Log Cabin's Drug Money
After all the homophobia that spewed forth during campaign 2004, the Log Cabin Republicans amazingly continue to grovel before the Bush White House, even as Karl Rove has decided they're not even worth licking the dirt from under his toe nails. A lot of people thought that Log Cabin's refusal to endorse George W. Bush during the election campaign was some sort of turning point for the group. I remember running into a gay Democratic fundraiser at the Log Cabin's 'Big Tent' event during the Republican National Convention, at the Bryant Park Grill in Manhattan.
'This is a new Log Cabin,' he told me. 'This is a big deal that they are not going to endorse him. Finally we're seeing the group having matured and realizing that it can't just be used. That's why I've helped them raise money and am supporting them, even though I'm a Democrat.'
I rolled my eyes, knowing that any spine on the part of Log Cabin was a mere aberration. And here we are, just a few months after Rove and Bush used the federal marriage amendment to gay-bash their way to re-election, and the Log Cabinites have announced they're offering to help Bush push through his draconian social security privatization plan—perhaps because they're quietly on the dole from the multinational corporations that would benefit under the plan. The Bushies are so desperate to light a fire under their dud of a 'reform' plan—with Bush on a 60-day, 60-stop tour—you'd think they'd take all the help they can get. But so far, the only use they've had for gays in this effort has been to once again make them into Willie Hortons, using images of gay men to smear groups that oppose Bush. And that underscores how absolutely devoid of integrity and starved for validation the Log Cabinites really are.
Last month, in the same week in which the Republican front group USA Next ran ads using a gay Oregon couple to tar the American Association for Retired Persons ( AARP ) because it didn't support Bush's plan, the Log Cabinites told ABC News they were going to aid Bush in breathing life into his dead-on-arrival privatization plan.
'Now the election of 2004 is over,' Christopher Barron, the Log Cabin Republicans' political director told ABC. 'And we think there are opportunities to work with this president. The fact is the gay and lesbian community has to realize that the president won.'
His timing couldn't have been worse. Just as Barron was making those comments, USA Next, which includes some of the Swift Boat Veterans assassins who slimed John Kerry, began running the now-infamous ads showing the Oregon men in tuxedos kissing just after they were married, above the tag line, 'The Real AARP Agenda.' The idea of course was to demonize the AARP, which has been vocal against Bush's plan. Charlie Jarvis, the head of USA Next, told The New York Times that the AARP is a 'boulder' in the 'middle of the highway' to social security privatization, and that his group was the 'dynamite' that would remove it by spending $10 million on ads showing AARP to be a radical 'liberal' organization.
Like the rest of the right-wing hatchetmen, Jarvis isn't above deceit and trickery, as AARP —a nearly 50-year-old non-partisan group that has lobbied on behalf of senior citizens and actually sided with Bush on his appallingly duplicitous prescription drug bill in late 2003—had no position on same-sex marriage. Even as the gay couple has now launched a $25 million lawsuit against USA Next for using their image—and a federal judge last week issued a temporary restraining order against the group—the White House has refused to condemn the ads.
The fact that a gay Republican group would actually pledge to help the White House in its quest to privatize social security even as the White House's front group is using gays as a whipping post on the issue is outrageous. And many gay Republicans around the country—many of them current and former Log Cabin members—are decrying this ugly pandering. One member from Oregon wrote me last week to say it had forced him to make the step and register as a Democrat.
But Log Cabin's leadership perhaps has no choice if it wants to see its money sources left in tact, as it is bankrolled by an industry that is heavily backing Bush and his privatization plan. For years now it has been evident that Log Cabin couldn't possibly exist on its measly membership and its dues. For a long time the group has taken money from pharmaceutical companies such a Glaxo-Welcome and Pfizer—in $50,000 to $150,000 contributions. Log Cabin has in return acted as a lobbying arm for Big Pharma, urging Congress not to allow generic AIDS drugs in foreign countries, for example, even at the cost of millions of lives around the world. Having gays lobby against cheaper AIDS drugs has a certain cache—like having Blacks lobby against affirmative action —and in that way Log Cabin can be of value to the right.
It has also helped some Log Cabin leaders to parlay their meager influence-peddling in bigger jobs as full-out drug industry shills. Abner Mason, a one-time national president of Log Cabin Republicans and a member of Bush's presidential AIDS commission, now heads the curiously titled AIDS Responsibility Project ( ARP ) , a front group for the drug industry that lobbies to stop generic drugs. ( That someone shilling for the pharmaceutical industry is on Bush's AIDS commission also points to the fact that the commission, under Bush, is a complete travesty. ) Rich Tafel, former executive director of Log Cabin, is on the ARP board and has his own company, RLT Strategies, which has also lobbied foreign governments and corporations on behalf of American drug companies.
Ironically, the same drug companies fund USA Next, the group that is using homophobia to bash the AARP. Under a different name ( United Seniors Association ) , USA Next shilled for the pharmaceutical companies during the congressional battle over the prescription drug bill in 2003. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America funded most of a $4.6 million ad campaign launched that year by USA targeting both Democrats and Republicans who opposed the deceptive prescription bill, which Bush ultimately pushed through in part by lying about the price tag. The drug companies of course don't care who gets hurt by privatizing social security. Their only concern is making more profit, even if that means funding groups that bash gays to achieve their agenda, or giving money to those gay people who are so greedy and lacking in dignity that they'll help out in the bashing.
