Foley Case Upsets Tough Balance by Capitol Hill’s Gay Republicans
Every month or so, 10 top staff members from Capitol Hill meet over dinner to commiserate about their uneasy experience as gay Republicans. In a wry reference to the “K Street Project,” the party’s campaign to build influence along the city’s lobbying corridor, they privately call themselves the “P Street Project,” a reference to a street cutting through a local gay enclave.
For many of those men and other gay Republicans in political Washington, reconciling their private lives and public roles has required a discreet existence. But in the last week, the Mark Foley scandal has upset that careful balance.
Since Representative Foley, Republican of Florida, resigned after sending sexually explicit electronic messages to male pages, gay Republicans in Washington have been under what one describes as “siege and suspicion.”
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Known in some insider slang as “the Velvet Mafia” or “the Pink Elephants,” gay Republicans tend to be less open about their sexual orientation than their Democratic counterparts. Even though the G.O.P. fashions itself as “the party of Lincoln” and a promoter of tolerance, it is perceived as hostile by many gay men and lesbians. Republicans have promoted a “traditional values” agenda, while some conservatives have turned the “radical gay subculture” into a reliable campaign villain. And there are few visible role models in the party; Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona is the only openly gay Republican in Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/washington/08culture.html?hp&ex=1160280000&en=a13a3dac6d27c8cb&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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