Anti-Gay Group Lashes Out

In a clear sign that not all politics has taken on a restrained tone since the terrorist attacks, the conservative Family Research Council issued a blistering critique of the Bush administration last week, accusing the White House of giving an “implicit endorsement” to the “homosexual political agenda.”

The memo, written by Family Research Council President Ken Connor, detailed a “disturbing trend” in administration policy, evidenced most recently by a vote in Congress to lift the ban on domestic partner benefits for gay couples in Washington. “We lost this vote because 41 Republicans bolted to join 184 Democrats,” the memo says. “Doubtless some of these GOP defectors took a cue from the White House.”

Connor ticked off a list of offenses: letting openly gay Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), who led the effort to lift the domestic partner benefits ban, speak at the GOP convention; naming former Republican Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci, a “militant advocate of homosexual rights,” ambassador to Canada; picking “prominent gay activist” Scott H. Evertz to head the White House AIDS office; and putting activist Donald Cappoccia on the Commission on Fine Arts.

The memo also criticized Secretary of State Colin L. Powell for presiding over the swearing-in of “openly homosexual foreign service officer” Michael Guest to be ambassador to Romania and recognizing his “partner of six years,” Alex Nevarez, “who reportedly will live with the ambassador” in the official residence in Bucharest.

The memo blamed White House senior aide Mary Matalin (“a founder of the pro-homosexual Republican Unity Coalition”) for the lapses and claimed she “worked behind the scenes at the Republican National Convention to remove the strong pro-family planks from the GOP platform.” Matalin’s office declined to comment.

Gay rights activists blanched at the timing of the memo. “There is a time and place for these types of debates,” said Human Rights Campaign spokesman David Smith. “Now is not that time.”

Connor said his group felt compelled to speak in the wake of the domestic partner vote. “We waited, we waited, and we waited,” he said, “in the face of a whole pattern of activity demonstrating that people were using the cover of war as a vehicle to advance controversial issues.”