THE LESBIAN IN THE G.O.P. FAMILY
Robert Mosbacher Is Caught Between the Party Line and His Daughter 
Diane

By Laura Blumenfeld,
Washington Post Staff Writer

(c) 1992, Washington Post

San Francisco

Family snapshots plaster her wall.  There's Grandpa wearing funny 
shorts.  Dad on a sailboat.  The four siblings squished together on a 
piano bench.  And this picture in the corner, an official photo:  
Diane Mosbacher flanked by her dad and his pal George Bush.  Next to 
the president smiles Diane's spouse of 17 years--a tall, gregarious 
doctor.  Nanette, a woman.

"To Nanette, Best wishes, George," says the black marker scrawl.

Later Nanette and Diane added a caption, "George Bush Meets Lesbians 
1989."

Later still, they stuck a cartoon bubble to the president's cardboard 
grin:  "CAN THIS BE USED AS EVIDENCE?"

A joke.  But they're not laughing much these days following last 
month's Republican National Convention, where homosexuals were 
pilloried.  Pat Buchanan declared a "cultural war" that stuck gay 
couples in enemy trenches.  Placards reading "Family Rights 
Forever/Gay Rights Never" waved for television cameras.  And Barbara 
Bush's AIDS-awareness ribbon mysteriously disappeared.

Like millions of American lesbians and gay men, Mosbacher, 43, found 
the onslaught difficult to watch.  But for this gay-rights activist 
there was an extra twist in her gut.  Her brother, Rob Mosbacher Jr., 
41, is running the Republican reelection effort in Texas.  Robert 
Mosbacher, 65, her beloved and respected dad, was heading President 
Bush's national reelection campaign.  (He now serves as chief fund-
raiser.)

"I would like my father to understand, I would like my brother to 
understand, I would like the Bushes to understand, that it's neither 
expedient nor ethical what they're doing," Diane Mosbacher says.

They are a family caught in the contradiction of Republican-championed 
"family values."

Mosbacher's lesbianism is no secret.  Her family supports her, adores 
her spouse, as they have come to call Nanette Gartrell, 43.  They 
visit the couple in their San Francisco home, share holidays.

Robert Mosbacher plays a vital role in a campaign that has vilified 
homosexuals, yet he has a lesbian daughter he cherishes.  One more 
chafing example of the divergence of political rhetoric and reality.  
Preach Ozzie and Harriet till you're red, white and blue in the face.  
But talk to just about anyone in America and they'll tell you about a 
cousin, an aunt, a brother who is gay, who is loved by his family.

"I would suspect the conflict has been pretty tough on Dad," says 
Diane.

And tough on her.  The jam of strong white teeth, the same as her 
father's, flash less frequently.  Diane, known as Dee to friends and 
family, holds her father and brother close to her heart.  Now she 
hasn't spoken to either since the convention.

But Robert Mosbacher says, "I sleep fine at night."  He says it is 
unfair to characterize the president, the party or the convention as 
anything but tolerant of homosexuals.  "I haven't been worried about 
Dee.  I know she's going to be fine."

Gay leaders take strong exception.

"How can he be committed to anything that is set on destroying his 
daughter?" asks Robert Bray, spokesman for the National Gay and 
Lesbian Task Force.  The group has called Bush the most anti-gay 
president in American history.  "If Bush wins on that platform, it 
will be open season on gays.  What does that mean for [Robert] 
Mosbacher, who funded and greased that machine?  What does that mean 
for him and his daughter?"

Dee Mosbacher is a private person who rarely gives interviews, a 
psychiatrist more comfortable scribbling notes than dictating them to 
reporters.  The call is urgent, though.

"I think they don't know--I hope they don't--that this affects people 
in the street, that people can get beat up, people can get killed, 
teenagers can commit suicide."

All this because of a political strategy, she says.  She touches her 
temple, taps a thought.

"That's not family values.  That's fatal values."

THE COMMITMENT
The roar of a blow-dryer, muffled upstairs behind closed doors, clicks 
off.  Someone is skittering down the stairs.

"Nanette," Dee calls from the kitchen.  "Come in and say hi."

In walks a pretty, confident redhead.  She is just back from a game of 
tennis and has thrown on a purple sweat shirt and a pair of jeans that 
flatter her willowy figure.

"People think lesbians are such weird creatures," Dee says, laughing.

