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Read Part 1 in the series Pink Mafia: The Hidden Power Structure of Closeted Gay Men in the Republican Party [ [link removed] ]
Before Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and its many variations in other states, there was a series of legislative initiatives pushed by the Moral Majority following the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan. The first to hit the floor of the House of Representatives in the 1979-1980 96th Congress was H.R.7445 – “A bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life through education, tax assistance, and related measures.”
The bill was a long laundry list of legislative actions that the sponsors believed would use the power of government to promote “conservative” family values. Like Governor DeSantis’ legislation decades later, the focus was on education, which was seen as a morally corrupting influence on impressionable youth. The Congressional Record summarized:
The bill amends the General Education Provisions Act to prohibit payments under such Act to States or State or local educational agencies, which: (1) prohibit voluntary prayer in public buildings; (2) lack procedures for the involvement of parents and representatives of the community in decisions relating to the establishment or continuation of religious studies; (3) limit parental visits to public schools or classes or the right of parents to inspect their children's school records; (4) require the payment of dues or fees as a condition of employment for teachers; or (5) lack procedures for parental review of textbooks prior to their use in the classroom. Stipulates that no Federal funds may be made available for curricula which promote values contradictory to the demonstrated beliefs of the community or for textbooks which tend to deny the role differences between the sexes.
Guarantees the right of any State or local educational agency to set qualifications for teachers, set attendance requirements for students, and to limit or prohibit the intermingling of sexes in sports or other school-related activities.
The bill had 19 co-sponsors, including Bob Bauman from Maryland’s First Congressional District, composed of the Eastern Shore and a few Baltimore suburbs. Bauman was elected in 1973 following the suicide of William Mills. (The First has a haunted modern history; more on that later.) When Jon Hinson was elected in 1978, my first dabbling in the dark arts [ [link removed] ] of political media consulting, I went to work for him in his D.C. office. I can’t remember my title or even what my job description would have been. I do remember I was a terrible staffer who hated going to work in the Longworth Building and left after less than a year. And I do remember Bob Bauman.
He was a short bullet of a man who radiated a near-manic energy. “Each day, just before the House of Representatives convenes at noon, a dark-haired man takes up position near the Republican leadership table on the House floor within grabbing distance of a microphone and begins his afternoon’s vigil,” so opened a 1976 profile piece of Bauman in the New York Times. The Times was dedicating a profile to an obscure second-term Congressman from a district best known for Chesapeake Bay crabs because Bauman had defined his role in the House as a total pain in the ass.
“The 38-year-old Mr. Bauman has become the new gadfly of the House, its most active nit-picker, its hairshirt, its leading baiter of the most members,” the Times wrote. In real-world terms, that meant that Bauman was a self-appointed fiscal and moral watchdog of the House. He would force roll call votes to get all Members on the record and question any and everything the Democratic majority attempted to pass. He was hated by Democrats. House Speaker Tip O’Neil described Bauman’s approach as a “cheap, snarky, sly way to operate.”
Most Republicans found him annoying, if occasionally useful, as a way to throw sand in the gears of the Democratic Party that had held a majority since 1955. Bauman called those Republicans who objected to his tactics “Democrats in drag,” which, I suppose, would qualify as a classic Freudian slip. Jon Hinson, who had spent his life working as a staffer on Capitol Hill before his election in 1978, viewed Bauman as an eccentric crank, a distinct flavor in a world of mush. Both had been pages on the Hill at the same time and had a repertoire of amusing stories that revolved around parliamentary procedure. Several times, I joined them at the Monocle Restaurant for long, boozy dinners. At the time, I had no idea that Hinson was interested in men, and Bauman was still very much in the closet.
That closet was forced open on October 3rd, 1980, when Bauman was arraigned in D.C. Superior Court for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute at the Chesapeake House in downtown DC. In his riveting 2022 book, “The Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington,” James Kirchick describes the scene of a typical night at the Chesapeake House.
“The Gentleman from Maryland nursed his drink alone, as usual, his gaze transfixed by the barely legal boys clad in fishnet loincloths strutting along the top of the bar. Their lean, taut bodies reminded him of Michelangelo’s David, and they could be had for a price he was all too willing to pay. Dressed conservatively in a dark suit, he came to places like this, acted on his “tendencies,” only at night, when he was drunk. And this just happened to be one of those increasingly frequent occasions.
The encounters for which Bauman trawled these depths were furtive and often reckless, such as the time, late one night, the hustler he took to the office of the American Conservative Union robbed him at knifepoint.”
Bauman was arrested a few months after Jon Hinson held his stunning press conference revealing that while he was working in Mississippi Congressman Thad Cochran’s office, he had been arrested one night at Iwo Jima Park for “indecent behavior” and had survived a deadly fire at a gay porn theatre called the Cinema Follies. Hinson appeared to be headed to re-election. When Bauman was arrested, Jon asked me to meet with him and advise him on navigating the scandal weeks before re-election.
By this time, I had left Hinson’s Congressional office and had started my career as a hired gun in campaigns. I had a long personal connection with Hinson, dating back to my days as a Congressional Page when he had been Chief of Staff and effectively my boss. I liked Jon, felt close to his family, and he was My Guy. He had been my first client – and so far the only one who had won – and I was damned if I was going to see him lose. But Bob Bauman? I honestly could have cared less if he won or lost.
