WHO IS GEORGE W. BUSH?

The Republican presidential candidate's Texas past offers a glimpse into our future if he wins the White House

Although he's a Democrat, Glen Maxey knows George W. Bush well. Maxey, a gay state legislator in Texas. has been watching the governor (and presumed Republican presidential nominee) in action for years. But as he sits in his office in Austin, surrounded by pictures of Democratic officials, from Vice President Al Gore to former Texas governor Ann Richards, Maxey doesn't have much good to say about Bush.

"Governor Bush doesn't stand for anything," Maxey says. "He has no empathy for the plight of gay people at all. He has no understanding of our issues. He's simply turned the state over to his right-wing allies."

Charles Francis could not disagree more. Another openly gay Texan, Francis is a public affairs consultant who has only kind things to say about the governor, a longtime family friend, Describing himself as an "enthusiastic supporter" of Bush, Francis has made it his mission to serve as a "bridge between the campaign and a broad spectrum of the Republican gay community." Francis is convinced his pal can win over gay and lesbian voters if allowed "to communicate in a personal and honest way with his gay Republican supporters."

Will the real George W. Bush please stand up? Is he the amoral political sycophant that Maxey describes? Or is he the compassionate conservative whom Francis depicts as supportive when Francis came out as a gay man? As the presidential campaign shifts into high gear, these are among the many questions gay and lesbian voters are asking about Bush's political elusiveness. Elucidating those questions will, in turn, help solve the biggest mystery of all: How exactly would a Bush White House act when it comes to gay-related issues? The answer may lie in how Bush has behaved during his years in Texas.

From nondiscrimination policies to Supreme Court appointments, gay men and lesbians have enjoyed unprecedented access--if not always the desired results--during the Clinton administration and could look forward to even more of the same under Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic nominee. When it comes to Bush, however, gay rights advocates at the national level are starting from scratch.

The success of Bush's early campaign has left gays scrambling for access. In the meantime they are scrutinizing Bush's spotty record, which includes dogged opposition to gay adoption and a campaign stop at antigay Bob Jones University--signs of both the stranglehold on the GOP that the religious right's virulently antigay elements still maintain and Bush's willingness to pander to them.

If Bush's campaign seems to swing from tolerance to intolerance, it's only a reflection of his record as governor. Call it the two sides of "Dubya," as the governor is known to friends. In interviews with dozens of those friends and with critics a similar portrait emerged time and again: a coldly calculating, ruthlessly ambitious governor who sometimes has sided with the state's most antagonistic antigay activists.

At the same time, he is viewed as the gay-friendly presidential candidate who condemns discrimination in all forms and campaigns for gay votes. "On a personal level, Bush is the kind of guy with whom it would be fun to throw back a few beers on a fishing trip and just spend time chatting," says Annise Parker, a Democrat and openly lesbian member of the Houston city council. "I don't consider him to be personally homophobic. But on social policy he spent way too much time deferring to the right wing in the state for his own political gain. It's nice to believe in Santa Claus--just don't expect any gay rights presents under the Christmas tree."

But Mary Matalin, the well-known conservative commentator who is serving as an unofficial adviser to the campaign, says that "as a longtime friend of the Bush family, I know what's in George's heart, as he would say, and I know he's not of the gay-bashing persuasion. He judges people on their merits and not on their membership in an identity group. It won't be easy, but I think that attitude would be reflected in a Bush White House."

To understand the heart of George W. Bush, look no further than the heart of Texas. Bush grew up in Midland, a socially conservative oil-rich city of 100,000 in West Texas. In the '50s, when Bush grew up, there were few visible signs of gay life in a city that is today home to a growing gay community. At an April meeting hosting a carefully screened group of gay Republican supporters at his campaign's Austin headquarters, Bush referred repeatedly to his roots. "He reminded us several times that he's from Midland and that he's got a lot to learn," says Carl Schmid, a Washington, D.C., government affairs consultant who helped organize the meeting. "Thank God he's willing to expand his horizons. That should be considered a positive, not a liability."

But Bush can no longer blame his poor record on gay issues on lack of contact with gay men and lesbians. Austin, considered the state's most liberal city, is home to a thriving gay community, with dozens of gay political, civic, and social organizations. Because Bush technically resides in Austin, Maxey happens to serve as his representative in the state legislature. One of the city's most popular gay dance clubs, Charlie's, is next to the state capitol building and upstairs from a popular watering hole frequented by legislators. More than a few politicians have remarked privately that they fear being identified as gay--thereby becoming, perhaps, the victim of antigay harassment or violence--because of the bars' proximity to each other.

Bush himself has recognized the need to address gay concerns. Once he had overcome Arizona senator John McCain in a hard-fought GOP primary by appealing to the party's right wing, Bush moved quickly to broaden his appeal to general-election voters, a more moderate electorate. At the meeting with gay Republicans, Bush often appeared perplexed by his reputation for supporting antigay causes, asking participants to explain why he's perceived that way.

