On the face of it, there is nothing unusual for British Prime Minister Tony Blair to send his 21-year old son Euan to “intern” for an American politician in Washington now he has completed his university education in Bristol.

But a few eyes were probably raised when news reports said it was a Republican politician, rather than a Democrat, the party that is more aligned to Labour Party thinking.

But when one digs a little deeper and find out just who this Republican politician is, and asks questions in Washington, one really wonders.

Young Euan will apparently be interning under the wing of Representative David Dreier of California who was famously “outed” as a gay man last September in the run-up to the Presidential election.

Dreier has a voting record that can best be described as “homophobic”.

Last September, Mike Rogers, who runs the political Blogactive.com website and PageOneQ.com, awarded Dreier the “Roy Cohn Award, in recognition of 24 years of working against gay and lesbian rights while living as a gay man yourself.”

Writing in the Los Angeles Weekly at the end of September, Doug Ireland, the respected veteran America political journalist who has spent many years in Europe, wrote:

Rogers’ campaign against Dreier got a major boost when it was taken up by Raw Story, the hot new liberal gadfly newsblog. Raw Story — which is edited out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, by 23-year-old John Byrne, who is also gay — last week published an interview with Dreier’s Democratic opponent in 1998 and 2000, Dr. Janice Nelson, who said she was aware during her 2000 campaign that Dreier was living with his chief of staff, Brad Smith. “Brad was like an invisible presence,” she said. “They really have the routine down slick.”

Ireland went on to say that that outing a gay person should be approached with caution, and that in doing so one should strictly adhere to the ‘Barney Frank Rule’.

“As articulated by the openly gay Massachusetts congressman during another anti-gay GOP witch-hunt over a decade ago, when Frank threatened to out a number of gay-baiting Republican fellow congressmen, the rule insists that outing is only acceptable when a person uses their power or notoriety to hurt gay people.” Ireland wrote.

“Dreier clearly meets that standard, for his voting record is strewn with anti-gay positions. To cite just a few:

“He opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have banned discrimination against gay people in hiring; voted for the gay-bashing Defense of Marriage Act; voted for banning adoption by gay and lesbian couples in the District of Columbia (3,000 miles away from Dreier’s district); voted to allow federally funded charities to discriminate against gays in employment, even where local laws prohibit such bias; and voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.”

According to the Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister consulted the British Embassy in Washington, “given the obvious sensitivities”.

Euan Blair’s three-month stint under the wing of Rep. David Dreier is an unpaid position.  Dreier is the Chairman of the powerful Rules Committee of the House of Representatives.

It is understood that they young Blair, who studied ancient history at Bristol University and is about to graduate, intends to do a stint with a Democrat Congressman, the Sunday Telegraph is reporting.

We can, of course, hope that Euan Blair uses his three months to learn first-hand of the divisive  nature of Republican politics, and to report back to his father.  After being raised by a mother, who is a noted human rights barrister, and a father who has overseen many changes in British law to give the gay community more “rights”, young Blair’s time with the Republicans will be an eye-opener.

LINKS

Doug Ireland:  Tony Blair's Son to Intern  With Conservative Closet-Case David Dreier

26 June  2005