Following a stormy meeting with the leadership of the religious right, senior White House aides conferred with 200 gay Republicans, according to the New York Times.
WASHINGTON, May 9 — At a time of intense debate over the relationship between gays and Republicans, 200 members of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, met today with senior White House officials. The name of Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican whose impolitic remarks about gays prompted the current debate, did not come up.
Instead, participants said, the session was devoted to education, judicial nominees and AIDS.
The religious right’s leadership didn’t help its relationship with the Republican leadership when it interrogated and threatened Republican National Committee chairman Marc Racicot. The religious right has failed to learn that you can only threaten someone so many times before they will begin to ignore you and, in small ways, accommodate your opposition.