But I agreed to meet him. At Bauman’s request, we met in a motel room on the Eastern Shore, not far from Bauman’s home. Picture the scene: me, a 25-year-old straight guy dressed like I was going to the Ole Miss-Alabama game in khakis and a polo shirt, knocking on the door of a seedy motel to advise a just arrested Congressman on how to survive a gay scandal. I had never heard the phrase, but it was a moment to question life choices. It was 8 a.m., and I had left my Capitol Hill home at 6, making the long drive over the Chesapeake Bay bridge.
Bauman came to the door in what would have been called a “smoking jacket” if worn by Hugh Heffner. He held a cheap motel glass of booze in one hand and gestured me in. There were two beds. I sat on one, he on the other. He looked like he had been crying, and I was seized with a terrible feeling he might burst into tears.
“Jon says you are a genius,” he opened. “I need a genius.” I wasn’t a genius, and he needed much more than a genius. I took him through how Hinson had called a press conference, described his arrest and the fire, and now looked like he would win re-election.
“He was lucky,” Bauman said when I’d finished. “Lucky” was one of the last words I’d have used to describe anyone who had been busted for soliciting sex and trapped in a horrific fire. He didn’t get caught. It was his choice to talk about it. I was busted.”
He got up and poured more whiskey into his plastic glass, not offering me any, which was fine. The whole scene was weird enough without breakfast hour day-drinking. “I’m just going to say I was drunk. That’s it. Didn’t know what I was doing.”
The problem with that defense was that most people had been drunk at one time or another and didn’t end up soliciting a 16-year-old prostitute of the same sex - or any 16-year-old. The cause and effect was exceedingly shaky. I tried to explain this to him. He nodded, took a big drink, and asked, “So what can I say?”
I had thought about this on the long drive to the Eastern Shore. There were no good answers, but the only answer seemed to be the simplest. “You just say it was a mistake, you’re sorry, and it won’t happen again. Take responsibility. Don’t blame booze.”
“You’re not gay, are you?” he blurted out.
I shook my head. He sighed and seemed to collapse even further into himself. “My mom was a single, unwed mother. I was born out of wedlock. A bastard.” He paused. I knew nothing about his background and just nodded. He slammed his hand down on the bed, spilling liquor. “I graduated from fucking Georgetown and Georgetown Law. I worked my ass off to get elected. I’m a good Congressman. I’m a goddamn great Congressman.”
He paused and looked around the room as if realizing for the first time where he was. “And now I’m here. Nothing I’ve done matters.”
I started to tell him that wasn’t accurate, that part of what seemed to be saving Hinson was that he was a good Congressman who took his job very seriously. He cut me off. “Jon said he wasn’t gay, right?” I nodded. At his press conference, Hinson had very specifically said, “I am not homosexual,” while standing next to his beautiful wife. “You know how many f*ggots there are in Congress?” He spit out the word. “A lot. Like me. Married, kids. What if I go down to the floor of the House and reel off the names? Huh? What a fucking bunch of hypocrites.”
“You think that would help? Help you in November?”
He laughed darkly. “Not only is he a f*g, but he knows lots of other f*gs. Yeah, that’s great.”
I left around 10 AM, driving back home thinking I was the lucky one. I was straight in a world in which straight was the only acceptable identity. I had nothing to hide. When I got home, I called Hinson and told him I thought Bauman would lose. “He was drunk. I don’t think he heard anything I said. He wants to lose.”
“That’s bullshit,” Hinson said, “His whole life is being in Congress.”
Which was true. “He was Bob Bauman in Congress. He doesn’t think that person exists anymore.”
“Jesus,” Hinson sighed, “That is so fucking sad.”
I told Hinson that I thought someone should reach out to his family and have them go to the motel and that I was worried he was suicidal. “I should go,” Hinson said.
“No, don’t even think about that.” That was me as a political consultant. Yes, the decent thing would have been for Hinson to see his friend but it was incredibly risky politically. I was already in that value structure that would guide me for decades: what mattered was the election. Nothing else.
Hinson ended up calling a mutual friend who, I’d assumed, was part of the gay underground that he and Bauman knew so well. Bob Bauman blamed alcohol, and he did lose. He was defeated by a State Representative named Roy Dyson.
Eight years later, Dyson’s chief of staff would jump out of a window of the Helmsley Park Hotel in Manhattan. The Associated Press wrote:
“The suicide came just hours after The Washington Post reported Pappas made unorthodox demands on male staff workers, including a striptease at an office gathering and rules banning dating.
Dyson said he also had not been aware that Pappas placed ads in a Missouri newspaper seeking young men to apply for staff positions with a request that they include a photograph.
Asked whether he is homosexual, Dyson said, 'No. I am not.'”
This was in May 1980, when Dyson was expected to win re-election easily. His only opposition was a Republican school teacher, Vietnam vet, and part-time house painter, Wayne Gilchrist, who had run for the Republican nomination when no one thought Dyson could be beaten. The day that Dyson’s chief of staff committed suicide, I got a call from Ed Rollins, who had been Reagan’s campaign manager in 1984 and now was running the Republican Congressional Committee.
“We’re going to target this race,” Ed said. “Gilchrist has no campaign. You’re going to make the ads.”
“What’s our message?” I asked.
Rollins laughed. “Easy. Housepainter. Heterosexual.”
Roy Dyson narrowly won that 1988 race but was crushed by Wayne Gilchrist in a 1990 re-match.
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