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Amazing how finding your gay changes your attitude.


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Too bad some of our great GOP idiots are not gay.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/28/kathr ... 41775.html

Kathryn Lehman Doma

Kathryn Lehman, who nearly two decades ago helped write the Defense of Marriage Act, is now working to get it repealed.

WASHINGTON -- It has been 16 years since Kathryn Lehman was a Republican Hill staffer working on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

Now Lehman's back on Capitol Hill, in a new capacity: as a lesbian GOP lobbyist trying to repeal the law she helped write.

Things were pretty different in Lehman's world in 1996. She was engaged to a man. Same-sex marriage wasn't legal anywhere. And the public perception of what it meant to be gay wasn't anything like it is now, she says.

"There was nobody married, it wasn’t allowed anywhere," Lehman recalls. "The view of gay people ... it wasn't Ellen [DeGeneres]. It wasn't Neil Patrick Harris. It was kinky sex and women riding around on motorcycles without shirts on. That was sort of the view that the community projected as well."

"It wasn't people that you know, people that you work with, people just like everybody else."

Lehman, now 52, was chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution. She says she and her colleagues working on DOMA didn't think it would do much harm. They had two goals in mind: to prevent the federal government from recognizing any marriage between gay couples, and to ensure that states didn't have to recognize gay couples married in other states.

As it turns out, DOMA has hurt gay and lesbian couples in a multitude of ways. It denies medical leave pay for about 43,000 employees who leave to care for a same-sex partner, according to the think tank The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law. It denies health care benefits and work/injury compensation for more than 30,000 same-sex spouses of federal employees. It denies about 68,000 veterans with same-sex partners the ability to share their pension and educational benefits. It denies equal treatment in inheritance tax, in filing joint income tax returns, in spousal protections for long-term care under Medicaid and in the process of acquiring a green card for an estimated 26,000 bi-national couples.

None of these things seemed particularly controversial to Lehman since, she says, nobody was even talking about gay marriage as a real possibility 16 years ago. Still, something Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said during one of the committee hearings on DOMA stuck with her. At the time, Frank was the only openly gay member of Congress.

"I remember Barney Frank saying at the time, 'I don't understand how me being married to my partner hurts your ability to be married,'" she recalls. "And I remember thinking, 'Yeah, I don't either.'"

In the years to come, the arc of Lehman’s career and personal journey would come to mirror how, in many ways, the country itself is evolving in its understanding of gay and lesbian individuals and couples.

Lehman, who says she was “totally in love†with her fiancé despite struggling with the possibility that she might be a lesbian, got married after DOMA passed. She says she was "happily married" until 2001, at which point her husband abruptly wanted out. Lehman says she was devastated, but put herself in therapy and made a commitment to herself to pick up the pieces and start anew.

"I think I'd always been afraid to go to therapy because I thought they were going to say, 'You're gay,' and I didn't really want to hear it," she says. It took her a year just to tell her therapist that she'd once been with a woman. As time went on, she came to terms with her sexuality and eventually embraced it.

In the meantime, Lehman's career was taking off. In 1997, one year after DOMA's passage and eight years after starting her work on the House Judiciary Committee, she became special assistant to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). From there she became policy director to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and then director of coalitions and outreach for House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.). In 2003, she took over the top post under House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), helping to craft legislative and floor strategies for House Republicans.

At the Republican National Convention in 2004, Lehman ran into someone she had known for years, Julie Conway, a political fundraiser. They had been friends in the past, but Lehman says something shifted for her when she saw Conway this time, and they soon began dating -- and are still partners today. President George W. Bush was also at the convention, of course, and Lehman recalls that as sparks were flying for her, Bush was giving a speech about protecting traditional marriage. At the time, she says, she only "sort of" laughed at the irony.

Lehman, who was and still is staunchly conservative, decided after several months to start telling her peers about her relationship with Conway. Many worked for powerful Republican leaders in Congress. The first friend she told was in Hastert's office; the next was in House Majority Whip Roy Blunt's office. Both were supportive of her relationship. She went on to tell more friends, and none had a negative reaction. In fact, many were more concerned about something else besides her sexual orientation.

"They were like, 'Well, tell us about Julie. Is she a Republican?' I'm like, 'Yes.' And they were like, 'Oh, okay,'" she says. "Honestly, that was it."

Her family was not as supportive. She says the news wasn’t “particularly easy†on her father, a high school choir director in Pittsburgh, Pa., where Lehman grew up. But he was still “happy that I found someone that I was happy with,†she says, and he was proud of her career success. As for Lehman’s mother, Lehman says only that the two are not close. “She knows about Julie and I,†Lehman says. "She always says to say hello to Julie.â€

Lehman, who graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1982 and earned her law degree from Catholic University, left Capitol Hill in 2005 to join the law firm Holland & Knight, where she works now. She has about half a dozen clients and lobbies House Republicans on policy issues ranging from energy to health care to appropriations.

Lehman’s turning point on DOMA came when she read a 2009 legal brief by Ted Olson, the Republican attorney who surprised many by helping to bring a lawsuit against Proposition 8, California's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. In his brief, Olson, who was formerly President George W. Bush's solicitor general, mapped out various groups of people who are allowed to get married -- people in prison, convicted rapists -- while gay and lesbian couples cannot.

