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"We're by far the largest gay organization," says Birch, "so something is working." Though the group channels most of its campaign gifts to Democrats, H.R.C. is determined to prove it is not an auxiliary of the Democratic Party. Its board includes former G.O.P. Congressman Steve Gunderson. Of the 200 candidates the group endorsed this year, 14 were Republicans, including Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a chief sponsor of the hate-crimes bill. Now the group is locked in an internal struggle over whether to endorse New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato over his Democratic rival, Representative Charles Schumer. Though conservative on abortion rights and other liberal litmus tests, D'Amato has in recent years come around on most gay issues.
The White House has pressured some in H.R.C. to resist backing D'Amato. One way out is to endorse both candidates. But the logic of endorsing D'Amato runs this way: If a gay organization doesn't encourage Republicans who stick their neck out, why should they bother? And if H.R.C. backs a supportive Republican, wouldn't that foster a new generation of G.O.P. leaders who would respond to the more moderate politics of the G.O.P.'s growing younger and suburban base? "That party is at war with itself, and its best decision makers are not at the top," says Birch. "Trent Lott is making horrible mistakes."
In line with that thinking, there is small, careful movement within the G.O.P. To coincide with the August national convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the 10,000-member gay G.O.P. group, Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, made a point of welcoming gays into the party. "That's new," says Log Cabin executive director Rich Tafel. In the House this year, 30 Republicans joined Democrats to defeat a move to ban adoption by gays in the District of Columbia. Earlier, when Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado tried to revoke a Clinton Executive Order banning discrimination against gay federal employees, his measure was defeated, with the astonishing help of 63 Republican votes.
In the Senate, a handful of G.O.P. conservatives, including Utah's Orrin Hatch and Arizona's John McCain, have moved quietly, very quietly, in step with gay groups on issues like hate crimes, though not on more difficult ones like gay marriage. Eight years ago, Hatch was pivotal in helping overcome the resistance of Jesse Helms to win passage of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, which requires the Federal Government to keep data on bias crimes, including crimes against homosexuals. But he has not backed this year's hate-crimes bill publicly yet, lest he alienate conservative colleagues whose votes he will need for passage. Indeed, so sensitive is the matter that neither Hatch nor H.R.C. would discuss the bill's exact status last week.