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Conservative women’s group challenges Bush’s ‘rush to embrace’ homosexuals


WASHINGTON (BP)–The way one conservative group sees it, President George Bush is just another Bill Clinton on the homosexual rights issue.

In a report released May 31, the Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute blasted the Bush administration’s “rush to embrace homosexual activism,” blaming the president for endorsing the movement by appointing homosexual activists to key executive posts, maintaining Clinton’s anti-discrimination policies and turning a deaf ear on complaints from pro-family groups, CNSNews.com reported May 31.

“They find nothing wrong with homosexuality,” said Robert Knight, the institute’s director and coauthor of the 13-page report, titled “The Bush Administration’s Republican Homosexual Agenda: The First 100 Days.”

The report chides the president for nominating a pro-homosexual ambassador to Canada, as well as appointing Scott Evertz, who is openly homosexual, to lead the White House AIDS office.

Evertz, the report says, “has been quoted in the press as favoring such policies as drug-needle giveaways, condom distribution in schools, and homosexual ‘marriage’ — which not only constitute bad AIDS policy, but contradict President Bush’s public stands.”

Knight and company further take the administration to task, challenging the appointment of homosexual advocate Stephen Herbits to “screen job applicants” at the Pentagon as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s special consultant.

Moreover, the report brings up the “Cheney Factor” — that the vice president’s daughter, a lesbian, may be indirectly steering the administration’s politics.

“Her activism has skewed the Cheneys’ judgment on this issue — and ultimately the president’s,” said Knight, who notes Cheney supports states’ rights to adopt same-sex marriage legislation.

White House press aides didn’t return phone messages May 31 and could not be reached for comment.

The homosexual rights group Log Cabin Republicans dismissed the report as vicious and divisive, saying it detracts from the president’s mainstream message that helped him draw 25 percent of the homosexual vote in the 2000 election.

“I don’t think anyone at the White House is going to pay attention to that kind of criticism,” Kevin Ivers, the group’s director of public affairs, said.

“These people who have said it’s some kind of Armageddon have proven by their actions that they’re out of step with the country,” he said.

Log Cabin Republicans is linked to the report, which claims Bush aggressively courted homosexuals in the GOP lobby group to bolster his middle-of-the-road mantra.

“[White House officials] believe that caving in to homosexual activists will give them a more compassionate, tolerant image,” Knight said.

Critics say it’s a curious political move since Bush’s 1.1 million votes from homosexuals in November pales in comparison to the millions more he got from the GOP’s bread and butter — pro-family conservatives.

“You’d have to scratch your head at the political calculations,” Knight said. “I don’t know what their strategy is, but it’s boneheaded to risk alienating the largest bloc in the GOP coalition by pandering to the microscopic coterie of so-called gay Republicans.”
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Lewis is a correspondent for CNSNews.com. Used by permission.

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  • Seth Lewis