HILADELPHIA - The harsh message to homosexuals at the 1992 GOP convention was: Find another party. Unwelcomed, unwanted, and enraged over Patrick J. Buchanan's vitriolic speech in Houston, a gay Republican organization refused to endorse President Bush for reelection.
Today the Log Cabin Republicans are expected to meet and endorse Bush's son George W. Bush. The group's leaders say the Texas governor has lived up to his commitments: no prime-time gay-bashing from the podium in Philadelphia, modify antigay language in the party platform, and give an openly homosexual congressman a speaking slot at the convention.
What the group did not expect was that Bush would pick as his running mate Dick Cheney, a conservative who plans to have his gay daughter, Mary, at his side during the campaign.
''Once in a while you get a moment of great and dramatic change,'' said Kevin Ivers, national spokesman for the Log Cabin Republicans. ''Something definitely has happened here. The gay community has been more visible. More importantly, we have a nominee that for the first time is reaching out.''
Endorsing Bush was not a given for the gay GOP group. During the primary season, Bush refused to meet with gay leaders because, he said, pitting one group against another ''creates kind of a huge political, you know, nightmare for people.''
Once he clinched the nomination, Bush shifted gears and invited 12 gay leaders to meet with him in Austin. He asked for their support and pledged to work with Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, the platform chairman, to eliminate antigay provisions in the party's statement of principles. He also said that ''sexual orientation'' would not be a factor in appointing people to his campaign and administration.
Bush followed through on the platform, Ivers said. But the platform committee, controlled by conservative delegates, objected to the Bush-Thompson draft, which would have eliminated specific bans on gay marriage and gays in the military and would have given gays protection under antidiscrimination laws. Ivers said that by putting the blueprint forward and allowing a gay-rights debate in the platform committee, Bush was serious about his desire to include gays in the GOP.
The order against antigay rhetoric during the four-night convention was another sign that Bush knows that to win and govern, he must build a coalition broader than the Republicans' conservative base, Ivers said.
Log Cabin leaders are also hailing Bush for being the first candidate to name a running mate with an openly gay son or daughter. Mary Cheney, 31, is a lesbian who lives in Denver and left her job last spring as a liaison to the gay community at Coors Brewing Co. She is now studying for an MBA at the University of Colorado but is expected to take a leave to be an aide to her father this fall.
Yesterday, the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay rights, held a news conference to question how Bush can oppose hate-crime legislation, gay marriage, and adoption by gay couples when the daughter of his running mate is gay and will have a role in the GOP campaign.
''We've been watching this sunny, rosy, we-love-everybody convention, but when you get down to what the party stands for, it harms gay people,'' said David Smith, a spokesman for the gay-rights group, which has endorsed Democrat Al Gore. ''Mary Cheney's presence focuses attention on Bush's antigay policies.''
Dick Cheney, a former defense secretary, and his wife, Lynne, have been clear that they do not want their daughter to become an issue in this campaign or have her privacy invaded. ''I'm running for office, and [my children] are entitled to their privacy,'' Cheney said in a broadcast interview this week.
Lynne Cheney said in a separate interview that she was ''appalled at the media interest in one of my daughters.'' Reacting to a statement that her daughter was a lesbian, Lynne Cheney said, ''Mary has never declared such a thing.''
Mary Cheney has not spoken publicly, but she has been visible at the convention.
''The Bush campaign seems very clear and comfortable about whatever role Mary Cheney wants to play,'' Ivers said. ''What we are happy to see is a woman who is openly gay and is very much a part of her family and loved and embraced.''
