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"He has been totally ineffective in dealing with HIV and AIDS issues as well as issues that are important to the gay and lesbian community, especially the hate-crime bill," says Francisco Sanchez, the openly gay secretary of the Harris County Democratic Party.

Tim Thetford, a legislative aide to Rep. Harryette Ehrhardt, thinks Texas gays need to alert gays around the country to Bush's policies.

"I think we need to make a statement that we have a do-nothing governor on gay and lesbian issues who is paternalistic and will avoid any confrontational issue," says Thetford. "I think it's more dangerous to have a president who ignores our concerns than it is to have one who opposed them. At least we can dialogue with someone who opposes us."

Bush's blind eye toward the gay community has also been apparent to the local press. "He has never been that sympathetic to gay issues," notes Wendy Benjaminson, the political editor of the Houston Chronicle. "He is not sympathetic on hate crimes, on gay adoption or gay marriage."

Bush's attitude toward gays was reported in an exclusive story by political reporter Polly Hughes on the cover of the Houston Chronicle on Aug. 19. Maxey disclosed to Hughes what had been whispered about since the spring: a private conversation between the governor and Maxey, an openly gay legislator, after a particularly grueling legislative battle. According to Maxey, Bush pulled him aside and confided, out of earshot: "I value you as a human being, Glen, and I want you to know that what I say publicly about gay people is not directed at you personally."

Though the Bush camp dismissed Maxey's story as partisan spin, rumors had been circulating for months because Maxey had immediately after the exchange repeated the story verbatim to colleagues sitting nearby. "Do you believe what Bush just said to me?" is how a fellow legislator, who requested anonymity, described the interaction. Maxey also reported the story to several colleagues within days, and to another newspaper reporter, who confirmed the alleged Bush-Maxey exchange, but had not reported it because at the time Maxey had revealed if off the record.

But the cover story raising the issue of Bush's two faces toward the gay community barely made a ripple outside of Texas, because it collided with the late-summer firestorm that consumed the national media at the time: the did-he-or-didn't-he cocaine story. "We got the Maxey story the same day that the cocaine story broke, and it got overshadowed," Benjaminson says.

Another Bush trait that has dogged him on the campaign trail -- his unpreparedness on issues that don't personally interest him -- has been a longstanding irritation to Texas' gay community.

"There was a major demonstration in March, 6,000-8,000 marching to protest anti-gay-and-lesbian foster care and adoption legislation. The next day he's asked, 'Where do you stand?'" Maxey recalls. "He has no answer. None ... That kind of demonstration, and the very next day he's totally unprepared to respond."

Sanchez admits he is watching the Bush campaign with concern. "Over the past seven years [of the Clinton administration] we've seen tremendous progress at the executive level in how gays and lesbians are treated in the federal workplace and in the provision of health-care services and in the funding of HIV and AIDS issues. Those have been large-scale executive initiatives," says Sanchez. "If you put a person in that office who has exhibited no leadership in those areas, then we either don't move forward or we fall back, very far back."
salon.com | Nov. 19, 1999

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