THE CAUTIOUS CLOSET OF THE GAY CONSERVATIVE - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY
• ARE THE DOLAN TWS GAY? OR RELATNSHIP EX-GIRLIENDS?
• SO IS GRAYSON THE GAY TW?
• THE CAUTIOUS CLOSET OF THE GAY CONSERVATIVE

THE ULTRANSERVATIVE BROTHERS PULLED STRGS REAGAN’S WASHGTON. THEN ONE OF THEM WAS OUTED AS GAY

In the new book Secret Cy: The Hidn History of Gay Washgton, thor Jam Kirchick expos how fears and prejudic around homosexualy shaped printial polics for s, om the Cold War-era purge of gays and lbians om every level of ernment to the rise of the nservative movement. But one of the fierce pillars of the nservative muny had a secret: Terry was gay — a realy his fellow Republins uld no longer ignore after he died of AIDS a few days after Christmas, 1986. Here, Kirchick trac the story of Terry Dolan’s posthumo outg a Washgton Post obuary, and Tony Dolan’s outraged rponse — cludg an alln to Post edor Ben Bradlee’s own gay brother — that subsequently ran the Washgton Tim.

Of all the many gay men workg the Reagan admistratn and nservative movement durg the 1980s, none more vividly exposed the punishg ntradictns of their prer existence than Terry Dolan.

Dolan spent a lot of time at the templ of bodily self-perfectn (three hours the weight room every morng and sometim a quick rd exercise durg lunch) to mata his footg what thor Randy Shilts lled the “aristocracy of bety” that fed the 1980s urban gay male subculture. Though Dolan was reful never to acknowledge his homosexualy outsi the environs of that world, he was not exactly a mol of discretn. One eveng, after addrsg a bs tra associatn at a Denver hotel, Dolan scend to the lobby for a night of prowlg the lol leather bar scene cked out the era’s “gay clone” uniform (tight jeans, leather wboy boots, flannel shirt, and studd leather wristband), the atten to whom he had, jt moments earlier, served up a genero helpg of right-wg rhetoril red meat none the wiser.

ARE THE DOLAN TWS GAY? OR RELATNSHIP EX-GIRLIENDS?

Dolan’s anizatn, meanwhile, sent out fundraisg letters like the one signed by far-right Republin ngrsman Dan Crane, clarg, “Our natn’s moral fiber is beg weakened by the growg homosexual movement and the fanatil ERA phers (many of whom publicly brag they are lbians). I did feel for him; that if he was gay and I thought the odds were that he was, mt have [been] very tough to exist the larger nservative movement that was overtly hostile to gay rights.

In 1982, Dolan was outed as a secret homosexual a book cricizg the Christian right.

A gut om outsi the Beltway would never have gused that the toast of nservative Washgton had been exposed jt a few months earlier as a homosexual.

SO IS GRAYSON THE GAY TW?

Such lculated ambiguy was important first and foremost to right-wg gays, who need to prerve their stat a polil movement creasgly hostile to them. But the se also served the purpos of their straight patrons, who profed om the talents of their gay advisors while opposg the “homosexual agenda” that aimed to make them full and equal cizens. “The poor homosexuals, ” Buchanan had wrten wh mock sympathy his syndited lumn four years earlier.

Herage Foundatn -founr Pl Weyrich, who had once tried to tert the Washgton Tim publishg an exposé of Dolan’s secret gay life and AIDS diagnosis, was also the pews.

Dolan’s secret gay life was an even more unfortable subject for the man liverg his logy. Homosexualy was a touchy issue the Whe Hoe speechwrg office Tony Dolan led, somethg bt not mentned, even obliquely. Once, after a young speechwrer named Peggy Noonan, stcted to stop g the word “happy” her drafts, started sertg variatns of “gay” stead, a member of the print’s advance team lled her a panic.

THE CAUTIOUS CLOSET OF THE GAY CONSERVATIVE

“It sounds like he’s llg them gay. “No one will thk, no one would ever thk, that the Print of the Uned Stat would hail our Olympic hero by accg them of beg homosexual, ” Noonan rpond.

” At one pot before Terry’s ath, the brothers discsed the se of Father Charl Curran, a theologian who had recently been fired om a teachg posn at Catholic Universy over his qutng church doctre on homosexualy and other matters pertag to sexual ethics. ” On his athbed, Tony implied, Terry had renounced his homosexualy.

” It was a strikg associatn, likeng the torment of his younger brother who had jt died of AIDS to this lerary archetype of dissolute and aristocratic homosexualy. In Wgh’s novel, Sebastian leav the fay homtead to shack up wh a German serter om the French Foreign Legn Tangier — a statn popular wh generatns of gay European men search of sexual eedom — where he nearly di of pnmonia, which happened to be the leadg opportunistic fectn among AIDS victims.