News

A Time for Unity: Election 2000 Comes to a Decisive End

December 13, 2000

(Washington, DC) – The following is a statement by Rich Tafel, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, on the concession speech of Vice President Al Gore and the address which followed from President-elect George W. Bush, this evening:

"We applaud both Vice President Gore and President-elect Bush for their gracious speeches to the nation this evening. The election is over, and it is time for the nation to unite behind our next President.

We stand at the brink of a new administration, after what was a long and arduous process for both sides in this election. We now have an almost evenly split Congress and a narrowly elected new President. The election results, in fact, reflect a nation that is not bitterly divided, but one that is remarkably united behind sound, centrist principles and beliefs. The American people want leaders who work together to advance these centrist principles, who put bitter partisan and ideological interests aside and foster bipartisan solutions to the problems they are most concerned with. Gay and lesbian Americans are no less eager for such leadership, and no less deserving of having it.

We have an enormous opportunity ahead of us, and we should seize it together. We must build a truly bipartisan movement, and reach out to our new Republican President, reach out to a much wider spectrum of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and build a broader consensus on issues and policy than ever attempted before. To be successful requires compromise and new approaches from all of us, opening our minds to new ideas and concepts perhaps never before considered. Most importantly, it requires a common-ground acknowledgment from all of us that our nation comes first, and that we owe it to our country to build a truly bipartisan movement going forward from this moment in history.

The Republican Party also has a tremendous opportunity to reach out to tens of millions of Americans who share a deep love of country and the hopes that it has come to represent. We call on our Party to rise to the occasion of this historic moment as the Party of Lincoln, the party founded on the cause of preserving our great Union at enormous human cost, to reach out to all Americans from all walks of life, including gay and lesbian Americans, with open minds and open hearts.

Gay and lesbian Americans join the rest of the country tonight in hoping for unity. We should answer the call from both Vice President Gore and President-elect Bush, as all Americans should, and begin the task of working together for the common good of our nation."