Truth in advertising?

A new conservative campaign to "heal" gay men and lesbians could backfire in November

You've seen the ads. Now you can watch the campaign. With the November elections still months away, political observers believe that the antigay crusade that heated up in early summer may just be starting.

"In an election year, often a group of people are used to drum up support in the extreme right wing of the Republican Party," says Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign. "It's very clear that the House and Senate Republican leadership think that group ought to be gays and lesbians."

The onslaught appears to be a concerted effort by religious conservatives not just to' motivate their own followers but also to stiffen the resolve of Republicans in Congress, a strategy that carries enormous risks for the party. The ads came at a time when the House was already considering several antigay bills and Washington was still reeling from an acrimonious debate in the press about homosexuality that had taken place just one month earlier following antigay comments made by Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

The latest controversy burst onto the national scene in July, when religious conservatives ran a series of ads calling for a "new national discussion of homosexuality." The ads, which were coordinated by 15 different religious right groups, including the Christian Coalition and the Family Research Council, had a decidedly different spin compared with past efforts.

Running in such politically influential newspapers as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, the ads featured Anne Paulk and other "ex-gays," including Paulk's husband, John, who was once a drag queen named Candi. The copy proclaimed that gay men and lesbians could be "cured" through the "truth of God's healing love." The ads also thanked pro-football player and minister Reggie White and Lott for "having the courage to speak the truth about sexual sin."

The bare-knuckles rhetoric of the ads guaranteed attention. "This is something we've wanted to do for a long time," says Robert Regier of the Family Research Council. Regier contends that the ads were placed more to "back up" White and Lott, who had recently taken heat for their antigay rhetoric, than to mobilize voters.

Regier claims the ads were motivated by compassion, not politics. "No matter what we say or do, we're always going to be called gay bashers," he says. "But if we didn't love homosexuals, we wouldn't be taking these ads out...if we didn't honestly believe there's a better way to live."

But the ads coincided with some of the most contentious rhetoric about homosexuality that Washington had seen in years. Moreover, the advertising campaign followed by just two months a meeting between congressional Republican leaders and the heads of major religious groups, who were upset about what they saw as waffling on key social issues. By June prominent Republicans took to the airwaves to denounce gays, with Lott going so far as to compare homosexuality to kleptomania.

Gay rights groups branded the ad campaign as just putting a different face on discrimination and intolerance. "It's a slickly packaged message that's still quite transparent," says Stachelberg. "It says, 'We do not like you, you're not good enough, and the only way you will ever be good enough is if you change.'" HRC, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, and other groups quickly fired off full-page ads of their own in The New York Times and USA Today, proclaiming gays to be "whole, happy, and worthy" people.

The veracity of the conservative ads was attacked elsewhere as well. In claiming that gays can "walk away" from their sexual orientation--a proposition most psychologists view as faulty if not potentially damaging--the ads cited medical evidence to back up the claims. However, Robert Garofalo, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Boston/Harvard Medical School, says his research was mischaracterized.

"To my surprise, an article I co-wrote in the medical journal Pediatrics was cited in an ad as evidence of these so-called facts," Garofalo says. "Yet the findings of this study and all of my research and clinical experience actually contradict the claims made in the ad campaign."

The political stakes in the battle were raised with the introduction of legislation by Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Calif.) that would withhold housing funds to San Francisco because of its domestic-partnership ordinance and another measure, sponsored by Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), that would overturn President Clinton's May executive order granting nondiscrimination protections to gay and lesbian federal workers. (Riggs's bill passed 214-212 on July 29, but its fate is uncertain; a Senate version of the bill has not been introduced, and the measure may be thrown out when House and Senate leaders meet to finalize legislation.)

The legislation opened a rift within the Republican Party. Hefley originally introduced his proposal as an amendment to a bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Kolbe, an openly gay Republican from Arizona, who opposed Hefley's measure. "It's just bad politics, bad policy," Kolbe said. Under pressure from the House leadership, Hefley decided to attach his amendment to another bill.

Kolbe was not alone among Republicans in his opposition to Hefley's amendment. "Not all of us interpret the Bible the way Trent Lott does," deadpanned Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Corm.), who helped lead Republican opposition to the measure. Johnson says growing opposition to the antigay initiatives shows that Republicans are "living and learning" about the gay rights issue, due mostly to Republicans' having more gay friends and openly gay staff.

Johnson added that while many in the party may not be ready to accept the concept of gay marriage, they are becoming more willing to oppose job discrimination. "If you see someone who is doing a good job, do you really want to fire a person for something that has nothing to do with job performance?" she said.