In fact their life is rather mundane.  Dee rises at 6 a.m. to huff on 
her Aerobicycle.  She takes off for her job as regional medical chief 
for mental health in San Mateo County, a suburb of San Francisco.  
After work, she donates huge amounts of time and money to a host of 
lesbian and gay men projects.  Nanette, also an apostate from her 
Republican family, teaches at a medical school and has a private 
practice on the ground floor of their four-story home that overlooks 
San Francisco Bay.

The couple collect [sic] little elephants (although not Republican 
ones), read People and grow purple flowers; eight different shades 
bloom in their front yard.  On weekends, they sail, play tennis, hike.  
They don't plan on having children.  They delight in visiting nieces 
and nephews.

There hasn't been any wedding ceremony, no sanction by church or 
state.  But the women hope to go gray together.  "In spite of 
everything, we'll survive," Nanette says brightly.  "Dee might become 
a little old lady, and I'll be a tall old lady."

Last night, Nanette and Dee rented a white Miata convertible and drove 
through the cool San Francisco evening.  They ate at a favorite French 
restaurant.  They celebrated their 17th anniversary.  It is the 
longest-lasting relationship in the Mosbacher family.

THE DILEMMA
Flashback to Houston, early 1960s.  Look here for clues about how 
Robert Mosbacher and Rob Jr., compassionate yet pragmatic men, found 
themselves 30 years later caught in a vise between the personal and 
the political.

Robert, the favorite son of a millionaire stock trader, left his home 
in Mount Vernon, N.Y., to set up the family oil business in Texas.  
There he met another young man from the Northeast, determined to make 
it in the oil industry with help from a wealthy father.  His name was 
George Herbert Walker Bush.

The men became friends.  As a girl, Dee played touch football with 
Bush on the neighborhood team.  Bush's good friend, Jim Baker, lived 
across the street from the Mosbachers.  Dee remembers hearing them all 
in her living room, laughing together at grown-up parties while she, 
her brother and his sisters, Kathi and Lisa, played upstairs.

Then Robert's wife, Jane (Dee's mother), became sick with leukemia.  
At the same time, Baker's first wife, Mary, developed cancer.  They 
spent hour after grim hour together at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 
visiting their ailing wives.  The Bush-Mosbacher friendship solidified 
when Robert's wife died in 1970, and Bush helped the widower through 
his grief.

It was that year that Bush first ran for the U.S. Senate.  Robert had 
helped raise money for his House races and did the same for the Senate 
race.  Young Rob Jr. swung through Texas with George Jr. on a bus, 
jumping out at courthouse squares to hand out Bush campaign 
literature.

Later, Robert served as chief fund-raiser for President Gerald Ford's 
1976 campaign, and for Bush's 1980 and 1988 presidential campaigns.  
He helped fatten Bush's own billfold, letting the Bush in on an oil-
barge investment that paid off handsomely.  Robert married again, 
divorced, and married Georgette, the flame-haired temptress.  He 
amassed a net worth estimated at more than $200 million.  Bush amassed 
political victories.

Bush appointed Robert Mosbacher his commerce secretary in 1989 and 
chairman of his reelection campaign earlier this year.  Last week he 
moved over to chief fund-raiser.  Rob Jr. now chairs Victory '92, the 
statewide Republican campaign effort in Texas.

And here they are.  Robert and Robert Jr., the toasts of the party.  
Only problem--some of the other guests are bashing their Dee.

What to do?

Rob Jr., a conservative antiabortion advocate, has tried to distance 
himself from the gay-baiting element of the GOP campaign, which he 
calls "mean spirited."

"I differ with my sister politically, but out of respect for my 
sister, I won't be part of it," he says.  "I would be hesitant to call 
for affirmative rights for gays, but I don't want to empower people to 
discriminate."

In Texas, Rob Jr. says, he will try to steer the debate back to 
economics and not dwell on polarizing social issues.  They make people 
so...fidgety.

"I'm not personally comfortable with the lifestyle, obviously.  I 
mean, I'm not anxious to encourage it, but that's her life," he says.

He and his father tread a ballot-thin line.

"Dad wants to be supportive to Dee without being a burden to the 
president or the campaign," Rob Jr. says.  "It's a little scary 
because there are some who may argue that we're a liability."

Robert Mosbacher says he isn't concerned.

"Pat Buchanan doesn't represent many, many, many people in the party 
who feel very differently," Robert says.  Never mind that just last 
week Dan Quayle declared homosexuality "wrong."

"The president and Barbara are very supportive about Dee," Robert 
says.  "When the story first came out about Dee's, you know, being a 
lesbian, he sent me a note saying it was wonderful I was so 
supportive."

How knotty family-values issues become when personalized.

