That’s why we need the Wilsons and the Seymours and the Bushes, who say, ‘Hey, there’s nothing to worry about.’ ”

Ricchiazzi, a Laguna Beach resident who serves as executive director of the Log Cabin’s statewide political action committee, says the group hopes to raise $100,000 for GOP candidates and causes in the 1992 races.

For now, gay Republicans will have to settle for state party leadership that supports gay rights in such fundamental areas as housing and employment.

Other fundamental rights, such as spousal rights, will have to wait for another day. The five Log Cabin clubs in California can live with that, partly because they are not a single-issue group. That is, the club has a political agenda not limited to gay causes.

But, of course, they also understand politics. The GOP isn’t ready to publicly lobby to confer on gay spouses the same rights that heterosexual partners get as a matter of course.

“I’d love to have a slate roof on my house,” Ricchiazzi said. “But you’ve got to have the foundation first, and then you’ve got to put up the walls.”

For that reason, the club is banking first on passage of AB 101, which would prohibit employers from firing persons because of sexual orientation.

“When we all have the right of employment and not have the fear that you’re going to be fired, when you have food on the table you can eat, then you can start looking at other areas that you can deal with,” Ricchiazzi said. “But if you don’t have food on the table and you can’t eat, then you don’t have the energy for anything else. Once you don’t have to be afraid of losing your job, then you can look at other areas and say, ‘Where is it still unequal?’ . . . And you’ve got to do it step-by-step.”

Governing bodies will someday come to grips with gay marriages. They will have to ask how they can square their professed belief that gay marriages are formed out of the same love and commitment as heterosexual marriages and yet not support basic spousal rights.

For example, a gay person can now live with a partner for 25 or 30 or 50 years and not be assured of being given custody of the body in the event of the partner’s death.

But first things first.

First, the homophobic elements must be politically removed so the earnest dialogue can begin.

Bill Dannemeyer would never win a statewide race, so there’s no danger of his being elected a California senator. The only question is whether Republicans will save the rest of us the task by denying him in next year’s primary.

Come ‘92, it’ll be time to vote Bill Dannemeyer back to the Stone Age.