By Chad Groening and Jody Brown
April 16, 2001

(AgapePress) - The American Family Association and other pro-family groups are expressing great concern over the apparent drift of the Bush Administration away from a pro-family position regarding the homosexual rights movement.

The American Family Association says Bush campaigned as a conservative Christian who supported pro-family positions. But recent actions indicate that agenda has apparently changed. Last week, Bush appointed Scott Evertz, an open homosexual, to be director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. And perhaps even more disturbing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hired homosexual activist Stephen Herbits as an assistant to help screen applicants for the Defense Department.

AFA Director of Research Ed Vitagliano says the Bush Administration is opening its arms to homosexual activists.

"The problem with Herbits is that he has actively and aggressively pursued a policy and has desired and worked tirelessly to get the military to lift its ban on homosexuals," Vitagliano says. "So we find that these kinds of steps on the part of the Bush Administration would be part of a GOP plan to open its arms and embrace the homosexual movement."

Vitagliano says the Republican Party apparently does not take seriously the feelings of conservative Christians about the issue of homosexuality. He says it is an issue for pro-family groups that is not open to discussion.

"The American Family Association, like a number of other pro-family groups, are becoming increasingly uneasy about the Bush Administration," he says. "We're starting to see that the Republican Party as a whole does not really take seriously our feelings on the issue of homosexuality. This is a non-negotiable issue for pro-family groups, just as much as the abortion issue is."

"We certainly think it would be tragic if the White House and others in the Republican Party also abandoned pro-family groups on this issue, like the Democratic Party did years ago," Vitagliano says.

AFA President Donald Wildmon echoed Vitagliano's sentiments in a press release, saying it would be a "tragic miscalculation" if the GOP underestimated the depth of feeling on this issue among pro-family groups. "AFA would never support the policies of a political party which embraced the homosexual movement. Period," he said.

Other pro-family organizations are voicing their outrage to Herbits' and Evertz's appointment as well. According to The Washington Times, at least three other pro-family spokesmen are blasting the Bush Administration for its recent appointments of the two homosexual activists.

"An administration that has pledged to uphold the moral order has no business ... advancing the homosexual agenda through appointments. People are policy," says Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute of Concerned Women for America. "It appears [leaders of the Bush Administration] are trying to become the bisexual administration. They are trying to have it both ways."

Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of Traditional Values Coalition, singled out the Herbits selection, calling it "a slap in the face" to military personnel and to Congress, which has banned homosexuals in the military. "Herbits' appointment sends a message to Congress that the Defense Department openly supports homosexuals in the military," Sheldon says.

And Robert Maginnis of the Family Research Council calls the appointments "a one-two punch against the conservative community" from the Bush Administration. He says it is "inappropriate" to hire someone who opposes the Pentagon's ban on homosexuals in military service to evaluate "key people who will run the Pentagon."

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