Republican gay rights group hits Bush, Romney stances

As state lawmakers prepare today to debate a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Massachusetts, a Republican gay rights group is taking the offensive on two fronts: going to the airwaves nationally to take on President Bush and going public locally to highlight its split with Governor Mitt Romney.

Accusing Romney of misleading them two years ago to win their support, leaders of the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts

are asking members to come to Beacon Hill today to argue against efforts to ban gay marriage. "He's definitely changed his tune," said David Rogers, vice president of the Massachusetts group. "I would have strong reservations about ever endorsing him again."

The national Log Cabin Republicans unveiled a $1 million advertising campaign yesterday to defeat a proposed federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. National Log Cabin leaders warned the Republican Party that they also would fight the party or President Bush if either makes support of a federal amendment a key issue in the general election.

"The radical right wanted a culture war," said Patrick Guerriero, the group's executive director and a former mayor and state legislator from Melrose. "They've got it now. Thousands of Log Cabin Republicans and our allies are ready to fight back."

The 30-second ads will run in Washington, D.C., and seven presidential battleground states, and are being launched to coincide with today's debate on Beacon Hill. The ads include excerpts of the 2000 vice presidential debate, in which Dick Cheney defends the rights of gay couples to "enter into any kind of relationship they want to" and says that states should have the authority to regulate and recognize marriages or civil unions and create their own policies to accommodate them. The ads will air in Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.

The ad campaign is the first by the Log Cabin Republicans since the group was founded 27 years ago. It highlights a fissure within the Republican Party over an issue that party operatives anticipate will motivate social conservatives to vote for Bush this fall.

But the Log Cabin Republicans, which supported Bush in the 2000 election, has attempted to move the party to the political center on social issues.

"We are making clear that if the Republican Party takes a path to use gay and lesbian families as a wedge issue, there will be one Republican organization that exposes it," Guerriero said. "Loyalty does not mean checking your principles at the door. It means telling your president and your party when they are wrong." Guerriero was forced to abandon his campaign for lieutenant governor in 2002, after Romney declined to endorse him in the primary. He declined to comment yesterday on Romney's handling of the gay marriage issue.

The criticism from the Log Cabin Club highlights the precarious political situation confronting the governor as he pushes to ban gay marriage. Massachusetts is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and Romney was elected with support of political moderates. He risks alienating them as he lobbies the Legislature to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Rogers, who was president of the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts when Romney was a gubernatorial candidate in 2002, said that while Romney made clear he was opposed to gay marriage, he said that he would fight any form of discrimination and left the impression he wouldn't crusade against gay rights. Romney's meeting with Log Cabin Club members in October of that year, less than a month before the gubernatorial election, led members to believe he was not morally opposed to gay marriage.

"He said, `Right now, it's not popular, and it would cost money,' " he said. "He didn't say, when we met with him, `I'm sorry, folks; I'm against gay marriage because it's morally wrong.' He didn't say that." Romney told them he did not support a constitutional amendment, then before the Legislature, that would have banned gay marriage and outlaw domestic partnership benefits for gay couples, Rogers said.

In part based on the responses Romney gave at the meeting, the group decided to endorse him in the general-election campaign against Democrat Shannon P. O'Brien. The Romney campaign wielded that endorsement as a shield when O'Brien accused Romney of trying to "mask a very conservative set of belief systems" on gay rights and other social issues.

Romney's press secretary, Shawn Feddeman, said the governor has been consistent on issues of gay rights. He opposes gay marriage and civil unions, but favors extending some rights, including health and survivor benefits, to gay couples.

"Since his campaign, the governor's position has been clear," Feddeman said. "He does not support gay marriage. However, he does support extending basic civil rights and certain benefits to same-sex couples."

Kenneth Sanchez, the current president of the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts, said his group's members feel that Romney isn't representing conservative values. Instead, he said, the governor is trying to further his national ambitions by giving in to political expediency. "Any assault on a document that guarantees freedoms flies in the face of being conservative," Sanchez said. "We cannot compromise on an issue of such basic civil rights."

The Lob Cabin Club of Massachusetts did not turn out in force when the Legislature debated gay marriage amendments last month. But now, in part because Romney is working with lawmakers to outlaw gay marriage and not establish civil unions, many of the group's members feel it's important to demonstrate that not all Republicans oppose gay marriage, Sanchez said. "We'll get a decent turnout," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to show another side of the Republican Party."

Klein reported from Boston; Leonard from Washington. Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.