Looking for success in the new Washington.

With George W. Bush in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, STEVE GUNDERSON, the former GOP congressman, argues that this is the time to recognize the new political reality we face and to formulate a truly bipartisan plan to keep making progress

A recent edition of The Advocate carried a thoughtful interview with Jason Gould in which he explained, among other things, his dislike of politics: "It separates people and creates these polar opposites--Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative--and it's not realistic.... What it does is create differences in people who are not really that different."

What's most troubling is that he made those comments before the 2000 presidential election!

Through many years of politics, going back to my first campaign in the Watergate year of 1974, I recall no time that bore the intensity of emotions displayed in November and December. To many in our community, the presidential election was literally stolen by a combination of events in Florida and rulings in the Supreme Court. To many in our community, the concept of Republican control over the Congress and the White House produces memories and expectations ranging from benign neglect to blatant hostility. To many in our community, the premise of John Ashcroft as the nation's chief enforcer of women's rights, civil rights, and human rights produces fears seldom seen since the early days of these movements. It does not matter if these feelings are justified--they are real, honest emotions felt by a large percentage of our community.

Any Republican who fails to recognize the sense of fear, of dread, that some now bear is living in a fantasy world. Gay Republicans who refuse to acknowledge these feelings do a disservice both to their community and to their political philosophy. In politics, perhaps more than anywhere else in American society, perception is reality. And for many among us, the perception is that the gay community is in for four long, hard years.

Regardless of one's guesses about the future, the looming question is: "Where do we go from here?" I've wondered. Gay Republicans, a minority within a minority, may be tempted simply to revel in the political success of the moment. Gay Democrats could be equally tempted to tune out in hopes that the Republicans will self-destruct in time for the midterm election or the 2004 presidential vote. Either response will put a generation of young gays and lesbians at risk of new HIV infections, of new rounds of discrimination in the workplace, of becoming America's next Matthew Shepard.

None of us can allow that to happen.

The reality is that a new Congress and the Bush administration will create their own lists of pleasant surprises and unexpected disappointments. They will come in every form--political appointments, executive decisions, legislative actions and inactions, and appropriations decisions. "Where do we go from here?" isn't about what they will do. It's about what we will do. And I'm convinced that progress toward human rights, toward ending prejudice and hatred--and especially for lesbian health and HIV/AIDS--will be greater if we engage in the art of governing than if we refuse to participate.

So, where do we go from here? Allow me four simple suggestions.

First, let us begin a dialogue with those with whom we have the least in common.

When my partner, Rob Morris, and I traveled the country following the publication of our book, House and Home, we found the most rewarding audiences to be those that were predominantly nongay, especially religious-based organizations. Almost without exception, we found people eager to learn and to understand. Though I believe that the greatest barriers to progress in human rights are stationed within the religious community and the Republican Party, we need not fear those barriers so much as scale them. We need ways, and people, to reach out, provide education, and communicate true "family values" to those who still presume we live by dramatically different stereotypes.

During my years in the Congress and now as a member of the Human Rights Campaign's board of directors, I'm struck by the conflict many Republicans in Congress feel regarding gay issues. They want to support us personally--but they fear us politically because they may face a hostile, antigay home constituency that will hold them liable for such support. We must carefully identify our present and potential friends, then develop education or public relations campaigns within their districts that enable them to support our cause and to survive politically. The biggest mistake we make is to assume that the American public now knows who we are, what we want, and what we really need. If the presidential election taught us nothing else, it should have taught us at least this.

Second, let us begin a serious effort to build a truly bipartisan movement on behalf of human rights. Our community is labeled as being far more Democratic than reality suggests. At least 25% of the gay community openly acknowledged votes for George W. Bush. The gay vote for Bush in Florida was far greater than his winning margin. We have many friends of the gay community in both the Bush administration and in the Republican Party in Congress. Our silence on this issue merely perpetuates another harmful stereotype: that, politically, all gay people are alike.

None of this suggests we should tolerate Republican hostility any more than we tolerated Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell," his refusal to approve needle exchange in the fight against HIV, and his signing the Defense of Marriage Act into law. On the contrary, simple integrity demands that when the new administration opposes our interests, we must speak out.

But we hurt ourselves and our causes when we behave as if bipartisanship is not something we'd endorse. We are, as a community, bipartisan now. What we've not yet achieved, and must, are bipartisan strategies and a bipartisan image that allow us to advance our cause regardless of which party is in power.

Third, let us define our legislative agenda and our legislative strategies in ways that enhance success within a Republican Congress and a Republican administration.

In my work as a strategic planning and communications consultant with The Greystone Group Inc. and in my role as policy director for the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership, I've been inundated with invitations to speak about the political environment facing the 107th Congress. I usually explain that our government is far more divided than our population. We really have become a nation of nonideological centrists looking for pragmatic solutions to real problems.

Given the election deadlock and the balance of power within Congress, most political analysts suggest the future will see a very limited centrist agenda. We in the gay community should act accordingly. We should establish legislative priorities, not advance a shopping list. And we should craft strategies that respect the balance of power. We should show that our philosophy is broad--able to take the passion for human rights most often heard from one side of the aisle and blend it with the confidence in the private sector expressed more frequently on the other.

For example, stock markets notwithstanding, the technology community remains the driving force in our economic future. Because it's the future, it's also the object of competition between Republicans and Democrats for political allegiance. Happily, the high-tech community is littered with companies that are "right" on every workplace issue critical to the gay community--AIDS, domestic-partner benefits, employment nondiscrimination, and more. We should engage this business community in new coalitions for progress. We might even suggest to the Bush administration that if it will work with us to promote private-sector partner benefits and nondiscrimination guarantees, we would advocate delaying new legislative protections for at least one year.

One of our important issues, and potentially the biggest affront to the Bush administration, is hate-crimes legislation. Many Republicans question a federal solution to a domain normally reserved for the states--criminal law. Perhaps this is the time to "reframe" the legislation in ways that promote voluntary technical assistance and other resources of the federal government, if requested by local governments, to investigate and prosecute possible hate crimes. It may not be all we want, but it would be vastly more than we have.

On the issues of HIV/AIDS and lesbian health care, I am optimistic. Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, the new Health and Human Services secretary, brings a positive record of support in the fight against AIDS. He's shown through years as governor, work on the Republican platform, and elsewhere his willingness to work with our community. Republicans in Congress have established the highest funding levels ever to combat HIV/AIDS and for National Institutes for Health research. This may be an arena in which we can and should partner with both the new administration and the new (but still Republican) Congress.

Finally, let us all understand our obligations to our community. We have spent far too much time and energy fighting among ourselves rather than fighting those who really oppose our interests. Perhaps we've come to a unique moment in time when our movement advances to the next stage. I believe there are important roles and responsibilities in the next two to four years for Log Cabin, for HRC, for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and for all the other important organizations within our community. We need, all of us, to reach out to those not part of our community to build bigger, stronger, more bipartisan, and more enduring coalitions in support of our concerns.

Think of all the names you've erased because of AIDS. Think of the toll hate has taken, the unnamed victims of job discrimination, the children in search of loving gay parents. Think of the men and women who struggle to serve our nation in the military. Think of the gay young man or young woman not yet out, not yet certain, still living in fear. When you do, surely you'll conclude that the issues are more important than party affiliation or party power. They can't, and don't need to, wait until Democrats regain power.

So where do we go from here? I hope we can find ways to go forward, together.

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Gunderson served as a U.S. representative from Wisconsin from 1980 to 1996.