"Fredric L. Rice" wrote:

April 9, 2005
G.O.P. Consultant's Marriage Is a Gay One
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, April 8 - Arthur J. Finkelstein, a prominent Republican
consultant who has directed a series of hard-edged political campaigns to
elect conservatives in the United States and Israel over the last 25 years,

said Friday that he had married his male partner in a civil ceremony at his

home in Massachusetts.

Mr. Finkelstein, 59, who has made a practice of defeating Democrats by
trying to demonize them as liberal, said in a brief interview that he had
married his partner of 40 years to ensure that the couple had the same
benefits available to married heterosexual couples.

"I believe that visitation rights, health care benefits and other human
relationship contracts that are taken for granted by all married people
should be available to partners," he said.

He declined further comment on the wedding, which was in December.

Some of Mr. Finkelstein's associates said they were startled to learn that
this prominent American conservative had married a man, given his history
with the party, especially at a time when many Republican leaders,
including President Bush, have campaigned against same-sex marriage and
proposed amending the Constitution to ban it. Mr. Finkelstein has been
allied over the years with Republicans who have fiercely opposed gay rights

measures, including former Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and has
been the subject of attacks by gay rights activists who have accused him of

hypocrisy. He was identified as gay in a Boston Magazine article in 1996.

One of Mr. Finkelstein's associates, who declined to speak on the record,
citing Mr. Finkelstein's desire for privacy, said Mr. Finkelstein did not
view his marriage as a political statement and had specifically decided to
have a civil ceremony rather than a religious one. This associate argued
that over the past 20 years, Mr. Finkelstein had identified himself as a
libertarian and an opponent of big government, distancing himself from
social conservatives as they have gained political muscle and dominance in
the party.

Mr. Finkelstein's associates declined to provide his spouse's name. He was
married at his home by a gay state official, whose name and office were not
released. The ceremony was attended by relatives of both men, a few friends

and a state legislator, an attendee said.

None of Mr. Finkelstein's better-known political clients, among them Gov.
George E. Pataki of New York and former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato of New
York, attended, that person said. Several of Mr. Finkelstein's long-term
political associates said that he had not told them about the wedding, and
that they had learned about it from a reporter.

The wedding was disclosed by an associate of Mr. Finkelstein's, and he
confirmed it in the interview.

Mr. Finkelstein has frequently come under criticism by gay rights groups
for representing politicians who have been ardent foes of gay rights. He
helped create the template for a line of attack he repeatedly invoked
against Democrats, including Mario M. Cuomo of New York, describing them as

liberal.

In Israel, Mr. Finkelstein used similar attacks against the Labor Party as
an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and as a consultant to the
winning and losing campaigns of Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime
minister.

Mr. Finkelstein has regularly described himself as a libertarian who
supports same-sex marriage and abortion rights while opposing big
government. In an interview with Maariv, an Israeli newspaper, after the
American elections last year, he criticized the Republican Party as growing

too close to evangelical Christians, warning it could cause long-term
damage to the party.

Details of Mr. Finkelstein's relationship have appeared in regular news
accounts over the years, as they did in the Boston Magazine article, which
reported that Mr. Finkelstein lived with his partner and two children in
Ipswich, Mass.

Still, some conservative friends said Mr. Finkelstein's marriage would roil
conservatives and highlight divisions among them over the importance of
social issues to their movement.

"In recent years, Arthur hasn't pretended to be a social conservative,"
said one longtime conservative associate, who cited Mr. Finkelstein's
aversion to publicity in declining to be identified. "But this is the same
man who was the architect of Jesse Helms's political rise."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/09/politics/09finkelstein.html?

Not only is he a prominant Republican who is gay, but he is now prominant
Republican in a legal same sex marriage.

My astonishment at the hypocricy knows no bounds.