By now, most everyone has a gay friend or relative. Does anyone alive still believe that bachelor Uncle Bernie – the one with the special friend – is just waiting for the right girl to come along?

You would think that homosexuals would be considered simply human – good, bad, flawed – but ultimately human. Gay people are your sisters and sons, your fathers, mothers and aunts. They are raising families and serving in the military (don’t ask and they won’t tell).

But homosexuality is an issue that’s straining the “big tent” of the Republican Party.

With First Lady Laura Bush looking on, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice swore in Mark Dybul as U.S. global AIDS coordinator while his partner, Jason Claire, held the Bible. Rice referred to Claire’s mother as Dybul’s “mother-in-law,” and that upset Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and other conservative Christians.

Considering President Bush won re-election partly by campaigning against gay marriage, does Perkins’ reaction make sense?

Former congressman Newt Gingrich, explaining why Republican leaders didn’t do anything when they first learned of congressman Mark Foley’s “overly friendly” e-mails to pages, said: “I think had they overly aggressively reacted, they would have also been accused of gay bashing.”

First, I laughed. Do Republicans really believe they have a reputation of sensitivity toward the feelings of gays that needs to be protected?

Then, I stopped laughing. Why is the scandal of a 52-year-old congressman preying on teen-agers a “gay” thing as opposed to a predator abuse of power thing? One sure way to offend homosexuals is to ally them with a Congressman who sent obscene e-mails to pages while promoting legislation against the people who do that sort of thing.

There will always be people like Pat Robertson, who said on his television show that Republicans should respond to the Foley scandal by saying, “Well, this man’s gay, he does what gay people do, and so don’t worry about it.” This, while opposing the civil unions that presumably would encourage stability.
And I’m not so naive as to think that misbehavior with a female congressional page would have gotten the same reaction. We’re a nation that loves its tabloid touch of titillation. Still, I had not expected the link of “gay” and “predator” to have such legs.

Gay elected officials and political workers burrow deeper into the closet as yes, Perkins again, and others blame the Foley cover-up on a network of gay congressional staffers. The closet door is cracked open just long enough to yank out a scapegoat.

Republicans hold onto a “family values” platform that assumes homosexuals can’t have either one.

Yet Laura Bush smiles as a happy family is honored and promoted.

Can the GOP have it both ways?