"Well, it depends on how you define welcome," Bay Buchanan tells me, gesturing firmly with her hands, knowing that as it relates to the question of gay and lesbian inclusion in the Republican Party, the simple word welcome is highly charged. As if I've overdosed on melatonin and lapsed into a bizarre dream I can't wake from, I'm on the floor of the Republican National Convention in San Diego casually chatting with Patrick Buchanan's sister and campaign manager, a woman no less determined than her brother to get complete control of the Republican Party, the country, the world, and, yes, what little bit of primitive life has been found on Mars.

Sitting a mere three rows in front of us are several gay Republicans, members of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group that boasts four openly gay delegates at this convention (as opposed to none in '92). A few minutes earlier, in what I'm sure the Dole campaign meant to be a show of the party's newfound inclusiveness, a white female singer was onstage singing a rap song about family values, part of the between-speech entertainment: "Your mother and your father, yeah, they came together, and they made you, yeah, that's fam-i-ly . . . " And the Log Cabin boys were dancing in the aisles.

"You can tell who the queens are here," Rich Tafel, head of the national Log Cabin Federation, had said to me with a laugh, pointing out his dancing compatriots. Indeed, the Log Cabinites, who held their own national convention here shortly before the Repubican one began, are giddy and ecstatic this week, happy enough just to be here and not have Bay Buchanan's fire-breathing brother making a barbecue out of them—even if people like her are still splitting hairs over whether or not they're "welcome."

"It is clear that the people of this party do not embrace their agenda," Bay Buchanan continues. She's polite but forceful, her face framed by a flattering, close-cropped power hairdo. "But as individuals who agree with us on other issues, they certainly are welcome. They are part of the diverse aspects of our party. They believe in tax cuts, they believe in less government, many of them are very strongly opposed to discrimination of any type but are also opposed to affirmative action programs. This is where we agree with them, and so in that regard, yes, they are welcome." This of course is double-talk at its best, but it's interesting that a leader in the Buchanan brigade would be employing such wimpy rhetoric at all, carefully choosing words like diverse. Patrick Buchanan himself was banished this year to the desert: the parched suburb of Escondido, where a few nights ago he was joined by Oliver North and Eagle Forum leader Phyllis Schlafly in his own miniconvention for the religious Right crowd. Even then, Buchanan didn't find it necessary to rail against the homos whom he'd targeted only four years earlier as one of the greatest threats to Western Civilization, setting the tone for the 1992 RNC in Houston. Throughout the entire week in San Diego, in fact, many of the Christian Right leaders have been curiously tying themselves in knots when it comes to queer issues: In some cases, they do everything they can not to answer questions at all. In a new twist on things, the homophobes are quite suddenly at a loss for words. To the Log Cabin folks, this is progress, the real Republican Party finally showing through—even if the Christian Right according to one survey represents perhaps as many as one-third of the delegates and has had a hand in crafting "the most conservative Republican party platform ever," as Phyllis Sclafly proudly declared in Escondido—a document that is overtly antigay.

"You have to ask yourself, Is the platform the direction of a Dole administration or is last night [the first night of the convention]?" gay Republican Tafel says. "The Dole campaign has worked hard to make the convention itself inclusive. I was in Houston four years ago. It's like night and day."

This absence of debate about the rights of gay people that excites the Log Cabiners and baldly conflicts with the official party platform is a story the mainstream media isn't finding here in San Diego. One network news reporter lamely told a Log Cabin delegate that she wasn't asking questions about lesbian and gay issues because "the gay press is doing a better job at that." Everywhere I turn in this electronic circus, lazy mainstream journalists are whining about how there is "no story" at this convention—the excuse offered by Ted Koppel when he packs up the Nightline team and goes home halfway through. In the periodicals press room, Norman Mailer, covering the convention for George, tells me this trip is like a "four-day vacation" since there's "nothing here to write about." (I guess we're going to see yet another groundbreaking piece of George journalism.) A gay reporter covering the Dole campaign for a major daily newspaper actually tells me he feels "sorry" for me, because there is no gay "angle" here.

This myopic view is prevalent among much of the national media, conditioned as they are to having the story dictated to them by the campaign and the convention spinmeisters. In their view, if there's mention of gay people from up on the podium, then there's a gay "angle." Otherwise, they'll tell you, it's not "professional" or "relevant" to pursue the issues. But as far as I'm concerned, in America in 1996 there's a gay angle to every story, and not pursuing it allows the straight angle to maintain a stranglehold on the media.

The people trying to break that stranglehold are the many independent lesbian and gay journalists and documentarians covering the convention. And we're all having a ball. Every major antigay power monger is here for the picking, and with our floor passes in hand, we're virtual kids in a candy store. We understand what the straight media doesn't: On this convention floor, there's a news story walking right under your nose every five minutes. All you have to do is ask the questions no one else will.

"You have said recently that you support protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing and employment," I say to a cordial Ralph Reed, the boyish and nerdy executive director of the Christian Coalition, as he breezes onto the convention floor in a dapper blue suit. He is trailed by an array of followers who want, it appears, only to touch him. Reed recognizes my name and at first seems eager to talk.

