NicholasKralev.com

For a man of just 28 years, Steve May, an openly gay US politician, has a lot on his plate.

He is leading a bitter legal fight against discharge from the US army for violating the Clinton administration’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which allows gays and lesbians to serve in the military if they keep their sexual orientation private. At the same time he is trying to save his fragile Republican political career as an Arizona state law-maker and to win re-election in November.

Being torn between his legislative duties and running his family’s nutritional foods business has severely reduced the time he spends with his live-in partner of five years; and the never-ending, though futile, attempts of his deeply conservative Mormon parents to reconvert him to their faith hardly ease his burden.

But he arrives smiling and unusually fresh at 7.30am for someone coping with the three-hour time difference between Phoenix and the east coast. As we start talking, and I mention his age, he’s quick to say: “I feel like I’m 50.”

In spite of his demanding schedule and stressful life, May has managed to turn what seemed a curse, when the army began investigating him a year ago, into a weapon that has not only guaranteed him an unchallenged primary but has also made him one of the rising stars on the US political horizon.

“It’s very strange,” he says with amusement, as we make our way to the buffet and help ourselves to continental breakfast. “Some people think that every time the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ issue is in the paper, it hurts my political future. But the opposite is true.”

Back at our table -- with a bagel, eggs, bacon, potatoes and fruit in front of him -- he tells me his sudden fame has helped him raise $110,000 in six months, an exceptional amount for a state race.

Like a good modern politician, May has found a formula that enables him to deal with an issue that has damaged many other public images and ruined flourishing careers.

He quickly rid himself of the fear that being gay and defying the military would prevent the constituents of his affluent and largely Republican east Phoenix district from voting for him. And he decided to use his high profile, boosted by incredible -- and mostly favourable -- media attention, to promote his views on other issues, such as education and taxes.

“The ‘Don’t ask’ issue attracts national attention. It’s not my main issue and my constituents understand that’s not all I’m doing. Although many of them are uncomfortable with homosexuality, they support me because they see someone trying to be honest.”

What’s more, many traditionally conservative Arizona Republicans have become fascinated with him, says May. They can’t work out how he can be gay and Republican and an army reservist. He says they often remark: “You are gay; you are supposed to be a liberal, radical Democrat.”

So stereotypes are changing, he says, and his chances of keeping his seat in the Arizona House of Representatives, to which he was first elected in 1998, look rather good. Since he is unopposed in his own party, he has no worries about the September 12 primary and can focus on the general election.

As well as raising funds for his political campaign, he is also trying to raise money to back his legal fight. We were breakfasting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had held a fundraising event for 50 people the night before, having attended the Harvard graduation of his sister, Shannon, in the morning.

I had met Shannon, six years Steve’s junior, in December, when she had asked the then Republican presidential candidate John McCain to help her brother -- a staunch McCain supporter -- in his battle to remain in the army. The reluctance of the Arizona senator to do so was a big disappointment for May, for whom McCain had been a source of inspiration since childhood.

May was 12 and very active in student government in 1983 when he first saw McCain in action. The newly elected congressman gave a speech at May’s school. “I want to be him,” May said to himself.

When May was about to enter college, McCain encouraged him to go on a navy scholarship. “But after spending two months under water, I realised I didn’t want to be a career officer and a year later switched to the army so I could do reserve time. During my senior year in college they called me on active duty.”

May served two years, from 1993, first in Alabama and then Kansas. Although he received superb evaluations for his service and was promoted to first lieutenant, May says he left active duty in 1995 because of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“Many people just leave (the army) quietly,” he said, rather than put up with “hypocrisy and live deceitful lives. On the one hand, you are supposed to be honest in everything you do as a soldier; on the other, you are required to lie. On Monday morning, the guys would share their weekend exploits with their girlfriends but you either can’t talk about it or have to change pronouns.”

The policy, which was supposed to protect homosexuals from harassment, has actually increased the number of discharges compared with the figures under the old policy that banned gays from serving in the military. Pentagon statistics show that in 1998 1,145 members of the US armed services were discharged for homosexuality -- nearly twice as many as the 617 in 1994, when “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was implemented.

The biggest problem with the policy, May says, is that it punishes speech and orientation, not behaviour. “Before, the government had to prove someone was engaging in homosexual acts. Now they have to prove that you made a statement that you are gay.”

Although May says he has been open about his homosexuality since he first ran for office in 1996, it wasn’t until he talked about being gay on the Arizona House floor in February 1999 that charges were raised against him. But his revelation didn’t prevent the army from calling him up for duty during the Kosovo conflict.

“They avoided the opportunity to enforce ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ when they called me back in service. I was ‘out’ in 1996, they should have known better. They lost their chance. They shouldn’t have called me back if they didn’t want me in.”

The policy has become a big issue in this year’s presidential campaign. Republican candidate George W. Bush supports it, while Democrat Al Gore has said it has not worked, and as president, he would eliminate it.

Last March, May received a letter from the army asking him to resign by simply signing an attached form. Because he refused to do it, a board of officers will determine whether he violated the policy, probably in September.

Although McCain disagrees with May on the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, he has supported him in his two runs for office so far -- one failed and one successful. May hopes it won’t be any different this year.

“McCain helped me in my first race when the rightwing found out I was gay and said ‘We’ve got to ditch this kid’. There were even debates whether I should be allowed to be a Republican.”

May says he never had any doubt about his political convictions. “My family is very socially conservative and active in the Mormon church, and Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles, where I went, is a philosophically conservative place. Our neighbourhood was Republican, too, and bad people were called Democrats.”

He says he was unaware of his homosexuality until after he joined the military and sees no conflict between being gay and Republican. He’s determined to prove it at the national level soon; he may run for Congress in 2002, when Arizona is expected to get two additional seats in the House of Representatives in Washington.

Although he never intended to become a poster child for gays in the military, May says being gay today is not just about what you do in your private life.

“There are serious legal and political issues concerning gay people. It’s not about gay rights, but about American principles and values. I have a moral obligation to point out this flaw.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself when 20 years from now the struggle is over and I say, ‘I could have done something but I wasn’t there’.”