What was like to be gay and Republin at a time of gay-bashg polics?
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GAY BHISMS
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He was gay and workg for a Republin and nvced was possible to be both at the same time.
Like dozens of other gay lleagu the Bh Whe Hoe, many of them closeted, Leve had been sure that Bh himself was personally tolerant even if the GOP was not—and unfortable wh gay-bashg as a way to w electns. But this was also the print who had ma batg AIDS Ai a personal e (later, at Leve’s urgg, he would even rate the Whe Hoe North Porti wh a giant red ribbon to mark World AIDS Day), who had met wh prevly ostracized gay Republin lears and whose hard-le nservative vice print had an openly gay dghter. And bis, opposg gay marriage jt “wasn’t a centerpiece of the mpaign to date, ” Leve relled when we talked recently.
GEE W. BH'S FOTTEN GAY-RIGHTS HISTORY
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A few months later, one of his gay iends who had also worked the Whe Hoe sat down ont of Facebook and unted the Bh Whe Hoe staffers he knew to be gay. Alberto Gonzal, the former Bh Whe Hoe unsel and attorney general, for example, says he never knew dozens of gays had served on the Whe Hoe staff. Stt Evertz was Bh’s openly gay AIDS czar.
“I, of urse—jt by the law of statistics—knew that there were other gay people the Whe Hoe, ” he says. Evertz says Bh’s polil gu, Karl Rove, for a time would only give him clearance for public appearanc if he promised not to be billed as the first openly gay appotee a Republin admistratn.
It was only much later that Evertz learned Hernanz, who had been wh Bh sce servg as his driver and personal ai the early 1990s, was gay. The hug had been a quiet statement of support om a member of the Whe Hoe’s gay unrground.
GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
” says one former senr official the Bh Whe Hoe whose office clud at least three gay staffers. In recent months, I’ve reported extensively on life the closet of the Bh Whe Hoe, and a number of his former ais are quoted on the rerd this story for the first time about their experienc as gay Republins an admistratn that was perhaps the last of the era when stutnalized discrimatn agast gays and lbians was still legal, if creasgly owned upon.
At the time, seemed to be great polics for Bh: Comg out agast gay marriage, as Rove bragged his 2010 book, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative the Fight, “benefed my ndidate” and “helped reelect him” 2004.
But sce a Supreme Court cisn last year, 19 stat and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage, jt the oute that Bh and his team fought to prevent, and a clear majory of Amerins—a rerd high of 55 percent this year—now tell pollsters they support this right.