A Roy Cohn for our time? A top Republican political strategist marries his boyfriend of 40 years and ignites a debate about his private vs. public life.

One New York Times same-sex marriage notice in April wound up not in the paper's Weddings & Celebrations section but on the Washington pages, and it caused an immediate war of words between Republicans and Democrats.

The couple in question are Arthur Finkelstein and his partner, Donald Curiale, who were together for 40 years before tying the knot in Massachusetts in December. The pair have two adopted children. "I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits, and other human relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people should be available to partners," Finkelstein told the Times when his union became public.

Finkelstein's legal-in-Massachusetts marriage would seem no big deal, except for the fact that he's a top Republican election strategist (see The company he keeps), now working with a group called Stop Her Now, devoted to preventing the 2006 reelection of New York senator Hillary Clinton.

The company he keeps

Gay newlywed Arthur Finkelstein's top political clients

Jesse Helms

The former Republican U.S.
senator from North Carolina
who called Roberta Achtenberg
a "damned lesbian"

Alfonse D'Amato

N.Y. Republican who
evolved into pro-gay U.S.
senator, won HRC endorsement,
then lost reelection

George Pataki

Current Republican N.Y.
governor who opposes both
antigay discrimination
and same-sex marriage

That led Bill Clinton to call Finkelstein "self-loathing," which, being a phrase used often by Jews against Jews, is actually a bit of a double hit against Finkelstein, who is Jewish and has worked on campaigns for the right wing in Israel,

This debate over his friend's private life makes longtime Finkelstein pal and fellow GOP consultant Charley Manning very angry. He calls the Times story "so nasty," "a cheap shot." and "just politics." Manning says he's "very happy for Arthur and Donald. They've been together a long time and I just think it's terrific."

Manning is also in a lather over that swipe by the president "who signed the Defense of Marriage Act." "This was a political attack on Arthur because he is the leading Republican consultant of the last 25 years," says Manning. "The Democrats want to do whatever they can to marginalize anyone who is that successful."

Asked if it might make sense to question a man who embraced rights denied to thousands of gay couples across the country by legislators his party has endorsed, Manning simply points out that the Democratic Party hasn't endorsed same-sex marriage either.

Even after Finkelstein was outed in 1996 by Boston magazine, he remained a mainstay of the far right wing of a party that has redefined the right. He has recently declared himself a pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage libertarian, but for decades he's been known as the right's notoriously unseen operator (there's one existing photograph) who shapes policy and public identity in hard-fought elections. He's run campaigns for a couple of gay-friendly politicians--and a fistful of vocally antigay lawmakers.

"Finkelstein is our generation's Roy Colin," says Thomas Lang, who, with his partner of 17 years, Alexander Westerhoff, lives and works in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., a quietly posh town just minutes from Ipswich, where Finkelstein lives with his partner. A Republican himself, Lang notes that Mr. and Mr. Finkelstein are known for being "great parents" and that they all live in an "extremely Republican" area. But still he feels the Roy Cohn analogy is apt. Finkelstein is "one of those people who would turn his own kind in. He was at the basis of the problems that we have now. What we are seeing now is the budding and flowering of the tree and roots that people like Finkelstein had helped to grow."