"When I told him that my parents had voted for McCain because he didn't appear antigay, Bush seemed alarmed," Schmid says. "`What am I doing that makes me appear antigay?' he asked. I said, `For one, you didn't have this meeting until now. It should have occurred earlier. The second thing is that you have waffled on whether you would hire gay people in your administration.' By the end of the meeting he had laid both those concerns to rest."

To Bush's Texas critics, the answer to his inquiry seems obvious. In his six years as Texas governor he has rarely met an antigay measure he didn't like, starting with the most fundamental privacy issue for gays and lesbians: the state's sodomy law, which criminalizes sexual activity between consenting adults of the same sex. Bush seized upon the issue--hardly the most pressing in the state--during his 1994 campaign against his Democratic opponent, Ann Richards. He repeatedly attacked Richards's opposition to the law, which he defended as a "symbolic gesture of traditional values."

Even more troubling for gay activists is state legislation that would have barred gays from adopting or serving as foster parents. The bill ultimately failed last year, but Bush never distanced himself from a provision that would have allowed the state to strip gay parents of the children that have already been placed in their homes. In response to questions about the bill, Bush said, "I believe children ought to be adopted in families with a woman and a man who are married."

Yet for critics, perhaps the most disturbing part of Bush's record pertains to the state's rash of antigay violence. The Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas has documented at least 28 murders since 1988, many of them shocking in their brutality. At least six have occurred since Bush was elected.

In July 1996, for example, Pablo Zuniga was walking home from a gay bar along Town Lake, a scenic river that bisects Austin less than a mile from the governor's mansion. Early the next morning Zuniga's lifeless body was found among the thick foliage that lines the river. He had been stabbed in the heart. Police made an arrest in the killing, but the suspect, Charles Edward Lowery, was acquitted by a jury after he claimed he stabbed Zuniga to defend himself from an aggressive sexual advance. Manuel Zuniga, Pablo's brother, insists Lowery got away with murder.

"Lowery's attorney depicted my brother as a predator," he says. "He made it seem like Pablo was out trying to get sex--that he was the perpetrator and Lowery was the victim." Furious about the murder and verdict, Manuel Zuniga confronted Bush at a rally near the statehouse for victims of hate crimes.

"I told George Bush about what happened to Pablo. He was very kind to me, and he invited me to call his office, which I did," Zuniga says. "He seemed to really be saddened by what happened to my family."

But Bush's compassion toward Zuniga did not translate into support for hate-crimes legislation. In a closed-door session last year Bush personally appealed to Republican legislators to defeat the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act on the grounds that in its list of protected categories it included sexual orientation--anathema to the religious right. It is one of the few anticrime measures the governor has ever opposed.

"Even if you agree that hate-crimes legislation is not the proper way to address these crimes. Bush has displayed a shocking lack of leadership on the issue," says state representative Senfronia Thompson, a Democratic sponsor of the bill.

As executive director of the Lesbian/ Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, Dianne Hardy-Garcia has lobbied the governor to little avail since his election. Bush has "always felt that, politically, he can't say anything that would protect gays," she says from her ramshackle warren of offices located next to the Austin courthouse. "Legislators who had supported hate-crimes legislation in the past told me that they couldn't defy the governor on this issue" because he's running for president, Hardy-Garcia added.

Bush's deference to antigay activists on gay issues is something his gay Republican supporters hope to counteract; for its part, Bush's campaign has made Francis a pivotal player in gay politics. A native Texan, Francis counts both Bush and Karl Rove, the campaign's chief strategist, among his closest friends and confidants. The Bush and Francis families have even spent Thanksgiving together; Francis came out in a letter to Bush shortly after the 1994 election; and his brother, James Francis Jr., is one of Bush's top advisers.

It was Charles Francis who brokered the meeting between Bush and gay Republicans, and it will likely be Francis who will help determine a Bush administration's approach to gay issues. "You could see it in the way Charles was greeted by Rove and Bush," Schmid says. "They have that whole Texas thing going. It's all about trust."

But Francis is leery of the spotlight and has given little indication that he is willing to go to bat publicly for gay rights in the GOP. Francis turned down repeated interview requests, but in an E-mail to The Advocate he explained that although he is "openly gay and proud to have helped the campaign," he wishes to "remain in the background" in favor of the gay Republicans who met with Bush in April.

Yet the Texas arm of the Log Cabin Republicans, a nationwide gay group, has met with a cold shoulder from the state party, which for years has refused to allow the group to have a booth at the state party convention. Although two years ago he admonished the officials, declaring that "all individuals deserve to be treated with dignity and respect," Bush has not intervened with party officials on the group's behalf.

