"Scott was very active in Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life," the lobbyist said. "Among homosexuals, it would be hard to find someone who is closer to a conservative perspective than Scott Evertz." With the exception of gay rights -- which he has even editorialized about for a Wisconsin gay publication -- Evertz, vice president of the Luther Manor Foundation and an administrator for the United Lutheran Program for the Aging, is right there with Bush on every issue, the lobbyist says.

And he gave him crucial support when Republican gay groups began applying heat to Bush last year. A year ago, the national Log Cabin Republicans threatened to revoke the Wisconsin Log Cabin chapter's charter after Evertz put out a press release slamming the national group's radio ads against what they perceived to be gay baiting by Bush, saying that the ads were "tantamount to an endorsement of Senator [John] McCain." McCain, meanwhile, had received contributions from members of the national Log Cabin's board.

"It mimics the unfair attacks on Bush, which have been coming from the McCain campaign concerning Bob Jones University, and throws in others relating to Log Cabin," Evertz said at the time, referring to radio ads criticizing Bush for cozying up to anti-gay Christian conservatives at Bob Jones University, and for refusing to meet with gay Republicans.

After the primaries had concluded and Bush had sewn up the Christian Right vote, however, Bush then agreed to meet with some gay Republicans. Evertz was one of a dozen local Log Cabin officials -- no one from the national office was invited -- shuttled to Austin to confab with then-Gov. Bush in a meeting that the GOP nominee said made him "a better person."

Meanwhile, no one knows how Bush is going to come down on any of the pending gay and lesbian rights issues. President Clinton handed down three executive orders addressing homosexuality as an employment issue: banning sexual orientation as a consideration when hiring, firing or promoting for civilian positions in the federal government; asking about a person's sexual orientation in security clearance interviews; and considering a person's sexual orientation as part of any education programs funded by the federal government.

The White House has yet to announce a position on the matter.

One of Cirmo's former colleagues from the Family Research Council, Kay Cole James, has been nominated to serve as director of the Office of Personnel Management, charged with enforcing these executive orders. But when asked on Friday if that was any indication of Bush's position on the executive orders banning government employment discrimination against gays and lesbians, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "I would not make any link between an appointment to somebody and a decision that the president would make on an executive order here, as far as White House personnel."

Another relevant issue that could end up on President Bush's desk involves the proposed national law against such workplace discrimination, called the Employment Non Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which is scheduled to be introduced in the U.S. Senate next month by Sens. Jim Jeffords, R-Vt., Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. ENDA would prevent workplace discrimination against gays in the private sector as well.

When asked his position on ENDA during the second presidential debate, then-Gov. Bush acted as if he had never heard of it.

Both the left and the right, however, are prepared to be disappointed by Bush on this and other issues of the so-called gay agenda, as Cirmo indicated.

She said that members of her organization were concerned with the role that Mary Cheney, a lesbian, played on the campaign of her father, Vice President Dick Cheney. "It raised a red flag, but we didn't raise a stink about it." Likewise, Cirmo said, members of the Family Research Council were alarmed to learn that Mary Matalin -- who has publicly spoken in favor of gay and lesbian rights -- would be taking a leave from her duties as co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" to work as a senior advisor to the administration. "The question is, how is the Bush administration going to act on the homosexual agenda? So far it seems to be going on a different road from the road that we're taking."

Added the conservative lobbyist, "I certainly don't approve of the homosexual agenda, but I know the president has a different view. He's pretty comfortable with these guys as long as they're on board with the rest of his agenda."

But one of "these guys," Smith, begged to differ, claiming that Bush as governor was hostile to gay rights issues, supporting a law banning gays and lesbians from adopting children, and opposing the inclusion of homosexuals in the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act. "It clearly appeared as though there was gay-baiting going on by Bush during the South Carolina primary," Smith said. "We have a wait-and-see attitude."

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