Kolbe's quiet fights: the only openly gay Republican in Congress has taken the GOP's Christian right wing to task--and survived politically.

In February 2004 Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe--the only openly gay Republican in Congress--issued a scathing statement attacking the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment.

"An amendment to the U.S. Constitution to restrict marriages is not about protecting the 'sanctity' of the institution of marriage," Kolbe said. "No one is suggesting any religious group would be compelled to participate in a marriage ceremony between two men or two women. No marriage between a man and a woman will be jeopardized by giving legal standing to a similar commitment by two persons of the same gender.

Kolbe's ire placed him directly at odds with his party, and his president. And yet he went further. Together with the only other openly gay members of Congress--Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Barney Frank of Massachusetts, both Democrats--Kolbe added his name to a letter circulated on the Hill underscoring the point that, as recently as 2000, Vice President Dick Cheney believed there was no need for a federal policy on this issue. "Those who share the vice president's commitment to federalism," the letter said, appealing to Republicans, "should refrain from sponsoring [this] constitutional amendment."

In the current political climate, when the only openly gay Republican congressman makes statements contradicting his party you might expect that he would lose support from his party or his constituents. You would be wrong. In the eight years that Kolbe has been out of the closet, his party and, more importantly, his constituents have fiercely backed him. This November he seeks his 11th term in office, and despite the Democratic leanings of his district, he is favored to win. His constituents refuse to allow sexual orientation to be an issue. "The voters are very educated in his district," says Kolbe's longtime friend and fellow out gay Republican Neil Giuliano, the former mayor of Tempe, Ariz. "They don't look at sexual orientation as a factor to judge one's competence."

"I try to focus on the issues I was elected on--trade, Social Security reform, appropriations," Kolbe told The Advocate in 2000. [Repeated requests for a second interview were tinned down by Kolbe's office. When the congressman spoke to the magazine in 2000 he admitted he went against his staffs wishes in granting the interview.] He holds the influential chair of the House foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, "but there are times when I need to take a stand on a social issue," he has said.

Kolbe was not always the quiet warrior. Born in Illinois and educated at Northwestern and Stanford, the 62-year-old was in the Navy in the late 1960s and served in Vietnam. He moved to Arizona when he returned--he had served as Arizona senator Barry Goldwater's page when he was a teenager--and by 1976 he was in the Arizona senate. In 1984 he won his first congressional election to represent the 8th district of Arizona. He was married and divorced. During those years Kolbe was just another relatively moderate Republican--with a slightly more moderate record on social issues.

Rumors swirled for years that he was gay. Close friends and family reportedly knew, but his sexuality was not public knowledge. Then Kolbe voted yes on the Defense of Marriage Act, and a new, angrier whisper campaign began. The congressman feared he would be outed in the press, taken to task for a vote that angered gays and lesbians. (Kolbe claimed he voted yes because DOMA allowed the states to make their own decisions.) Rather than wait to see what would hap pen, Kolbe held a press conference announcing he was gay. It was August of 1996. He was facing reelection and about to be tested as an out politician.

Just before Tucson went to the polls, Kolbe's enemies on the far right launched a smear campaign against him, plastering his district with slanderous posters that said KOLBE RAPED A BOY and KOLBE: I HAVE AIDS. Still, Kolbe won with 68% of the vote, a wider margin of victory than any other congressman in the state. He later said that he had "had trepidation" but that the failure of the campaign against him showed that "most people are very generous and good-hearted."

"Arizonans tend to be libertarian, live and let live," says gay Republican Steve May, a former state representative. "Jim has been in office for almost 30 years. He's a well-known entity. People who might not normally be comfortable with a gay person are comfortable with him." And yet a larger lesson was learned as well: Asked about his publicly coming out four years later, Kolbe said he felt "relief," as though a "burden" had been lifted.

Kolbe won again in 1998, further shoring up a strong reputation on free trade and immigration among Republicans. He began to quietly fight for gay rights. When Colorado Republican Joel Hefley attempted to use parliamentary politics to strip gay and lesbian federal employees of their antidiscrimination protections mandated by then-president Bill Clinton, Kolbe worked to defeat the measure. He supported hate-crimes legislation long before Matthew Shepard's murder alerted his colleagues to the issue, and he backed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Kolbe may have been heartened by his constituents after his cautious forays into gay legislative activism, but he hadn't quelled the voices of the religious right. In 2000, when Kolbe was famously awarded a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia--a first for an openly gay Republican--members of the Texas delegation, front and center in honor of their hometown hero George W. Bush, doffed their hats and prayed for him. Some waved signs, one of which read THREE IS A WAY OUT. Kolbe contended that he didn't notice.

It got worse. That same year a local Christian ministry told Kolbe he wasn't welcome to dole out soup to the poor during Thanksgiving. His sexuality, they wrote him, was "diametrically opposed to admonitions in the Bible." District 8 citizens, accompanied by a media outcry, revolted and aggressively pressured the ministry to recruit.

The backlash against the ministry was sufficient to trigger a second letter to Kolbe. "We sincerely and humbly apologize to you," it read, "for our hasty decision and our actions in asking that you not serve meals at our annual street banquet based upon your sexual orientation." It went on to say, "We were wrong in our actions.... [which] did not properly reflect our Christian belief that God loves us and desires a personal relationship with every person. We hope that you will accept this apology, and we ask for your forgiveness." Interviewed by Roll Call about the incident, Kolbe said the reaction had been "phenomenal and fantastic," adding that "the degree of acceptance and tolerance is very high In this community."

"There is a little more tendency [in Arizona] for people to say, 'Look, I will judge people on what they stand for, on what they believe, not on what they do at night in their bedrooms,'" says Brace D. Merrill, professor of mass communication and director of the Media Research Program hi the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University.

Kolbe, who won his seat again in 2002, faced a right-wing opponent in this year's Republican primary. The state senator who challenged him tried to use Kolbe's outspoken opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment against him. It didn't work. "It's clear," says Log Cabin Republicans political director Christopher Barron, that "he has been a tireless advocate for the citizens of iris district, and it's clear that the citizens believe that Congressman Kolbe is an effective advocate for them here in D.C." Barron calls Kolbe the "epitome" of what Republicanism means to Log Cabin members.

At the Human Rights Campaign, executive director Cheryl Jacques couldn't agree more. "He truly makes the big tent bigger," she said. As his friend Neil Giuliano puts it, "He's had a very open public life. The voters in his congressional district respect that he has been very honest and very forthright. That's why they keep putting him back in office."

Wildman is The Advocate's Washington correspondent.