http://online.logcabin.org/news_views/articles/log-cabins-guerriero-talks.html
Log Cabin's Guerriero Talks Aggressive Strategy
by Paul Schindler
Gay City News - January 4, 2006
“We reached a point in the gay and lesbian civil rights movement where we need to expect more than mediocrity from the people we support. That was a threshold for us,” said Patrick C. Guerriero, president of the national Log Cabin Republicans, in explaining the group’s decision in 2004 not to endorse the re-election of President George W. Bush. “It actually sent an important message to our Democratic friends. Don’t you think we ought to expect something from the people our Democratic and left-leaning groups support?”
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Guerriero, who is based in Washington, offered this asessment in a wide-ranging, 90-minute interview with Gay City News in New York on December 29.
Guerriero explained that Bush’s decision to make a federal anti-gay marriage amendment a centerpiece of his 2004 campaign—which he attributed to the president’s political guru Karl Rove—was critical in the Log Cabin decision not to endorse him, announced right after the Republican National Convention early last September.
“There is a price to be paid in Washington when you don’t endorse an incumbent president,” he said.” But looking back on history, we felt there needed to be some stakes in the ground and we felt as an organization that we needed to say, ‘Enough is enough. You can’t have our support on Election Day. It isn’t automatic.’”
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One issue that Log Cabin believes it can help decide is the ongoing campaign against the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Noting that politicians are way behind the public on this issue, Guerriero said, “It’s going to be a Nixon goes to China thing. Ultimately, it will take a veteran who is respected by the military… Some of our greatest champions on this might surprise people over the next five years—a group of GOP senators with military credentials. And that group that may include [Nebraska’s] Chuck Hagel and others who are not there yet but may be willing to take another look.”
His work, however, is not solely, or even primarily, focused in Washington, Guerriero said, noting that his organization has more chapters nationwide—over 90 are listed on its Web site—than any other LGBT organization. Log Cabin, he said, is situated to change “hearts and minds in red states.”
“The reality is that the history and the foundation of the LGBT movement has been largely fueled by the progressive base and by courageous Democrats who broke through within one political party,” Guerriero said. “That’s wonderful and it got us to the 20-yard line. My vision for the Log Cabin was that I look at this as a community bipartisan effort. To get us into the end zone, it’s going to require the courageous young lesbian in Kentucky meeting with her city councilor or the young Republican to come out in Nebraska.”
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The Log Cabin leader said that on the House side, there are between 35 and 40 Republicans—out of 220—who are “with us on most issues.” That includes 30 members of the GOP who voted early in December to support a federal hate crimes bill that included protections for transgendered Americans as well as gays and lesbians. On the Senate side, 12 Republicans out of 55 either cast a procedural vote or expressed sentiment opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004. A total of 18 have voted in favor of hate crimes legislation.
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Thanks. We need to remember that one.