Blogcabin California

     The Log Cabin Club of San Francisco/Concerned Republicans for Individual Rights is the oldest predominantly LGBT Republican volunteer organization in the nation. 
        In the mid-1970’s, there was a flowering of the Gay Community in San Francisco and new organizations were forming overnight, such as the Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, Golden Gate Business Association, the Gay Men’s Chorus, and the Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day Marching Band.  Politically, there were three Gay Democratic clubs – Stonewall, Milk, and Alice which spoke to the interests of liberals and progressives in the Community, but not to the emerging population of moderates and conservatives coming out of the closet.

        At the same time, the San Francisco Republican Party had suffered major losses of registration and at the polls, and both the Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan factions of the Party saw the need to reach out to the Gay Community of San Francisco in the belief that many of its members (who were well-educated, success-ful business and professional persons, and homeowners and taxpayers) shared common values with the Republican Party.
        These two forces came together on August 2, 1977, in the living room of Bob and Bertha Nelson and Concerned Republicans for Individual Rights (CRIR) was formed.  Seated around the table were the Nelsons, John Molinari, Lee Dolson, Mike and Cathy Henderson, Sue Woods, Tom Isenberg and his lover Don James (who became the club’s first Secretary/ Treasurer and President, respectively) , and several other Gay Republicans.*  The club started tabling at 18^th and Castro, and within a month, its membership had grown to 30.  On September 26, 1977, the club was chartered by the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee. 
 

 Critical to the success of the club over the past twenty-five years has been the active participation of several non-Gay members on its Board of Directors, including:  Mike and Kathy Henderson, Leanne Guth, Dominica Leong, James Bourgart, Barbara Chiodo, and former Supervisor Lee S. Dolson, Jr.
             Also, essential to the character of the club was the recognition from the very beginning that among CRIR’s Gay members, some were Gays who happened to be Republican, others were Republicans who happened to be Gay, and still others valued equally the fact that they were Gay and were Republican.  To address the needs of these members, the club developed the dual role of educating Republican candidates, office-holders, and party leaders about what it means to be a Gay Republican and to become sensitive about issues of concern to Gay people, and to act as a voice of moderation within both the Gay Community and San Francisco politics.   In addition to its political work, the club over the years has raised thousands of dollars for charities within the Community.
             Originally, the club met at members’ homes, but when that proved impracticable because of the increased number of people attending, CRIR moved its meetings to the Metropolitan Community Church on Eureka Street.  (Since 1981, the club has met in various bars and restaurants in the downtown area, the German Oak Restaurant in the Castro, the Urban Life Center of St. Marks Lutheran Church, and now at the LGBT Community Center on Market Street
        During its first year, CRIR worked primarily to defeat the anti-Gay Briggs’ Initiative (which would have banned gay teachers, counselors, administrators and staff from the public schools).  The club was successful in raising money to defeat the measure as well as helping to convince former Governor Reagan and Attorney General George Deukmejian to oppose Prop. 6 before many Democrats joined the No on 6 bandwagon.  The statewide No on 6 campaign believed that Reagan’s well publicized opposition was instrumental to the measure’s defeat.
             Between 1979 and 1982, the club grew by leaps and bounds, and in 1982 had 188 paid members, even surpassing the membership of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.  Essential to the CRIR’s growth were two remarkably talented Presidents, Kevin Wadsworth Johnson (1980) and Duke Armstrong (1980-1982). 
            Wadsworth, a former Executive Assistant to U.S. Senator Edward Gurney (R-Fla.) and an Administrative Assistant to the Mayor and City Council of Orlando, Florida, before he was “outed”, moved to San Francisco in the mid-1970’s.  He had a knack of putting together successful fundraisers, taking political risks, and mobilizing volunteers for various political campaigns.* Under his leadership, in 1980, the club was successful in electing four of its Gay members (Kevin Wadsworth, Don Bowden, Gary Myerscough, and Frank Crosetti) to the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee.** 
            Armstrong, who received his Law Degree from U.C. Davis (where he served on the student council)  was a political conservative, but a strong civil libertarian and a member of San Francisco’s Leather Community.  He put together well-attended membership meetings featuring leading political figures in the City and the State, and he and his lover Alphonso Sloop published an outstanding monthly newsletter, the San Francisco Mandate – probably the best in the San Francisco Gay Community at the time.
             In 1981, Armstrong, in conjunction with Kevin Wadsworth, Bruce Decker, and Leonard Matlovich, formed Foundation Cornerstone (a non-profit educational organization to combat the Religious Right), and CRIR successfully campaigned in the Castro to overturn the Burton gerrymanders which split San Francisco’s Gay Community down the middle.
             During his watch as President in 1983, Richmond District attorney Bob Bacci who served as the Secretary of the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee, shifted the club’s focus to statewide concerns — lobbying Republican legislators on AB-1 (the Gay Rights Bill), hate crimes legislation (AB-848), and AIDS legislation and funding.  In addition to State Senator Milton Marks (who was a lifetime Republican until his becoming a Democrat in 1986), the club counted among its Republican friends in Sacramento State Senators Ken Maddy, Bob Beverly, Ed Davis, Rebecca Morgan, and Tom Campbell, and Assemblyman Bill Filante.