I remind him how, several months earlier, when he was busy putting a kinder public face on the Christian Coalition (an effort that has included keeping founder Pat Robertson and his zany ilk locked in a closet somewhere), Reed stated in a New York speaking appearance his belief that discrimination against gay people should end. But, I continue, the platform of this year's Republican convention, drafted in great part by Christian Coalition members, clearly states, "We reject the distortion of [antidiscrimination] laws to cover sexual preference and endorse the Defense of Marriage Act to prevent states from being forced to recognize same-sex unions."

"That's right," Reed says with a smile, responding to my statement. "I don't believe in discrimination."

"But the platform specifically singles out gays and lesbians from other groups and says it does not support such laws," I counter. "What do you feel—"

"That's not really accurate," Reed interjects. "What the platform says is that the Republican party does not believe in codifying sexual preference along with race, gender, and ethnicity in our existing civil rights statutes."

"How would you enact a law to protect gays and lesbians without putting it in—"

"I don't know that it could be done with a legal regimin," Reed interupts.

"I think it would need to be done through employers setting policies themselves."

"So then you don't agree with legally protecting gays and lesbians?" I ask slowly, trying to get him to simply answer the question.

"No, I didn't say that. I've said that I was opposed to codifying—"

"But the question is, How do you protect gays and lesbians legally without making a law?"

"Umm. [pause] Look, I've got to go down here, now. Nice chatting with you." He smiles and quickly escapes.

Later, I try to get some straight answers from antigay crusader and Eagle Forum leader Phyllis Schalfly.

"You said in your speech in Escondido that you were very proud of the platform," I remark. Schlafly, who is celebrating her 72nd birthday this week, is wearing a blindingly bright, multicolored print dress, and her bleached hair is an exotic helmet, piled high on her head in hardened swirls and curls. "And yet the platform specifically calls for excluding gays from legal protection. How can you resolve this with the fact that your son is a homosexual?"

"Oh now, come on, is this really important to talk about?" she shoots back. Schlafly was horribly embarrassed in front of her religious Right chums when her son John came out reluctantly after being outed in 1992. It made Phyllis seem like a hypocrite and, worse, a hateful mother.

"Yes," I tell her, "it's certainly relevant."

"Well, look, I don't have a problem with any of that, OK?"

"You don't?"

"No. Look, my son is not going into the army or getting a marriage liscense."

"What about the fact that he could be fired from his job or thrown out of his apartment. Did you know that?"

"Uh, no," she says, her voice beginning to crack. "Look, this is not, just not, a subject to talk about. Go away. Run along."

"Oh, I think it most certainly is a subject to talk about," I say to her, whipping around in front of her as she attempts to turn away. "Ms. Schlafly, are you in denial about the fact that your son is a homosexual?" "Run along! Shoo! Shoo!" she says, becoming upset, gesturing with her arms. "Go! Shoo! I'm not putting up with this, I'm just not! Why can't you people just leave me alone? Why can't you just go away?" "Phyllis," I tell her, "we are never going away."

There is of course The Closet Factor: The floor is electric, alive with cruising as eyes continually lock between men in the media corp, delegates from far and wide, and closeted, cute Dole/Kemp campaign staffers (several of whom are hitting the hip young gay bar Flick's each night after the gavel goes down), but I decide to hold out for the big names. I hang out at the Arizona delegation, waiting for Congressman Jim Kolbe, who had recently announced that he was in fact gay, shutting down the campaign to out him that had begun after he voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). When the Congressman arrives and his media liason tells him that the first reporter he'll face on the floor of the convention is from Out magazine, he groans audibly.

"I'm not doing any interviews with the national news media on that subject," he tells me. "I've said everything I've had to to say."

"OK," I say. "Then lets talk about the issues. What—"

"I'm really here to to talk about the issues I've been talking about," he interupts. "Talking about taxes, and budgets, and the budget committee. I'd rather talk about those issues."

"Well, I'd like to talk about ENDA [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act]."

"I'm on record, well, yeah, as supporting ENDA..."

"You disagree then I presume with the platform of your party, which explicitly singles out anti-discrimniation laws for gays as not worthy of—"

"I'm, er, I was delighted to er, listen to, to hear Jack Kemp and Colin Powell talk about inclusion in the party and... umm... I think that's--that's the right approach."

"Do you think that this party really includes gays and lesbians?" I ask.

"I think, well, I'm for including all kinds of people, OK?"

"But the platform itself singles out—"

"I think the party is… will be inclusive, and should include all kinds of people."

"So you disagree with the platform?"

"I just think the party is very, um, is inclusive. I'm not worried about what the specifics of the platform are. The party should be and will be inclusive."

You get the feeling that he believes if he says this stuff enough, maybe he'll just will things that way. I'm struck too by how much his closet is still talking, even though he's just come out: Here's an openly gay congressman not willing to be critical of a blatantly antigay platform, while Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, a straight man, later tells me that he was "angered" by the platform's treatment of lesbians and gay men and signed a letter that was sent to the platform committee calling for the antigay language to be taken out.

