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John Kerry's gay pal
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by Chris Bull, senior political correspondent
July 30, 2004
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During his Senate campaign in 1996, John Kerry invited an elite group
of gay activists to an elegant dinner at the art-filled Georgetown
mansion he shares with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Kerry had every reason to court gay leaders. He was locked into a
tough re-election battle, and gay-rights groups were hesitating before
bestowing their customary endorsement because his opponent,
Massachusetts Republican Gov. William Weld, had earned a reputation as
a courageous advocate of gay causes. Kerry's political future,
including his presidential aspirations, hung in the balance.
After Kerry made his pitch, he turned to Heinz Kerry and asked,
"Sweetie, do you have anything you'd like to say?"

"Senator, are you talking to me?" interrupted his longtime aide, Jim
Jones, who is openly gay.
"Now, Jimmy, don't out me in my own house," Kerry shot back.
The room broke into howls of laugher. Kerry and Heinz Kerry were among
those laughing the loudest.
"The terms of endearment he uses for Teresa can be a little cloying,"
says Jones, who today is an unofficial advisor to the Kerry-Edwards
campaign and vice president of Children's Defense Fund, a Washington,
D.C., lobby group. "I wanted to say something to make light of the
situation. John has a funny, goofy side Americans don't always see,
and I knew he would be comfortable with that kind of humor."
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, Kerry immediately made his mark by
co-sponsoring the Senate's first-ever gay-rights legislation. Since
then he has compiled a near-perfect voting record on the issue. Yet
GLBT voters, like the rest of the electorate, are eager to learn more
about the personal side of the Vietnam War hero and Senate veteran
whose formal and patrician bearing often comes across as intimidating.
Gays and lesbians bonded instantly with Bill Clinton during his 1992
presidential campaign, but they have been somewhat slower to embrace
Kerry.
Few gay politicos know John Kerry better than Jones, who worked in his
Senate office from 1994 to 2000. Jones met Kerry while working on the
Senate Whitewater investigation. Impressed, Kerry hired him to serve
as a legislative assistant.
The two have since become close enough to fuel speculation that Jones,
Kerry's one-time Senate press secretary,
*could become the first openly gay
White House spokesman if Kerry wins.
Jones considers Heinz Kerry "like a second mother" since the death
of his own mother in May, and the first person to call to console him
after her death was the presidential candidate himself. "I said,
'Senator, you've got more important things on your agenda right now
than calling me.' He said, 'Jimmy, you are family.'"
In 1996, not long after the Georgetown dinner party, the Senate
debated the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), legislation allowing
states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage licenses issued in
another state. Senate staffers were suggesting that the bill be passed
by a parliamentary maneuver known as unanimous consent to spare
gay-rights allies from having to cast a difficult vote in an election
year.
Angered, Jones vowed to consult with his boss about the strategy.
"I went into John's office," he recalls. "He was sitting behind his
big wooden desk, multitasking as usual. I said, 'Senator, we have to
talk about this.' He asked me to sit down, and we talked about DOMA
for a good 10 minutes. He understood on a gut level the effect it
would have, and he was particularly concerned about the message it
sent to the younger generation, especially since his daughters were in
college at the time." (In fact, Kerry's daughter, Vanessa, declared
her support for same-sex marriage this week at the Democratic National
Convention.)
Wooing the gay vote, Kerry also had a less altruistic reason for
opposing the bill. DOMA passed 85-14, with Kerry among the 14
Democrats voting nay. Whatever his motives, Kerry's DOMA vote
contrasts sharply with his convoluted stance on same-sex marriage.
He opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, but supports a
Republican-led effort in Massachusetts to add a ban on same-sex
marriage to the state constitution as long as the state legalizes a
civil-union option for same-sex couples.
Kerry's position has been cast as political expedience, a way of
taking the thunder out of President Bush's anti-marriage appeals to
moderate and conservative voters. But Jones, who lives in Washington
with his partner of two years, thinks Kerry is genuinely opposed.
"I've had conversations with him about it, and I get the sense that
it's more than just political," Jones says. "He tends to think the
country has a way to go on the issue, and he hasn't been convinced
yet either. That's a case we've still got to make."
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http://www.planetout.com/news/feature.html?sernum=920
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<comment>
personally...
I think that all Whitehouse's should have
openly gay spokesperson[s]
I mean, who would want a gloomy Gus to
speaketh for thou? It's much better to be happy!
</comment>

personally...
I think that all Whitehouse's should have
openly gay spokesperson[s]

I mean, who would want a gloomy Gus to
speaketh for thou? It's much better to be happy!