While other politicians are working toward next year’s elections, former U.S. Rep. Steve Gunderson spoke to Northwestern students Thursday night about being gay and Republican.
“I’m here because I lost all my friends to AIDS,” said Gunderson, in a speech held in Coon Forum and co-sponsored by the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance and College Republicans. “If you are a Republican and you had friends who were dying of AIDS, you had to speak up.”
Gunderson was re-elected to the House of Representatives last year after serving 16 years in his rural conservative Wisconsin district, but he resigned shortly after the election in November. He told CNN that he resigned because Congress was becoming too extreme on both sides of the political spectrum.
“I am the classic, religious all-American boy,” Gunderson said. “It took me 32 years to figure out I’m gay.”
Gunderson was “outed” in 1994 by California conservative and then-U.S. Congressman Bob Dornan, according to a CNN article last year. With the help of his partner, Rob Morris, Gunderson has become an activist for gay and lesbian issues, recognizing the impact of the AIDS epidemic.
“In the early 1990s, I chose to ignore (AIDS),” Gunderson said.
Music sophomore Darien Shulman said a gay Republican might sound like an oxymoron, but the party needs this growing constituency.
“I think the left no longer has a clear monopoly of the gay issues,” Shulman said. “The Republicans and Democrats will be equally courting us. This is a sign of things to come.”
Gunderson said early in his speech that the gay community must not look for the government to assist them in civil rights. Despite Bush’s recent appointment of gay Republican Scott Evertz to lead the White House office of National Aids Policy, Gunderson said the future of the community will depend on the marketplace and not in Bush’s cabinet.
“Human rights occurred in corporate America,” he said. “The gay and lesbian community liked Bill Clinton because he spoke like us and appointed us in government. It’s corporate America that has led us through the last eight years. There are no civil or human rights issues in the Bush agenda.”
In order to spearhead human rights issues from a “boring” gay agenda, Gunderson said the gay community must become bipartisan to have rights such as same-sex civil unions, insurance benefits and legislation against hate crimes.
“I don’t care where you are in the philosophical spectrum,” Gunderson said. “You are not going to feel uncomfortable. We, as a community, need to get good public relations to help our friends.”
During open discussion, a student asked Gunderson if same-sex marriages would “degrade” marriage as an institution. Gunderson said it is not homosexuality that corrupts marriage, but rather straight couples who cause divorce rates to rise.
Some audience members agreed.
“It’s silly that a gay civil union should degrade from marriage,” McCormick junior Daniel Engler said. “I don’t believe in legislating morality. There should be equal rights for everyone.”
Stressing the importance of conflict as the motivation for activism, Gunderson said: “If I could be home in Washington tonight eating a good meal and drinking a glass of wine or be here and go home at 1 a.m. to wake up for an 8 a.m. meeting tomorrow, there’s no question about it. I would be at home watching ‘Will and Grace’ tonight.”