A lot of things in the U.S. that had been done one way "were crap and we got rid of them," Lehman says, thinking back to Olson's brief. "Traditionally, women didn't work outside the home. Traditionally, in the South, black people sat in the back of the bus. It's all part of things traditionally that have changed for the better."

Lehman says she began to think about what had motivated GOP leaders to pass DOMA in the first place. She says she realized "the great threat" they were all worried about never materialized. Asked what they were so afraid would happen if gay people got married, she says she wasn't really sure.

"Maybe we thought it was going to be more married people in ass-less chaps?" she says.

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Interesting story - sad for all the other people who continue to be affected by this law. I had to laugh at this though:

T

"They were like, 'Well, tell us about Julie. Is she a Republican?' I'm like, 'Yes.' And they were like, 'Oh, okay,'" she says. "Honestly, that was it."

.

Like, despite our biases we're JUST FINE with your being gay as long as your girlfriend's REPUBLICAN!!!11!!

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For the life of me, I can't figure out how a gay man or a lesbian could bring themselves to be Republicans. I remember seeing Dick Cheney's daughter on stage with her father at the 2004 convention. All I could think is she is the gay equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

I just don't get it.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out how a gay man or a lesbian could bring themselves to be Republicans. I remember seeing Dick Cheney's daughter on stage with her father at the 2004 convention. All I could think is she is the gay equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

I just don't get it.

^This

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Well, sometimes the people who are working the hardest against gay marriages are closest gays themselves. Sometimes, it takes the courage of others to make you realize your own cowardice.

I have a couple of gay friends, one of which I invited over to my house often. My parents are Chinese and don't understand the 'gay thing' because they grew up in a country which categorized it as a disease and perversion (until 2001). My parents don't talk about this. It's on a long list of stuff we don't talk about (sex, birth control, sex, pregnancy, sex...).

However, when my friend would always come over to the house, he got to know my parents really well. M parents thought he was nice and kept on asking me if he had a girlfriend. I thought about telling them he was gay. Unfortunately, that broached a conversation I wasn't comfortable talking about (because it had to do with sex). So I told my friend to avoid telling my parents he was gay. My friend, who probably gets this alot, said he understood and acted his old charming self. It makes me sad to this day that I missed the chance to introduce a gay friend to my parents. I think it would go a long way to making them realize gays can be normal and successful.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out how a gay man or a lesbian could bring themselves to be Republicans. I remember seeing Dick Cheney's daughter on stage with her father at the 2004 convention. All I could think is she is the gay equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

I just don't get it.

One of my gay friends is very very conservative.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out how a gay man or a lesbian could bring themselves to be Republicans. I remember seeing Dick Cheney's daughter on stage with her father at the 2004 convention. All I could think is she is the gay equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

I just don't get it.

Well, her father's position cushions her against some of the privatizations suffered by other gays (loss of benefits, spousal support etc). I also think she agrees with so many other Republican issues that it outweighs what the Republican position on being gay. She likes to say being gay doesn't define her. Really, what she means is being Republican has been good for her.

It's like when some slaves were advocates of their own enslavement because they have a cushy job as a favored house slave. It never occurs to them a slave is still a slave, no matter how dressed up. Perhaps Dick Cheney's daughter have realized, with a child now, how precarious her family's situation is with some of the policies advocated by her father's friends.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out how a gay man or a lesbian could bring themselves to be Republicans. I remember seeing Dick Cheney's daughter on stage with her father at the 2004 convention. All I could think is she is the gay equivalent of an Uncle Tom.

I just don't get it.

I think it's because they put money ahead of social issues. If you have a lot of money and want to keep as much as possible, vote Republican.

This story just illustrates what most of us already know - gay people are just like you and me, the only difference is their sex life and that isn't any of our business.

I'll bet Lehman's coming out changed many minds because people who thought they didn't know anyone gay realized not only did they know a lesbian, but she was still their friend Kathryn and knowing she preferred women didn't change who she was or what they liked about her.

Anyone who claims "I don't know any gay people" actually does, but the gay people they know prefer to keep closeted rather than deal with the claimant's homophobia.

ETA: As I typed this, YPestis posted pretty much the same thing - a gay friend who didn't out himself to YPestis' parents because of the trouble it would cause. If they had been aware of his homosexualty YPestis' parents might realize gay people are nothing to fear... but YPestis' friend was not under any obligation to put his comfort in the YPestis home at risk just to try and broaden their minds a bit. Not every gay person has to be an activist for their cause, YPestis' friend chose not to be, nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

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Not every gay person has to be an activist for their cause, YPestis' friend chose not to be, nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

No problem with not wanting to be an activist, but to actively be involved in a party that derides the rights of lesbians and gay men? I just don't get it.

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From the Republican Party's official platform:

Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages†licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.

Nice scare quotes around "marriages."

Military priorities and mission must determine personnel policies. Esprit and cohesion are necessary for military effectiveness and success on the battlefield. To protect our servicemen and women and ensure that America’s Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture, and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.

This is the 2008 platform, but I can't imagine that the 2012 platform will be any different. If anything, it will be more hostile.

I understand fiscal conservatism. I don't agree with it myself, but I can see why it would make sense to other people. What I cannot understand, however, is why any self-respecting member of society would support a political party that a) fundamentally hates who they are as people and b) makes that hate an intrinsic part of the party's core values. I just don't get it.

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