Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I’m Gay
The Atlantic
by Marc Ambinder
Aug 25 2010Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay. Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter’s questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.
"It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago."
Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush "was no homophobe." He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called "the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now."
Mehlman’s leadership positions in the GOP came at a time when the party was stepping up its anti-gay activities — such as the distribution in West Virginia in 2006 of literature linking homosexuality to atheism, or the less-than-subtle, coded language in the party’s platform ("Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country…"). Mehlman said at the time that he could not, as an individual Republican, go against the party consensus. He was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans.
Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda. "It’s a legitimate question and one I understand," Mehlman said. "I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding"…
Maher’s quotes about gay Republicans cut from Larry King interview
tv squad
by Adam Finley
Nov 12, 2006
Maher made a couple remarks alleging that Republican Ken Mehlman was gay during his interview with Larry King on CNN Wednesday night. However, those of us who don’t live on the East coast never heard these remarks because they were edited out of the later time zones. When Maher said that the Republican Party was being run by "hypocritical gays," King asked for specifics, and Maher mentioned Mehlman, who resigned on Friday not because of the exchange between King and Maher, but because of the recent midterm election victory of the Democrats. The exchange was also edited out of later broadcasts. Maher said during the interview that he wasn’t the first person to "out" Mehlman as a homosexual, because he would have been sued if he had…
Here’s the understanding that I have. Karl Rove’s sleazy political dirty tricks include getting the fundamentalist Christians all paranoid that gay people were going to take over the world, then getting gay marriage on the ballot. Mehlman asks us to just understand that of course he couldn’t reveal his sexual orientation because it would undermine Karl’s little dirty trick. Effectiveness of dirty tricks trumps the truth. We do understand. That’s the whole point. We understand only too well. The anti-Gay Marriage campaign was just a political dirty trick – nothing more. They were using the churches to get out the vote, and Mehlman was a part of that, and he knew it.
While we were travelling in New York, I was channel flipping and came across a minister who was sermonizing about Barack Hussein Obama. According to him, Obama isn’t a Christian because he doesn’t witness for Jesus like Bush did. And then he hit the usual points – Reverend Wright, abortion, middle name, Obama’s boyhood in Malaysia, his dad, etc. Ergo, Obama is a Muslim. It’s the same thing – just another political trick – version 2010. It doesn’t matter any more than Gay Marriage mattered. It’s just politics. Another Rovism.
Politics aside, I’m a little more inclined to give Ken Mehlman the benefit of doubt on his “I didn’t know I was gay” statement. Having been there, I know the strength of denial, and being in a position where you have to consider, not just the effect on yourself and your family, but a national political party — or a psychoanalytic institute, as I did — only adds to what can be a really difficult process of self-acknowledgment of one’s sexual orientation.
I don’t mean to suggest that Ken didn’t know he had felt attractions to men. I don’t think that’s what he likely meant. As I read his quote, it was not “I didn’t know” but “I arrived at this conclusion only recently.”
Denial is powerful, especially when what you are trying to disavow is such an anathema to your current situation, whether it is marriage or a highly public position. And there really are people whose denial is bolstered by, perhaps, bisexual attractions. It’s not always simply either/or, gay/straight. I don’t know any more about his particular circumstances, and certainly not his inner life, but I don’t assume that he is only being disingenuous.
And it could be further complicated by his possibly having been in therapy with someone who was trying to help him “change” his sexual orientation. There are those out there who promote it, as we know, and he was in the kind of situation that might likely have led him to seek that avenue.
Now, this may not at all be applicable to Mahlman; he may be a craven opportunist who chose his moment carefully. But I do give him some credit for now spearheading a movement among moderate Republicans to support gay marriage.
Ralph,
I wanted to think that. I wanted to take this at face value:
But I remember him then, and I just don’t believe it was denial that kept him quiet. I believe it was Karl Rove:
… and maybe fears of upsetting the apple cart.
I’ve lived with denial too, for longer than I’d like to admit. I’d prefer hearing Mehlman say, “I was wrong. Even though I didn’t realize how wrong I was at the time, that doesn’t change the past. I hope to help people who were in my shoes avoid my own mistake. Using the innate qualities of others to discredit them and fuel prejudice in order to gain power is always a shameful act. I’m deeply sorry I participated by not speaking up.”
In his favor, I expect we will hear that from him somewhere down the road. Such things take time…