Like a parade of other politicians who came to the Sheraton Boston to fire up the troops, Wisconsin house member Tammy Baldwin, the only openly gay woman in Congress, addressed what is known as the GLBT Caucus at the Democratic National Convention.
'Our nominee for president is the most pro-gay nominee for president in U.S. history,' Baldwin said to the enthusiastic gay, lesbian and transgendered delegates. Later that day, Teresa Heinz Kerry would tell them that she would be their 'mom' in the White House.
Baldwin and Mrs. Kerry were of a different mind about John Kerry than the couple of dozen gay protestors who stood outside the Avalon nightclub on the first night of the convention, protesting a fundraiser for Kerry hosted by the Human Rights Campaign and other gay-rights groups. They railed against Kerry as 'anti-gay' because he doesn't support same-sex marriage, even though he is opposed to the federal marriage amendment.
Labeling John Kerry a homophobe is a stretch, since he has a better voting record on gay issues than many other Democrats and practically every Republican. But to follow Baldwin's logic, Kerry must be so pro-gay that neither he nor any of his promoters felt the need to mention gay issues on the convention floor. The purge of gay issues from the stage was more likely part of a mandate for the entire convention, to the point of becoming fascistic: Don't talk about anything even remotely likely to upset straight, white male voters in the Midwest.
Even Baldwin, a lesbian, didn't say anything about gay rights during her speech on the floor, though she talked to the delegates later. The irony of this was lost on many in Boston, so hungry are Democrats to put one of their own back in the White House. At the Republican convention in Philadelphia in 2000, when openly gay Arizona Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe didn't discuss gay rights (opting instead to focus entirely on free trade), everyone gave the Bushies hell for closeting the guy, as Texas delegates stood up, turned their backs on him and prayed. Baldwin was another openly gay member of Congress talking about healthcare and education—and not daring to mention gays.
Sure, the Democrats are light years from the Republicans on gay rights, particularly in their party's platform. But it is odd that they can't talk about it at their convention. Having attended the past three Democratic and Republican conventions, I can't help but notice that gay issues, once totally nonexistent, have slowly emerged, only to be put back in the closet, even as more open gays and lesbians than ever are attending the conventions as delegates and members of the press. This year there were six transgendered delegates, as opposed to one in Los Angeles in 2000, but the dreaded t-word never came up, and was certainly banned from the platform. It's a weird paradox: As gays become more visible, more accepted in society and more influential in the Democratic Party, the mere mention of them becomes toxic.
That's particularly true this year, when the word 'gay' equals same-sex marriage. Even back in 2000, Al Gore—unlike Bill Clinton in 1992, who vigorously courted the gay vote, often spoke on gay issues and discussed equality for gays in his acceptance speech at the New York convention—kept mum on gay rights even as he took endorsements from all the big gay-rights groups.
At the convention this year, it was left to Ted Kennedy and the rising star Barack Obama to mention gays, but only to allude to the Republicans trying to drive a wedge between straights and gays. There was no mention of job discrimination or any specific legislation, such as when Al Gore promised from the podium in 2000 to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. No mention of hate-crimes laws. And certainly not a whimper about same-sex marriage, at least not until the pre-prime-time slot on the last night of the convention, when Congressman Barney Frank went 'off script' and talked extensively about marriage. The only thing that came from Kerry himself was a vague mention of Bush tampering with the Constitution, which could be an allusion to the Patriot Act or abortion rights as much as the federal marriage amendment.
The closeting of gay issues in 2000 was not only cynical, but in retrospect stupid and costly. Gay groups spent much of the campaign excusing Al Gore for not discussing the issues more, while spending inordinate amounts of time and money (including sending gay leaders on a tour with leaders of other liberal constituencies) attacking Ralph Nader. In the end, less than five percent of gay voters (and gays overall made up only about four percent of the entire electorate), cast a vote for Nader, while over a quarter of the gay electorate voted for Bush. In Florida, which Bush won by only a few hundred votes, those gay votes for Bush may have made the difference. If Gore had spoken to the issues, turnout would have been greater and the distinctions between Bush and Gore could not have been so easily dismissed by some of those gays who voted Republican.
But that was then. This year, the cost of discussing gay issues, at least according to the Democratic strategists, is much higher because of the split in the country over same-sex marriage. Staying silent won't dampen gay turnout, goes the logic, since gays will be marching to the polls in droves to vote Bush out of office over the federal marriage amendment. Gays, like most other groups among the Democratic base, are also angry and fearful enough regarding the war in Iraq and the administration's authoritarian impulses to put everything else aside. For weeks before the convention, gay people called my radio program saying that gays had to 'sacrifice' their issues for the country's sake; they continued in that vein as we broadcast and took calls from talk-show row at the FleetCenter during the convention. There's nothing like the fear of fascism to unify people, help them paper over their differences and throw their own causes and rights to the wind.
But can that make us flirt with fascism ourselves? Just before the convention got underway, the Human Rights Campaign dumped Margaret Cho from the line-up for the Kerry benefit because her material might prove too caustic. Did the order come from the DNC after Whoopi Goldberg's Bush attack was seized on by Republicans? Or did HRC decide to fall on its sword on its own, like any other loyal constituency group that had a skybox overlooking the convention where wine and cheese were delivered nightly? The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force pulled out of the event because of the Cho censoring, but other than that, there was silence; everyone soldiered on. People are so unified this year that they're willing to give up a few rights in the process. Is it just me, or is that Patriot Act logic?
Michelangelo Signorile hosts a daily radio show on Sirius OutQ 149. He can be reached at www.signorile.com