I head over to the Florida delegation, looking for Representative Mark Foley of West Palm Beach, who voted in favor of DOMA and who some of the gay press reported was gay. Unlike Kolbe, however, Foley has steadfastly refused to comment on his sexuality. A delegate points him out to me, sitting at the end of a a row of seats, but I can't get over to him because the aisle is blocked by security people. We lock eyes, and Foley smiles at me and discreetly waves. I pass a note down to him.

Congressman, can I steal you away for a minute for a couple of questions?

They're not allowing any press up that aisle.

"Where are you from?" he mouths to me.

"Out magazine," I mouth back.

He smiles, and then, shaking his head, mouths, "Sorry."

Wanting him to feel comfortable, I scribble another note, including my various phone numbers.

We don't have to do anything you don't want to do. We can just talk.

Foley laughs, and give me the OK sign and a "thank you."

Not long after, I watch former CBS news producer and ACT UP stalwart Ann Northrop and her crew from the Gay Cable Network speak to Foley for at least 10 minutes. He will not discuss his sexual orientation, but does give an impassioned defense of needle exchange programs for preventing the spread of HIV among IV drug users—not a popular position for a Republican, especially considering that the Democratic president refuses to back such programs. Sometimes, we'll take what we can get.

At that moment, we all spot Steve Forbes, and Northop's camera crew follows me as I pursue him. He's trying to get out of the hall, that famous, scary frozen smile still planted on his face. I want to ask him about gay issues, but I feel that full disclosure is in order. So I introduce myself, telling him that I'm the journalist who outed his father in a magazine article shortly after he'd died. Still with the smile planted on his face, Steve Forbes punches me in the ribs, pushes us all out of his way, and runs out of the convention hall. "This is what you call 'impact journalism,'" Ann Northrop remarks, thrilled that she's got the whole thing on camera.

All week, the Log Cabin leaders have been brokering with the Dole campaign, deciding whether or not they should advise their membership to endorse Dole. In 1992, after the hate that spewed forth from Houston, the group refused to endorse George Bush. This time, they're trying to find out what they can get in return for their endorsement of Dole. They have reason to worry about the campaign's response, since it was their $1,000 check that Bob Dole first returned months earlier, then, embarrassed by the resulting media coverage, decided to accept after all. With some members angered by the final decision, the leaders decide on the last day of the San Diego convention to advise the membership to endorse Dole (and two weeks later the full membership would indeed vote to endorse Dole). And they're not getting much in return: A letter from the campaign saying Dole "welcomes" their endorsement, that word welcome clearly taking on the same importance it did when Bay Buchanan split hairs with me over its meaning.

In the RNC's media room at the Marriott Hotel, Log Cabin leaders Rich Tafel and Abner Mason, along with gay Republican delegates to the convention, hold a press conference. Our crowd of chiefly gay and lesbian reporters points out that the gay Republicans settled for a lot less than they said they would: They'd wanted Dole to officially "ask" for their endorsement, for example. We raise the issue of the religious right's power in the party and of Kemp's abysmal record—he called for mandatory testing and contact tracing in the 1980s to solve the AIDS crisis, and has labeled the rumors that he might be gay "disgusting" and "vicious." We point out that Dole signed on to the Defense of Marriage Act at a rightwing media circus way back in Iowa during the primaries and eventually co-sponsored and introduced the bill, that he doesn't support ENDA, that he'd likely cut Medicare funding and leave people with AIDS with no access to care. And on and on.

But the Log Cabinites say they believe a lot of that is old hat. It's a new day and new party, they tell us, and besides, they say, they have to take a chance: Political clubs can't get anywhere by not endorsing. You have to play ball if you want to stay in the game. There is truth to what they say: For years, gay Democrats, in an effort to build a power base and eventually cash in on years of support, endorsed do-nothing presidential candidates, some of whom had even been hostile to the gay community, like Masschusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who outlawed adoptions by gay people in Massachusetts. The Log Cabin people are paying their dues, and the work they're doing will perhaps pave the way for them down the road; certainly they are activists within the party, having an influence that is, as the expression goes, good for the gays.

Still, the Log Cabinites would be foolish to think that the national Republican party, at this point in time, will do anything substantial for gay people, or that the lesbian and gay community should get behind Bob Dole. And having gotten to know some of them, I think many of them don't actually believe this. Not for a second. No matter how well-intentioned other aspects of the party may be, the religious Right will be enormously powerful for a long time to come. One can only imagine the kinds of things the religious conservatives were promised in a Dole administration for swallowing their immense pride, remaining mum here on issues they are passionate about.

"They don't have any strength in the party," Bay Buchanan says to me on the convention floor, speaking about the Log Cabin group as well as about gay men and lesbians in general. She gestures over the the Buchananites in their yellow hardhats. "The rank and file does not agree with the particular aspects of their agenda. They have less strength than even the pro-choice people, who don't have much strength as it is. The grass roots won't support them. It'll never happen." She smiles broadly, and then looks me right in the eye. "That's it," she says. "End of discussion."