"I'm very comfortable and happy with my daughter.  That doesn't mean 
that I would want to lead her lifestyle," Robert says.

Does he feel any conflict between his professional life and his 
loyalty to his daughter?

"I'd rather not answer that."

Does he feel bad?

"I know Dee's fine, and Rob is find and Kathi is fine and Lisa is 
fine.  And Georgette--is just great."

But the usual upbeat twang in his voice subsides.  "I really don't 
like talking about all this, I gotta tell you."

Dee's younger sister, Kathi, 37, is an abortion-rights activist in the 
Texan Republican Party.  She says she was so sickened by the tenor of 
the GOP platform discussion that she spent the convention "in the 
hills of Umbria where there's no CNN."  She explains her father's and 
brother's actions this way:

"To me it's personal, but to them politics is business, the business 
of getting the president elected," Kathi says.  "For them, if your 
daughter is gay, you love her."

And then get on with your business, she says.

"Nothing personal."

CHANGE OF HEART
If you were looking for Dee when she was small, you'd try the woods.  
There she'd be churning up the earth, digging for snakes with the 
neighborhood boys.

"She was more boyish than girlish, never did like most things most 
little girls like," recalls the Mosbacher's housekeeper, Cardella 
Smith, 83, who has worked for the family in Houston for 44 years.

Or you might follow her doctor's kit.  You'd find Dee playing Dr. 
Mosbacher, scribbling wobbly prescriptions for anyone who'd act sick 
or dissecting frogs with the boys, in the name of science.

But most likely you'd find Dee out somewhere kicking butt.  In school, 
out-grading her three younger siblings.  On the tennis court, slamming 
balls past guys.  On the basketball court, short but playing big.  Out 
on Galveston Bay, winning sailing trophies, while her yachting-
champion dad watched from the pier.  On the slopes of Aspen, tearing 
down the mountains with her father.

"I'd be riding up on the ski lift and look down and see Dee and Dad 
skiing like possessed people," Kathi recalls.  "They competed with 
each other.  They're both incredibly competitive."

They're both incredibly affable and blaze-tempered and driven and 
chisel-chinned.  And both eventually ended up with redheaded women.

But first there would be boys for Dee.  Even a fiance.

In high school, she brushed on plenty of blue eye shadow for the tall 
sailing instructor, the dark football player, the basketball player 
who courted her with jokes.  At Pitzer College in California she got 
engaged, but "something just said no, this doesn't feel right," she 
says.  "Looking back I realize I probably knew I was a lesbian for 
years, but back then there was little I could read, it was not a 
category you wanted to put yourself in.  I was exercising a bit of 
denial."

Her parents had raised her to be an activist, to think independently--
if the Mosbachers had a motto it would be "Individual Ethics Over 
All."

So Dee struck out for Washington after college in 1971 and honed her 
own identity.  Different from her business dad, different from her 
button-down brother, different from Republican sister Kathi, different 
from apolitical sister Lisa.

Dee joined the Young Socialist Alliance.  While enrolled in premed 
courses, the heiress took jobs as a construction worker, a garage 
mechanic, a volunteer paramedic, paid $15 a month rent in a roach-
infested group house.  She organized national marches against the 
Vietnam War, helped found the Women's National Abortion Action 
Coalition and spoke out for racial equality.  Revolution blew through 
Washington.  Dee soared.

Then one day someone handed her a leaflet.  A panel discussion in 
favor of abortion featuring a lawyer, a physician, a lesbian activist.

"I thought, 'Oh, God, I've never seen a real lesbian before,'" she 
recalls.  "I thought I would go and see what they look like, if it was 
okay, 'cause I was thinking maybe I was one."

The meeting proved disappointing--no telling which speaker was the 
lesbian activist.  Though soon she became one herself.  "I saw that we 
are physicians and attorneys, there were all these positive role 
models.  Suddenly I felt it was okay."

Christmas 1971, Colorado.  Dee pulled Kathi aside.  A secret.

"She told me she had a relationship with a woman, and she was really 
happy and felt more fulfilled," Kathi recalls.  "She talked about it 
differently than she had ever talked about a man.  She asked if I was 
shocked.  I wasn't shocked.  It seemed right."

"I just wanted you to know," Dee had said.

"I'm happy if you're happy," said Kathi.

But her father wasn't.  Not because of her sexuality--he didn't know 
yet--but because of her politics.

"Dad thought I was a communist," Dee says, laughing now.  Once when 
she'd just returned from an anti-war demonstration, her father phoned.

Dad:  "I bet you were in Harrisburg with those communists and 
socialists!"

Daughter:  "Yeah, I was!"

