Gay Republicans Draw the Line

In a stained-carpet hotel north of downtown, far from the yacht-lined bay front where the Republican National Convention is convening this week, Republican activist Frank Ricchiazzi wonders how much farther apart he and his party can possibly be.

On a Sunday when his fellow Republicans are sipping beer at a California beach party and celebrating the arrival in San Diego of GOP running mates Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, the 51-year-old Ricchiazzi questions whether Republicans like him are even wanted here.

Ricchiazzi, a Laguna Beach resident, is a gay Republican, an uncommon commodity at a national convention dominated by social conservatives.

On Sunday, he and about 200 members of the Log Cabin Republicans voted to give Dole and Kemp one week to decide whether they want the support of the party’s largest gay and lesbian group. Yes or no. No equivocation, no tolerance for intolerant political rhetoric, says Ricchiazzi.

“This is the week to shove it to [Dole and Kemp]; they cannot back off any more. It’s one way or the other,” Ricchiazzi shouted, jumping to his feet during the group’s debate over whether to endorse the GOP ticket.

Responding to a standing ovation, Ricchiazzi continued to condemn GOP platform language that would severely restrict gay rights: “We are the good Republicans and the faithful Republicans and we won’t tolerate this crap.”

Tough talk from the Italian American raised in Buffalo, N.Y., who has spent the last 17 years trying to be a faithful Republican.

He once ran for the state Assembly in Los Angeles County, was a member of the party’s central committee, and later founded the national Log Cabin political action committee, which has raised more than $600,000 for Republican candidates during the last 10 years.

Sporting a T-shirt from the 1992 GOP convention in Houston, when he was one of two gays seated as alternate delegates, Ricchiazzi said he believed the intolerance toward gays at that convention was as bad as it could get. He still shudders at the thought of Patrick J. Buchanan’s convention speech, which attacked the politics of Republicans who are less than conservative on social issues.

“That year, it was blatant,” Ricchiazzi said. “This year, it’s more subtle.”

And confusing.

Which Bob Dole and Jack Kemp will emerge by week’s end, he wondered. And what will their messages be?

Will it be the Bob Dole who “does not care if someone is gay or not,” Ricchiazzi asked. Or the equivocating Bob Dole whom Ricchiazzi believes capitulated to the religious right on abortion and other issues last week, when the party platform was written?

The Republican activist and Vietnam War veteran is equally skeptical of Kemp, who blasted Buchanan’s speech after the Houston convention but has, by the group’s standards, an anti-gay rights record.

“As a Republican, I see Kemp as a big boost to the ticket,” Ricchiazzi said hopefully. “However, Jack Kemp appears to want to have a ‘big tent,’ but we are not sure if it includes the gay community.”

There is one sign that gays and lesbians are faring better this year: Four will be seated at the convention as delegates and two as alternates. Ricchiazzi will not be among them because he chose to work behind the scenes as a Log Cabin Republican board member in an effort to win official recognition from Dole.

During Sunday’s meeting of the Log Cabin Republicans, many members argued for an immediate vote of “no endorsement” for the Dole-Kemp ticket, contending that Dole had already bypassed opportunities to seek their support. Dole’s campaign returned a $1,000 contribution by the Log Cabin Republicans early in the election season.

Notwithstanding his heated rhetoric, Ricchiazzi took the middle ground Sunday, seeking and winning a postponement of the endorsement vote.

From his years of political activism in conservative Orange County--where he still maintains his primary residence with his partner of eight years--Ricchiazzi is accustomed to working toward the middle. As an assistant director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, he understands the need to work within the system.

He wants to give his party leaders at least one more chance.

“I look around this room and I see a lot of appointees of governors [from across the nation] sitting in this room,” he said at the end of the Log Cabin Republicans’ meeting. “We are talking about [people] who have given over $600,000 during the last five election cycles.”

Sooner or later, he added, Republican leaders will value their contributions as party activists.

“We want a clear statement that says, ‘The Republican Party is the party of a large tent; we welcome all good Republicans, and Log Cabin is part of that,’ ” Ricchiazzi said. “If they can say that the Christian Coalition is part of it, then . . . they can include Log Cabin.”