yesthattom | Jun. 13th, 2004

Andrew Sullivan:

I've known David Catania for years, and count him as a friend and a bit of a hero. He ran as a white gay Republican in Washington D.C. for the city council and has been re-elected, and become something of a legend in the city. He's an inclusive, tax-cutting, bureaucracy-terrorizing, rising political star. But he won't be endorsing George W. Bush in November, for the obvious reason. So he's been barred from being a delegate to the Convention. Here's a money quote from an interview in Salon: "Whether or not a few [gay] leaders stay with the party until they drop dead isn't the issue. The fact of the matter is, there ain't no there there anymore. . . . The president decided to trot out a constitutional amendment to remind us, even though we are already reminded daily, that we are second-class citizens. In case we harbored any illusions that we were equal, he wants to write this into the Constitution. He'll be lucky if he gets 12 percent [of the gay vote] in this election." 12 percent? I'd say 5 percent.