Immigrant Measure Still Backed by Gays

Advocates focused their fury on several Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, which considered more than 300 amendments to the bill, after the senators warned the chairman, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, that they would not vote for an amendment he wanted to introduce. The measure by Mr. Leahy, also a Democrat, would have allowed American citizens to seek permanent resident status — a document known as a green card — for a foreign same-sex partners.

But as the bill now moves to the Senate floor, the political damage from the episode for the Democrats — including senators who have been firm allies of gay causes like Mr. Leahy, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois — may not be as severe as it first appeared. Gay rights advocates, stepping back from the loss, said the overhaul still contained many measures that could benefit gay immigrants, most of which came through the committee gantlet unscathed.

Other provisions that the committee agreed to add to the bill, dealing with asylum and immigration detention, had been the subject of vigorous lobbying by gay organizations.

The committee outcome was a relief for Republicans in the bipartisan group of eight senators that wrote the bill, who had said the same-sex amendment would cripple the entire measure. By fending it off, Republicans held on to crucial support from evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics.

“To try to redefine marriage within the immigration bill would mean the bill would fall apart,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, told Mr. Leahy in the moments of high suspense last Tuesday evening before the Vermont senator announced his decision. Mr. Graham said support from conservative evangelical churches, which have put on an ambitious campaign to pass the overhaul, “made it possible for a guy like me to survive the emotional nature of this debate.”

One activist who had intensely mixed feelings about the committee’s results was Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez, co-director of Get Equal, an organization that seeks legal equality for gay people.

“I can’t deny my outrage when I felt betrayed,” said Mr. Sousa-Rodriguez, who said he had delivered thousands of petitions to Mr. Schumer’s Washington office just a week earlier.

But he said he was ready to push for the bill on the Senate floor, where lawmakers expect to take it up the week of June 10. “Many of my friends will benefit from the overall legislation,” he said.

Like many gay advocates, Mr. Sousa-Rodriguez, who was born in Brazil, sees the legislation from several angles. He is one of as many as 1.7 million young immigrants who were brought here illegally as children. Those immigrants would be eligible under the Senate bill for an accelerated five-year path to citizenship. They include a vocal contingent of youths who are gay.

But Mr. Sousa-Rodriguez is also legally married to an immigrant from Colombia, Juan, who is about to become an American citizen. If the same-sex amendment were to become law, Mr. Sousa-Rodriguez’s husband could seek a green card for him immediately, without waiting five years. In the Judiciary Committee debate, Mr. Leahy kept everyone, including his own staff, wondering until the final hour whether he would formally introduce the same-sex amendment. He had sponsored similar legislation many times in the Senate, and he left no doubt in his opening statement about his strong support for the provision.

But then he turned to the other senators on the committee, asking them for their views. In agonized comments the Democrats, also including Dianne Feinstein of California and Al Franken of Minnesota, replayed the Republican warnings that the measure would be a deal breaker.

According to several Senate aides, the Democrats were surprised and miffed that Mr. Leahy shifted the burden to them to nix the amendment.

“He did it in a way that made others walk the plank and kept his hands clean,” one Democratic aide said, “and that was not appreciated.”

In the end Mr. Leahy withheld his amendment, leaving open the option of introducing it later. The committee sent the bill to the Senate floor on a strong bipartisan vote.

View the original article here

Reagan’s Daughter Says He’d Have Backed Gay Marriage

Patti Davis, a Los Angeles writer and the onetime rebellious daughter of Reagan and his second wife, Nancy, said in a telephone interview that she never discussed same-sex marriage with the former president, who died in 2004 just as it was emerging as a political issue.

But Ms. Davis, now 60, offered several reasons her father, who would have been 102 this year, would have bucked his party on the issue: his distaste for government intrusion into private lives, his Hollywood acting career and close friendship with a lesbian couple who once cared for Ms. Davis and her younger brother Ron while their parents were on a Hawaiian vacation — and slept in the Reagans’ king-size bed.

“I grew up in this era where your parents’ friends were all called aunt and uncle,” Ms. Davis said. “And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times.” She added, “We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.”

Once when she and her father were watching a Rock Hudson movie, Ms. Davis said, she remarked that the actor “looked weird” kissing his female co-star. She said her father explained that Mr. Hudson “would rather be kissing a man,” and conveyed, without using the words homosexual or gay, the idea that “some men are born wanting to love another man.” Years later, in 1985, Mr. Hudson died of AIDS.

Ms. Davis, a former actress who has made news over the years by posing nude in Playboy and, more recently, the magazine More, has just self-published a novel, “Till Human Voices Wake Us,” about sisters-in-law who fall in love and leave their husbands. (She said it was not autobiographical.)

She first shared her views about her father with a friend, Howard Bragman, who has a YouTube show devoted to gay issues and interviewed her about her book.

