From: buckmr@rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire)
Subject: 8/21 Washington Post Article on Republican Gay-Bashing
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 16:32:13 -0500
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Excerpted from the 8/21/92 Washington Post; article on page 1, above
the fold, next to a picture of J. Danforth Quayle the Unspeakable.

- ---------------------------------------------------
Voters Decry GOP 'Gay-Bashing'
Rhetoric Seen as Desperate, Ugly--but Maybe Effective
-----------------------------------------------------
...[several paragraphs deleted]

The Republicans appear to be latching on to anti-gay sentiment as a way
to differentiate themselves from the Bill Clinton-Albert Gore Jr.
ticket, which has expressed unequivocal support for the protection of
gays' civil rights.

Former presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan began the attack
Monday night in Houston, telling a cheering crowd that while the
Democrats would not let Pennsylvania Gov.  Robert P. Casey speak at the
Democratic National Convention because he opposed abortion rights,
"a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that
convention and say 'Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most
pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history.'  And so they do."

The GOP platform this year opposes civil rights protection for gays.
And signs reading "Family Rights Forever/Gay Rights Never," have been
waved for the television cameras at the Astrodome.

The potential effectiveness of the tactic-which homosexual groups have
declared the Willie Horton issue of 1992-is unclear.  Also uncertain is
the length to which Republicans will pursue the issue.  Already gay
rights has been raised against the Democrats on some religious
television and radio broadcasts.  And Democratic operatives say they
expect the Republicans to target evangelicals and other conservatives by
mail and broadcast ads.

Polling experts agree with some of the people interviewed [in the
article]: The strategy may be negative, but it also might work.

Murray Edelman, the director of the exit polling consortium Voter
Research & Survey said that the issue offered "a real potential for a
fear campaign."  Polling numbers on gay issues are "soft," he said.  If
"the right buttons were pushed," the Republicans could elicit a lot of
anti-gay sentiment.

A Gallup Poll in June showed that 74 percent of Americans said that
homosexuals "should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities."
However, that number sank considerably when certain specific jobs were
mentioned.  The overwhelming majority thought gays should be allowed to
be sales clerks, but 54 percent said they believed homosexuals should
not be hired as elementary school teachers.

An even lower number, 38 percent, said the homosexual lifestyle was
"acceptable."

"It is in this area between nondiscrimination and promotion of the
lifestyle that a campaign can be waged," Edelman said.  "And it can be a
campaign based on fear."

In the 1970s in California, a similar anti-gay tactic was tried when a
statewide initiative to ban gay and lesbian teachers was on the ballot.
Initially, polls showed that initiative would win, but it was defeated
after officials spoke against it.

Andrew Sullivan, editor of the New Republic magazine who is gay, said he
fears the GOP strategy could draw votes.  "It's still true that
homosexuality remains a taboo in our culture and as long as [the
Republicans] associate the opposition with it they can manage to create
a wedge to benefit themselves," he said.

"We may be at a watershed," Sullivan said, talking of the departure this
year from the far subtler anti-gay Republican rhetoric in the past.
"This battle is finally joined," he said.  "The test is whether you can
publicly denounce people for something they cannot help."

While Buchanan has said he would not rent his beach house to gay men and
that homosexual rights should not be "abided in a nation we still call
God's country," Bush generally has avoided explicit mention of the
issue.  But pressed in an interview last week he said that he believed
that the homosexual lifestyle was not "normal."

Massachusetts Gov.  William F. Weld is one of the few Republicans who
has spoken this week in support of gay rights.  "It's a live third rail,
people don't want to touch it," he said in an interview.

Walter Williams, an anthropologist at the University Southern California
who studies societal attitudes on sexuality, said he believed the public
is "too sophisticated in their understanding of sexual diversity" for
an anti-gay campaign to work in 1992.

They are out of step with the country, Williams said.  "It may have
worked two decades ago," he said, but as more people have come out of
the closet, more people are related, work alongside or are friends with
a gay person.

Just how many people are homosexual is unknown and long a matter of
controversy.  Estimates have ranged from 2 percent to 10 percent, with
the higher number being considered the more reliable by gay groups.

[more paragraphs deleted]...

---
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735. "D.C. in '93!"
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