The national Log Cabin Republicans organization is the logical choice to build on the Austin meeting and develop the relationship further, but it may be in a poor bargaining position. Since Log Cabin's meeting with McCain, Bush has refused to meet with the group, saying that it endorsed his opponent. (Log Cabin ran ads during the primary season accusing Bush of "pandering to the Right.") In May the group met with Maria Cino, deputy chairman of political and congressional relations for the Republican National Committee and a Bush operative, and is making plans to meet with the candidate himself in the summer. "It's like getting the Israelis and Palestinians to sit down together," says Kevin Ivers, program director for Log Cabin. "First we have to figure out how the two sides can talk before we talk."

National Log Cabin leader Rich Tafel concedes that gay Republicans have little leverage with Bush. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy, and hate-crimes laws "are probably not in play," he says. Instead the group is determined to maintain the status quo--lobbying Bush to resist right-wing pressure to overturn President Clinton's executive order banning discrimination in the federal workplace.

With its disproportionate share of Republican voters, the religious right may have more clout with the campaign. Although most of the campaign's top policy advisers, including Rove and former Indianapolis mayor Stephen Goldsmith, are political moderates, Bush is also close to prominent religious conservatives such as Ralph Reed, former executive director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition.

Just as Bush sometimes echoes his father's politics, he also has utilized some of former president Bush's political advisers. The governor is close to Doug Wead, a Christian conservative who supposedly lost his job as an aide to President Bush in 1990 because he wrote a poison-pen letter criticizing White House officials for inviting gay activists to the ceremonial signing of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act. After Wead left the White House, George W. Bush defended him in an interview with The Arizona Republic: "Sometimes in White House circles people have the knives out for you," Bush said. "I think Doug got caught up in that. But I don't believe he was fired. There was no reason for it."

Episodes like this one worry Tafel. "It's possible we would end up seeing a religious conservative in a cabinet-level position, and that would be very difficult for us," he says.

Despite the new openness generated by the Austin meeting, it's still unclear whether Bush is prepared to move the GOP forward or backward on gay rights. During a 1999 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press with her husband, Clinton adviser James Carville, Matalin declared that she would "demonize Republicans that gay-bash in 2000--if we don't get off that, we don't deserve to be the majority party, that's for sure."

Today, Matalin believes Bush is the candidate to assure that the GOP achieves its goal. "I do not believe that the party has a preponderance of the Leviticus crowd," she says, referring to antigay activists. "If science is in any way a part of your life, you just can't agree with them about homosexuality. The party has to come to a consensus that to discriminate or even be judgmental about gays is plain wrong. It's just the trajectory of the nation. But, unfortunately, it's going to take some time."

RELATED ARTICLE: THE OFFICIAL WORD

In an exclusive interview, Bush's campaign spokesman outlines the candidate's stands

What does George W. Bush think about gay issues? For the most part, his positions have become known in only bits and pieces through the occasional reporter's question.

Bush declined an interview request from The Advocate, However, his campaign spokesman, Scott McClellan, agreed for the first time to answer a series of questions, In the 20-minute interview McClellan generally avoided referring to gay-related issues, focusing instead on more general issues, Indeed, McClellan seemed to avoid as often as possible uttering the words "gay" or "lesbian" during the interview, What emerges is the most thorough firsthand account of what Bush's attitude toward gays and lesbians is likely to be during his administration if he is elected president.

How does Governor Bush's slogan "compassionate conservatism" apply to the gay and lesbian community?

Governor Bush is outlining an agenda that will help improve the lives of all Americans. It focuses on improving public schools so every child can learn; strengthening Social Security; increasing access to medical care for working families; and ushering in an era of personal responsibility.

Can you be more specific? Gay and lesbian students, for example, often report facing a hostile environment in school.

Governor Bush believes in treating all individuals with dignity and respect. He does not tolerate discrimination in any form or fashion.

What's the best way to fight sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace?

Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.

What's the place of gays and lesbians in American society?

Governor Bush is a uniter. The governor believes in focusing on our common objectives, He welcomes the support of all individuals who support a compassionate conservative agenda. At the recent meeting in Austin, he felt he was a better man for meeting with them [gay Republicans], There are areas where he disagrees, such as gay marriage, but there are a number of areas of agreement, such as improving schools and access to health care.

How did the governor react to the religious conservative critics of the meeting?

I addressed some of those [criticisms], Governor Bush has always been clear and consistent in views and philosophy. He makes his decisions based on what he believes is right for America. He does not believe in pilling one group of people against another. He has said he believes in strong families and the importance of the sanctify of marriage, He believes marriage is between a man and a woman.

Don't gay people have their own strong families?

Every individual should be treated with dignity and respect.

Over the last decade Texas has been a hotbed of antigay violence. What's the best way to combat antigay hate crimes?

Governor Bush believes all violent crimes are hate crimes. People who commit violent crimes have hatred in their hearts, He supports tough anticrime laws. Violent crime is down 20% in his tenure.

But antigay violence does not appear to be down.

In the tragic and barbaric murder of James Byrd Jr., two of the three individuals were sentenced to the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. The third will spend life in prison.

Experts say that not all crimes are the same. Every form of violence requires its own prevention.

It's difficult to distinguish between one degree of hate or another. --Chris Bull