Ms. Davis is not the only Reagan child speaking out on same-sex marriage. Michael E. Reagan, a conservative commentator and son of the former president and his first wife, Jane Wyman, recently wrote an opinion piece accusing churches of “wimping out” by not fighting harder to block same-sex marriage.

But the younger Mr. Reagan did not address his father’s views, and Ms. Davis said she would not “get into a family feud” with her half-brother.

Mr. Reagan had a mixed record on gay rights. As president, he infuriated many gay people with his slow response to the AIDS epidemic, but as a former governor of California he joined a number of Democrats, including President Jimmy Carter, in opposing a ballot measure that would have barred gays and lesbians from working in public schools.

Ms. Davis said her father “did not believe that gayness was a choice,” although “as a straight man and an old-fashioned man, it’s not like he understood it.”

Ms. Davis’s comments are certain to inflame conservative admirers of her father.

Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist and gay rights opponent, said in an interview that Mr. Reagan — who as governor signed the nation’s first “no-fault” divorce law and later told his son Michael it was his “greatest regret” — would never have stood for same-sex marriage.

“Of course, Reagan did associate with all the Hollywood crowd, and chances are he probably knew a number of gays,” Ms. Schlafly said. “I could understand that he might not have wanted to bar them from a job but that would not mean he would want them to get a marriage license.”

Ms. Davis said she expects conservative discontent with her, adding, “All I know is the heart of the man who raised me as my father.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 8, 2013

An article on Thursday about Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald Reagan and his second wife, Nancy, and her view that Mr. Reagan would have supported same-sex marriage, referred incorrectly to Mr. Reagan’s political position at the time he opposed a ballot measure that would have barred gays and lesbians from working in public schools. He was a former governor of California at the time, not the governor.

View the original article here

GOP targets demographic groups that backed Obama in 2008

George P. Bush hopes dissatisfaction with the Obama White House will help him draw young professionals to become donors and activists in the Republican Party.

File photo by Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

George P. Bush addresses the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York.

File photo by Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

George P. Bush addresses the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The grandson of former president George H.W. Bush and son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the younger Bush is setting up chapters of his Texas-based Maverick PAC in several key swing states to try to mobilize young Republicans.

Bush's group is one of several Republican efforts underway to try to peel away parts of the coalition that helped Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008 and organizers pledge each is bigger and more thorough than in years past.

Women, Hispanics and young voters are among the demographic groups where Obama beat Sen. John McCain last cycle and areas where many Republicans believe they can pull disaffected voters into their camp come November.

The Obama campaign has no intention of ceding those groups that helped it win the White House, and have a number of micro-targeting operations of its own. The Obama campaign website has separate pages for women, youth, "Jewish Americans," and more.

But with an uncertain economic environment and nearly seven months of campaigning to go, Republicans are convinced that with time, money and boots on the ground, this election could be different.

Bush and Jay Zeidman, a former staffer in the George W. Bush administration, began MavPAC several years ago but this year are poised to spend more than $1 million to "go out and target younger Americans and get them engaged in politics."

MavPAC is now opening chapters in traditionally Republican states that Obama carried, such as North Carolina, Virginia and Indiana.

The group caters to individuals who are out of college, want to be politically involved but are not yet ready to write huge checks to support candidates.

Bush acknowledged that Obama won younger voters across all demographic lines in 2008, in part through vigorous outreach, and as a result "that is part of our goal, to mitigate that margin."

"For the majority of our members this is the first time they have participated financially in the political process," Zeidman said.

"Young people need to be at least at the table and be part of the debate because otherwise these huge, looming questions with respect to the $17 trillion debt are going to be decided by people that don't have as much of a stake in it as we do," Bush said.

While not affiliated with any other Republican organizations, the MavPAC effort mirrors strategies taking place on a larger scale.

Last week, the Republican National Committee and the campaign of likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney launched a full court press to convince female voters that the Obama administration has been bad for women.

The reason: several recent polls, including a CNN poll released Monday, have shown Romney significantly trailing Obama among female voters.

On Monday the RNC made it clear Hispanics will also be a focal point of its 2012 campaign.

"We are going to engage Hispanics and Latinos like we've never done before," said RNC Chairman Reince Preibus in a conference call with reporters. The RNC is placing on-the-ground Hispanic outreach coordinators in six battleground states — Florida, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia and North Carolina — to promote the Republican economic agenda in particular.

The conference call occurred the day after NBC reported Romney had been overheard at a Florida fundraising event saying "We have to get Hispanic voters to vote for our party."

The Obama campaign on Wednesday rolled out a major Hispanic outreach effort of its own.

The commitment of resources to less traditional Republican voters may not pay dividends right away, said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center. He warned that even if they are mobilized by one party they still may vote for another.

Keeter said Democrats should not take young and Latino voters for granted.

"The (recession) has hit both of these groups very hard," he said.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here