WEST HOLLYWOOD
Two weeks ago, it was supposed to be a big deal that Republican Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who is gay, was permitted by George W. Bush to speak to the Republican National Convention for a few minutes - about foreign trade.
As a result of this supposedly grand, inclusive gesture, Kolbe was greeted with virtually no applause and insulted by a few hundred delegates, many from Bush's Texas, who turned their backs on him and committed the sacrilege of using prayer as a political demonstration tactic.
With Bush in tacit agreement, meanwhile, his party officially sanctioned overt discrimination in employment, government, military service, and social policy.
Democrats went through that ritual ice-breaker 30 years ago at the convention in Miami Beach that nominated George McGovern, with a legendary San Francisco activist named Jim Foster, who has since died.
This week, more than 200 openly gay and lesbian delegates will be part of the typically raucous Democratic family that is gearing up for this year's election. As starkly as the difference over tax goodies for the rich is about to be painted, the Democratic Party is as antidiscrimination as the Republicans are for it. For something like 10 percent of the population this election is monumentally consequential.
''The thrill of being able to sit at the table after all these years is beyond description,'' says David Mixner, one of the founders of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a cog in a growing network that helps gay candidates from both parties. ''We can bring a passion against injustice along with a determination to be free. And it doesn't just apply to us, it applies to the entire nation; it is the gift we bring, and we have so much to offer.''
Of course, more than $2.5 million in candidate support in recent years doesn't exactly hurt.
Eight years ago, Mixner's very early support of Bill Clinton, and Clinton's support for gay rights, helped establish Mixner's old friend as a force in the 1992 campaign.
Mixner was indeed thrilled, but far from triumphalist on Sunday. ''A lot of the people I love don't have birthdays to celebrate anymore.''
Back in '72, it took months of backstage and semi-public brawling to get Jim Foster onto the podium in Miami Beach. Down the stretch of primaries, the forces behind Humbert Humphrey used the speaking request as one of the clubs the late senator used to club McGovern with in the decisive contest out here.
Four years later, Mixner recalled that there were exactly two openly gay delegates at the convention in New York that nominated Jimmy Carter. And in 1988, when 20 gay delegates were present as Mike Dukakis was nominated in Atlanta, an offer to raise serious money for the Democratic ticket was quietly rejected.
But there were also important milestones, beginning with McGovern's more open, gutsy, and gracious move in support of Jim Foster - as a contrast to Bush's awkward tolerance of Kolbe in Philadelphia 28 years later.
In 1983, Walter Mondale was the first presidential candidate to attend a gay political dinner to ask for and pledge support.
Three years before that, Edward Kennedy had been the first to run for president with overt gay support. I remember when he personally attended one of the small fund-raisers that helped him win the California primary, mingling with super-rich financial and movie types as well as the local chapter of Dykes on Bikes, the motorcycle club. On the way to the hillside private home, Kennedy actually stopped his motorcade on Sunset Boulevard to move Jim Foster (who was supporting him) into his car so they would arrive and be photographed together.
The agenda remains forbiddingly long. In 39 states, gay people can be fired on a boss's whim with no recourse. ''Don't ask, don't tell'' in the military remains a thin cover for harassment and injustice, and Bush supports it. American social policy is riddled with official prejudice, and homophobia may no longer be politically correct but it is alive and symbolized by the casual congressional bigotry of Dick Armey and Trent Lott.
The victory fund's major speaker was House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, a longtime supporter of gay rights. Gephardt noted that conservative control means the literal banning of votes on measures to end job discrimination and punish hate crimes, bills that might otherwise pass.
But he wasn't just preaching to the choir. Gephardt's most eloquent words were a call on the gay community, with political presence a reality and genuine victory in sight, to forgive the society that has spurned them, ''to lead by your excellent example of the power of hope.''
As a turnout motivator, Mixner tells the story of legendary activist Peter Scott, who died here shortly after the 1988 election. On his deathbed, Scott refused an absentee ballot. He was carried by his friends to a car, but insisted on going the last yards into his precinct on his own. He would have crawled if necessary.
It is not for nothing that the victory fund's slogan is that gay people are not just making a difference; in close elections they have been the difference.
Thomas Oliphant is a Globe columnist.