Dad:  "Well, why don't you just become a doctor and leave the politics 
to the men in the family!"

Meanwhile, Rob Jr. was trying to get a job as a legislative assistant 
for then-Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee.  During his investigation for 
a security clearance, officers questioned the young Republican about 
his sister, the lesbian anti-war activist.

For a while, Dee lost touch with her family.  "I thought she was sort 
of withdrawing," Rob Jr. says.  "She was concerned about her family 
accepting her, she knew I had real problems with her lifestyle.  But I 
wanted Dee to know I loved her."

Robert Mosbacher, who heard of Dee's sexual identity through the 
family grapevine, sweated through the typical questions that heat up 
parents of homosexuals:  Was it my fault?  What did I do wrong?

In 1975, Nanette Gartrell, a young psychiatrist on rotation at the 
National Institutes of Health, moved into Dee's group house.  Nanette 
liked Dee's Texas accent.  Dee like Nanette's scientific mind.  The 
women became friends and fell in love.  By the time Dee was ready to 
take Nanette to dinner with her dad, she says, he was more than ready 
to meet her.

The couple stuck it out.  Through Dee's PhD program in psychology.  
And through a long-distance period while Dee attended medical school 
in Texas.  Dee had figured she'd go back into the closet for medical 
school, buckle down and focus on her studies.

She listened while professors and students called homosexuals 
"abnormal" and "perverse," saw signs on lockers and bulletin boards 
that said "KILL THE QUEERS."  This was 1979, six years after 
homosexuality had been struck from the official roster of mental 
disorders.

Finally Gary, the class geek, a guy with glasses so thick his blue 
eyes looked like robin's eggs, braved up, stood up and defended gays.  
He gave Dee courage.  For a class project, she produced a slide-and-
video show called "Closets Are Health Hazards:  Gay and Lesbian 
Physicians Come Out."  Medical schools nationwide now show it.

"It is a tremendous burden off to be out, to know that I'm very clear 
about my sexual orientation," Dee says.  "To get rid of that constant 
anxiety."

And to win the approval of her family.

"Given the lifestyle that Dee has chosen," says Rob Jr., "she couldn't 
have done better."

Dee doesn't see her sexuality as a matter of choice, but never mind, 
yes, the whole family welcomes Nanette.  Even Georgette.  Although the 
tension between her and the Mosbacher kids crackles during interviews.  
When asked about her stepdaughter, Georgette, two years older than 
Dee, snaps:  "Not my stepdaughter.  You mean my husband's daughter."

Is that not the definition of stepdaughter?

"I don't know what the definition of that is."

AFFILIATIONS
All the light in the sky above the San Francisco Bay is shining in Dee 
Mosbacher's eyes.  They are sea green, flooded a shade or two brighter 
as she faces a glass wall in her home with its view of the Golden Gate 
Bridge.  Mosbacher wears no makeup, only light.

She is seated on the top floor, on a black leather couch.  Gray hairs 
loop through her brown curls.  Gold molars flicker when she breaks 
into smiles.

"I feel like I have this big responsibility.  I was nervous when you 
called.  But I would like people to understand the meaning of their 
actions," she says.  There is no bitterness in her voice.  Only a 
thread of anxiety as she pulls on an earlobe.

"I hope my father and brother understand that the party that they're 
working with could mean that I could lose my job, other people could 
lose their jobs just because they're lesbian and gay and that's scary.

"When you have the president of the United States and vice president 
standing up and making homophobic remarks it goes beyond just denying 
us our basic civil rights."

Sometimes, even, it's hard to believe.  "I don't think that President 
and Mrs. Bush really feel that way," she says, but the campaign needed 
a scapegoat to divert attention from the economy.

"Oh, it's the doctors from California!" Bush had said in 1989, 
greeting Dee and Nanette.  They were first off the elevators at the 
White House at the lunch honoring Robert Mosbacher's swearing in to 
the Cabinet.  The women wore pantsuits, breaking the White House 
dresses-only code.  And Dee introduced Nanette to Jim and Susan Baker 
and Barbara Bush:  "I'd like you to meet my lover."

Dee's father suggested that "spouse" was more appropriate, since it 
implied a stronger commitment.  Later, Dee checked "spouse" in the 
dictionary and agreed.  She and her father were finding it much easier 
to get along.  Tempers had cooled since the early '70s.  When the 
United States entered the Persian Gulf War last year, Dee marched in 
the protest in Washington.  Father and daughter discussed it calmly 
for about five minutes, she against war, he pro, and then settled into 
a couch together to watch the Super Bowl.