       Filante was the 41^st vote to support AB-1 in 1983 and became a champion for the LGBT Community on the AIDS front (both as a member of the California AIDS Advisory Committee and as Chairman of the California Republican Party’s Health Committee).   Ed Davis (who had the reputation of being anti-Gay when he was Chief of the LAPD) gave a stirring speech in favor of AB-1 in 1984 and by so doing helped win its passage in the State Senate.  Davis also was Bill Dannemeyer’s worst nightmare during the primary campaign for United States Senate in 1986.  
             In 1984, with banker Tom Peretti at the helm, in coalition with other local community groups such as the Golden Gate Business Association, Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, and S.F. AIDS Foundation, CRIR helped form the San Francisco Community Partnership on AIDS.  Peretti also had the misfortune of presiding over the club when Governor Deukmejian vetoed AB-1.  Four members of CRIR’s board resigned in protest of the veto, but Peretti kept the club together and moving forward.
             During the Presidency of Christopher L. Bowman (1985-1986), CRIR provided moral and material support for the ARC/AIDS vigil at U.N. Plaza, was one of the three original founders of the LIFE/AIDS Lobby in Sacramento, and with the help of Barbara Chiodo (who was president of the California Republican Assembly at the time and later became the President of LCCSF and Log Cabin California) and the help of CRIR’s counterparts from Southern California was instrumental in successfully lobbying the California Republican Party to oppose Proposition 64 (the LaRouche AIDS/ Quarantine Initiative).  The club also raised $3,600 to defeat the measure at a fundraiser organized by Robert Speer with Congressman Ed Zschau.
             Under the leadership of CRIR President Brian Mavrogeorge (1986-1988), the club, in concert with its sister organizations from Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego, formed Log Cabin California.  Marty Keller (who had served as an officer of CRIR, was elected in 1988 to the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee, served as Co-Chair of the LIFE/AIDS Lobby in 1991, and was an administrator of the State Department of Consumer Affairs under Governor Pete Wilson from 1991-1999) served as Log Cabin California’s first President. 
               During the second “March to Washington” in October, 1987, Log Cabin California planted the seeds of what would ultimately become Log Cabin Republicans (which currently has over 30 chapters nationally and has a lobbying office in Washington, D.C., ably led by Rich Tafel for nearly a decade).  In 1989, CRIR merged with the other clubs of the State and changed its name to the Log Cabin Club of San Francisco/
Concerned Republicans for Individual Rights.
             Also in 1987, closer to home, CRIR, as part of a broad-based coalition of the various Republican volunteer clubs of San Francisco (including the California Chinese American Republican Association; Lincoln Club of Northern California – San Francisco Chapter; Lyn Nofziger Republican Assembly; Nob Hill Republican Women, Federated; San Francisco Chapter of the California Republican League; San Francisco Republican Women, Federated; and the San Francisco Young Republicans), helped form Citizens for a Better San Francisco which put together a “big-tent” slate of Republican volunteers to rejuvenate the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee.  28 of the 29 members of the slate were elected in June, 1988.  CBSF-backed candidates have dominated the Central Committee ever since.
             In 1990, Ron Kershaw (1988-1990) — who served as President of LCCSF for two terms and succeeded Marty Keller as President of Log Cabin California — and other Log Cabin members on the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee successfully lobbied their colleagues on the Committee to support the new and improved Domestic Partners proposal on the ballot and the measure won at the polls.  (In 1989, a similar measure which had not been endorsed by the SFGOP, lost narrowly.) 
             1991 was the best of years and the worse of years.  Pete Wilson was sworn in as Governor in the anticipation by many that he would work with the Gay Community and Log Cabin to fashion a Gay Rights bill that he could sign.  He also appointed a number of up-front Gay Republicans including Marty Keller and Frank Ricchiazzi and political moderates such as Kim Belshe, Curt Augustine, Alexa Vuksich, and Tina Frank to his administration.  At the end of September 1991, however, Wilson vetoed AB-101, igniting a firestorm of protests and riots in the Gay Community directed against Wilson and Republicans in general and against Gay Republicans in particular.  Members of Queer Nation hounded Log Cabin members in the Castro yelling “Burn the Log Cabin”.  It was in the midst of this maelstrom that Assemblyman Bill Filante drove from Sacramento on a Monday afternoon to the Castro office of realtor Robert Speer (LCCSF’s President) to keep the club from disbanding and to refocus its efforts to pass yet another Gay Rights measure in 1992. 
             The next year, when Barbara Chiodo presided over the club, Filante co-sponsored AB-2601 (which amended the Labor Code to investigate and resolve employment discrimination cases based on sexual orientation), and that fall, the Governor signed the bill.  Unfortunately, Bill Filante never saw the law take effect as he died tragically of a brain tumor that December.  As an aside, Paul Lynd, who served as the Vice Chairman of Log Cabin California under Chiodo, became the first administrator of the new law in 1993.
             In 1993, on behalf of the club, under the leadership of Ted Turrell, Chris Bowman worked with the
 Campaign for Military Justice both locally and in Washington, D.C. in an effort to lift the ban on Lesbians
and Gays serving in the Military. 
                  After the National Office of LCR opened in the Fall of 1993, the club’s focus returned to the arenas of San Francisco politics and the battle for the soul of California Republican Party.  Much of LCCSF’s activities centered around the screening and interviewing of candidates for local partisan and non-partisan office and proponents and opponents of local ballot measures, and working closely with former Assembly-man Brooks Firestone and his “Big Tent” coalition to bring the California Republican Party back to the political center.  In that capacity, club President Mike German in 1999 and 2000 successfully lobbied the California Republican Party to delete anti-Gay rhetoric from the State Party Platform dealing with AIDS. 
                    In the electoral arena, the club was instrumental in opposing the politicization of the judiciary by
helping to defeat an effort by a former Chairman of the San Francisco Democratic Party to be elected to the San Francisco Superior Court and by helping to successfully thwart challenges to California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin, and San Francisco Superior Court Judges Kevin Ryan, David Ballati, Wallace Douglass, and Dorothy Von Beroldingen in 1998.  Since then, no local incumbent judge has been challenged.
              Not every activity of Log Cabin has been strictly political.  The club has held a number of annual dinners.  It’s keynote speakers have included Assembly Minority Leader Bob Naylor, Assemblyman Bill Filante, State Senator Ed Davis, U.S. Senator Pete Wilson, Congressman Tom Campbell (several times), Treasurers Tom Hayes and Matt Fong, State Senator Quentin Kopp, California Supreme Court Justice Ming Chin, Congressman Jim Kolbe, and Journalist Debra Saunders.
                Additionally, the club has raised over the years nearly $15,000 for various charitable causes.
                In September, 1982, at a cabaret benefit, the club raised $2,200 for the Kaposi Sarcoma Foundation (the predecessor of the S.F. AIDS Foundation) so they could furnish its three room office on Castro Street.  Subsequently, the club raised another $11,000 for the AIDS Emergency Fund through three Mr. Financial District contests.  Most recently, the club raised $620 for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
             In conclusion, the club has witnessed a number of successes over the years as well as several setbacks such as Governor Deukmejian’s and Wilson’s vetoes of AB-1 and AB-101, the take-over of the California Republican Party by Religious Right extremists in 1991, the Houston Convention of 1992, and the ongoing AIDS pandemic, but it has proved to be resilient, time and again, because of the loyalty of its members, the support of its coalition partners within the San Francisco and California Republican Parties, and strong and effective club leadership.
           
