Courting the Gay Vote.

• Author: Nichols, John
• Position: Presidential candidates for year 2000

When Vice President Al Gore showed up for a June meeting with young people at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Center, he was confronted by a skeptical Javier Garcia.

"I want to know exactly why you're here," said Garcia, twenty, challenging Gore with unusual bluntness.

Taken aback, Gore responded in classic political jargon. "I'm here to learn and to pay honor to the place," he said and praised the center for "helping to change attitudes and abolish some irrational discrimination that is all too common."

In spite of Gore's game effort, Garcia said he was "suspicious" that the visit might have something to do with the Vice President's desire to get an early start on the 2000 Presidential campaign.

Garcia, a polite young man who presented the Vice President with a book of poems by homeless gay and lesbian youths, had reason for his skepticism. After all, Gore's challenger for the Democratic Presidential nomination, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, Democrat of New Jersey, had appeared at the Center just one week earlier. Even as the Vice President offered his platitudes, his aides were dueling with Bradley's over which campaign had been the first to come up with the idea of making a Gay Pride Month visit to the Los Angeles center.

As Campaign 2000 gears up, electioneering and fundraising events targeted at the gay and lesbian community are headlining campaign schedules. In May, Gore met in Washington, D.C., with forty-five prominent lesbian and gay community activists, including executives and board members of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, AIDS Action, the Human Rights Campaign, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the National Black Lesbian and Gay Task Force, and the National Latina/Latino Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization.

Gore then whirled through a schedule of events set up to coincide with Gay Pride Month activities in San Francisco and Los Angeles. But when he got there, he found that Bradley had already covered much of the turf.

Gore has gone so far as to request a "gay reading list" from State Representative Carole Migden, Democrat of California. Meanwhile, Bradley aides have begun setting up one-on-one conversations with prominent gay and lesbian officials around the country--including U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, and veteran activist and Democratic fundraiser David Mixner--so the candidate can "get a feel for the community."

Despite their outreach, however, neither Gore nor Bradley has been willing to take the courageous positions that could inspire genuine enthusiasm among lesbian and gay voters. True, both Gore and Bradley have endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and national hate-crimes legislation. But, so far, their campaigns have shied away from the bold stances--support for gay marriage, for federal domestic partnership protections, and for a dramatic redirection of health care and research funding priorities to reflect the concerns of gay men and lesbians. It is these stances that might win the confidences of young people like Garcia, who listened intently to Gore's rap at the Los Angeles center, but still ended up asking, "What can you say to make us believe you will help the gay community?"

That question gets to the heart of the issue. But it doesn't always get a satisfactory response. While Presidential candidates are going out of their way to solicit support from lesbians and gays in the run-up to the 2000 election, their enthusiasm for votes and campaign contributions is not always matched by a willingness to do right by the targeted voters. As a result, some activists simply turn off to politics, while others struggle to discern subtle distinctions between candidates who speak in the same...