"It's been a little bit"--she laughs nervously--"strained, though, 
over the last few weeks between us," Dee says.  The two haven't 
spoken.  "It's gotten harder to say anything nice, actually, 
honestly."

A year ago Dee and her dad first made the papers together when they 
simultaneously gave commencement speeches at neighboring colleges in 
California.  Dee's speech began:  "Dad and I had breakfast this 
morning.  We had a look at each other's speeches.  He would have used 
mine, but he's not a lesbian.  I would have used his, but I am not a 
Republican."

Robert Mosbacher was speaking about the need for free trade, a hearty 
economy and a strong nation.  Later, when he watched his daughter's 
speech on tape, his eyes welled with tears.  It was Dee's first major 
coming-out speech.  Not only to the straight world, but also to the 
lesbian community, which has been known for its ambivalence toward 
women of wealth.

"I was pleased and shocked that instead of tomatoes, I got a standing 
ovation," she says.

What she also got was the attention of the National Gay and Lesbian 
Task Force.  Last winter, when the group heard homophobic hoofbeats in 
the Republican campaign, members asked Dee if she would help arrange a 
meeting with the GOP.

Robert Mosbacher agreed to meet with the gay leaders himself.  And on 
a snowy February morning, for the first time in American history, the 
task force says, openly gay activists briefed an incumbent 
presidential campaign on gay issues.

The evangelical right went ballistic.  White House spokesman Marlin 
Fitzwater called it a purely personal gesture and said the president 
had no knowledge of the meeting.

"I feel like they hung him out to dry," Dee says.  "Dad said that he 
was really upset at people acting like he doesn't have family values.  
He said he didn't know what else family values is, if it's not 
supporting your kids and who they are."

The anti-gay stampede gained momentum.  Unlike in 1988, the Republican 
platform committee refused to hear gay-rights representatives.  The 
platform itself opposes treatment of homosexuals as a protected 
minority, homosexual marriages and homosexuals in the military.  By 
the time the convention aired, Dee couldn't turn on her set.

"I feel like Dad's sort of caught, it's bigger than him, it's bigger 
than all of them," she says.  "And it's going to backfire."

How does she cope?

"I try to use denial a fair amount.  It's really hard, because 
intellectually I know what they're trying to do even though Dad and my 
brother Rob say they want to distance themselves from that part..."

The sentence trails off.  A bird chirps beyond the glass wall, out 
there, in the trees, out where the bay stretches below her.  This is 
where Dee flies to, steers her 13-foot Sunfish through choppy waters 
and ridiculous winds, pitting herself against the unambiguous 
elements.  After hours of getting whipped, she comes home to Nanette, 
frozen, bedraggled, exhilarated.

"I think if my mother had lived, things might have evolved 
differently," Dee says finally.  "I'm not sure my mother would still 
identity herself as a Republican."

And all the light from the sky above the San Francisco Bay can't 
brighten Dee Mosbacher's face.

REUNION
She's planning the family reunion.  Dee is sizing up her dining room, 
walking around her polished mahogany table, thinking out loud about 
this Thanksgiving:  "I imagine a lot bigger table, maybe some smaller 
round ones too.  The kids at one table.  The adults at another.  And 
chaos, utter chaos."

Dee laughs with delicious anticipation.  Behind her sit the sailing 
trophies she won as a girl, as her father cheered her from the pier.  
Next to them shines a new silver trophy, earned with Nanette, a 
charity tennis tournament for a lesbian health clinic.

"Everybody's coming," Dee says.  The siblings, Dad and Georgette, her 
spouse's family.  With a sweep of her hand, she seats the imaginary 
guests.  "Either way, it's going to be a little tough.  I sure am 
planning a Democratic victory.  I'll try not to say, 'I told you so.'"

Nanette will be there:  "I'm not angry at them.  I just feel sad at 
times," she says.

Rob Jr. too:  "It's just another campaign," he says.  "After it's over 
we'll just carry on."

And Kathi:  "I'm sick that this is happening with the Republicans but 
the Mosbacher family values are to respect our individual 
differences."

And Lisa, the youngest:  "I want it to work out for Dad, and I want it 
to work out for Dee.  I feel like I'm balancing between the two."

And their father:  "I'm sure it'll be a fun Thanksgiving, looking 
forward to teasing each other."

All their voices will mix in this room.  All their faces will be here 
together, more snapshots for a family gallery.



-- 
nGUYen QUang tuE, august@lEland.stanfoRd.edu
Unexotic Oriental Boy, (415) 325-9227