            For a quarter of a century, LCCSF/CRIR has been blessed with a succession of seventeen truly gifted Presidents, including Don James, David Finn, Kevin Wadsworth Johnson, Duke Armstrong, Bob Bacci, Tom Peretti, Chris Bowman, Brian Mavrogeorge, Ron Kershaw, Robert Speer, Barbara Chiodo, Ted Turrell, Steve Fong, Scott Furman, Mike German, Randy Bernard, and Colin Gallagher, and over three dozen club members who have served as Officers and Directors of the Board.
 
            *  Several Gay members of LCCSF/CRIR have run for elective office in San Francisco, including Kevin Wadsworth for District 5 Supervisor in 1979, City-wide Supervisor in 1980, and U.S. Congress in 1987; Bob Bacci for Community College Board in 1982 and for the Republican Nomination for the 19^th Assembly in 1984; Brian Mavrogeorge for the 16^th Assembly in 1988; Ronald G. Kershaw for the Assessor in 1990; Randall Bernard for the 13^th Assembly in 1998; and G. Michael German for the 8^th Congressional District in 2002. 
 

** Other Gay members of LCCSF/CRIR elected to the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee have included:  Bob Bacci, Christopher L. Bowman, Marty Keller, Brian Mavrogeorge, Ron Kershaw, Ted Turrell, Randall Bernard, G. Michael German, and Joel Springer, III.