Meanwhile, the Republican leadership tried to dismiss suggestions that the party would suffer as a result of its legislative pursuits. "Wherever you find an issue that divides the public, you'll find it on the floor of the House," says House Republican conference chairman John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Conservatives apparently hope the recent attacks will motivate their followers to vote in the November election, in which turnout is expected to be low. But gay rights supporters hope the Republicans' political maneuvering could work against them.

"So many people now know gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered people" thanks to more people coming out of the closet, says Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, which held a protest on Capitol Hill against the Hefley amendment. "The question is, Can we take advantage of that?"

Meanwhile, evidence is growing that the conservatives' strategy is backfiring. A poll commissioned by the Republican Leadership Council found that the antigay assault could cost the party more votes that it gains. A survey of 800 likely voters showed that, aside from a core of conservatives, most voters have little appetite for the antigay rhetoric and indeed could abandon the party because of it. "If Republicans focus on moral issues, there is a real chance we will lose the House of Representatives," says pollster Kieran Mahoney.

"By attempting to appeal to particular elements and factions, Republicans may alienate a lot of average Americans," agrees William Connelly, a professor of American politics at Washington and Lee University. "The country is fairly contented, and Republicans have accomplished a lot of their agenda. They ought not to raise a hot-button issue...that might draw more Democrats to the polls."

Votes are not the only thing the Republicans could lose from the current round of attacks. They could also lose money, the lifeblood of modern politics. In a signal to Republicans in Texas, Trammell S. Crow, a prominent Dallas-based investor and an important party donor, gave $60,000 to the state chapter of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, after the state party barred it from its convention. Log Cabin used the money to run ads condemning its exclusion.

The money was a slap in the face for the state party. "This is kind of a shock," state party spokesman Robert Black said of the Crow donation. By the party's own estimation, it could be just the first of many.

RELATED ARTICLE: All apologies

A new "family" TV network launches with an attack on gays--and then retracts it BY GAIL SHISTER

Even when religious conservatives try talk in code, they can't help creating controversy. Take Pax TV, the new network owned by Florida broadcasting mogul Lowell "Bud" Paxson, an avowed conservative Christian. Despite its motto--"A Friend of the Family"--the fledgling network ignited a firestorm of criticism over its unfriendly initial print ad campaign. The result: profuse public mea culpas.

The controversial ad for Pax TV, which launches August 31 on 78 stations and will reach more than 72 million U.S. homes, ran in July in several Hollywood trade magazines. It charged that "so-called creative people seem to be using what was once the family viewing hour to peddle every kind of alternative language and lifestyle to our kids." It went on to say that "anyone who doesn't share their sometimes bizarre and depressing views of family values gets vilified for being intolerant."

At a contentious July 18 session of the Television Critics Association's semiannual press tour--during which critics preview fall programming--in Pasadena, Calif., Paxson Communications president Jeff Sagansky and marketing boss Steve Sohmer apologized for the wording of the ad.

Sagansky, a Harvard MBA, and Sohmer, a Ph.D. from Oxford, both proclaimed they were clueless that the pairing of alternative and lifestyle is code for "gay men and lesbians" and that the ad appeared to reek of gay bashing. Their intended targets, they said, were "sexually promiscuous" and "violent" lifestyles.

"I wrote it, and I didn't know any better," said an emotional Sohmer, who created legendary promotional campaigns while at CBS and NBC and is working with a $25-million promotional budget at Pax TV. "I'm sorry. It was taken in a way I did not intend....I apologize for inflicting pain or discomfort on any of you."

Sagansky, formerly copresident of Sony Pictures Entertainment and, prior to that, president of CBS Entertainment, said he and Sohmer "are both really sick about this and the fact that neither he nor I picked up on this.... You will never see that line in any other of our ads, I promise you."

Pax TV will feature weekday reruns of such series as CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, NBC's Highway to Heaven, and ABC's Life Goes On. Notable original programming includes Flipper: The New Adventures; a female-oriented talk show, Woman's Day; and Cloud Nine, a five-hour weekend children's block hosted by a group of teen angels running a public-access cable show.

As for the possibility of any shows featuring stable gay characters in committed relationships, well, don't look for that to be part of Paxson's "calling from God," in Sagansky's words.

"We are not here to promote a gay lifestyle," Sagansky said. "But...we're not going to shy away from gay characters in our shows if they're right and if they're appropriate for a family audience."

Ghent is a reporter for Legi-Slate, an on-line service of the Washington Post Company.