[Washington Post / June 2001]
When President Clinton nominated James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg in 1997, the San Francisco philanthropist was portrayed by critics as anti-Catholic. He was accused of promoting pornography and pedophilia. And he was denounced for being, as one letter to the editor put it, "a relentless propagator of the homosexual lifestyle."
These accusations by conservative groups such as the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition had the intended effect: Hormel's nomination was blocked by Republicans in the Senate, where it languished for nearly two years. The stalemate was finally broken in June 1999 when Clinton bypassed the normal confirmation process and appointed Hormel while Congress was in recess.
“I was very angry—if anger is a sufficient word”
Throughout the nomination imbroglio and his 17-month tenure in Luxembourg, which ended in December, Hormel, the first openly gay man to serve as an ambassador, refrained from responding publicly to his critics. But during a recent interview in his San Francisco home, Hormel and his partner, Timothy Wu, spoke about the controversy and its impact on their lives.
"I was very angry—if anger is a sufficient word," says the 68-year-old Hormel.
"First they tried the gay thing, and that didn't work," says Wu, 38, a Harvard-trained public interest lawyer and former White House fellow. "Then they tried the anti-Catholic thing, and that didn't work. So then they tried the pedophilia thing, and that didn't work. They were trying more and more base tactics and nothing was sticking."
The "anti-Catholic thing" was based on a brief television interview Hormel gave during a San Francisco gay pride parade in which he chuckled at a joke made about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a band of transvestites given to cavorting around town dressed in nuns' habits. Hormel concedes he laughed at the joke, but that's a far cry from endorsing the Sisters' antics, he says, or being anti-Catholic.
The "pedophilia thing" was based on Hormel's donation of $500,000 to the San Francisco Public Library to establish a gay studies center. The center's collection includes material from the notorious North American Man-Boy Love Association and other literature that people find objectionable, but much of the same material can also be found at the Library of Congress. More to the point, Hormel says, he played no role in choosing the contents of the collection: "I had nothing to do with their selection, nor would I ever presume to tell a library what books it should or shouldn't carry."
The depiction of Hormel as an apostle of "the homosexual lifestyle" was based on his support for gay rights organizations and causes. (He is a founder of the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy group.) Critics were particularly exercised over his financial support for "It's Elementary," a documentary film addressing gay issues in school. The film, which was broadcast on dozens of public television stations, also received funding from the Ford Foundation and other mainstream organizations.
"It was characterized as a promotional film for homosexuality," Hormel says, "but it was actually an educational tool for teachers to diminish the level of bigotry."
What made the attacks even more frustrating was that Hormel—like other nominees for senior diplomatic posts—was constrained by State Department protocol from speaking publicly during the confirmation process. "We felt obliged to play fair, to play by the rules," says Wu, "while other people who held high positions of public trust did not feel constrained by the same rules."
“The battle over the nomination turned into a 20-month struggle that often left the two men feeling drained and depressed.”
The battle over the nomination turned into a 20-month struggle that often left the two men feeling drained and depressed.
"The stress was relentless," Hormel recalls. "Our private time was spent dealing with the wounds we suffered. We had very little opportunity to relax or relieve the stress."
Hormel's rambling Victorian house, on a hilltop offering a sweeping view of San Francisco, served as a command post and a safe haven for the couple. But they made an effort to carry on their social and professional lives.
"We made a point of not hiding. We made a point of being public," Hormel says.
To relieve the stress, the couple indulged their passion for tennis and spent time visiting friends and family. "Just being able to go to a friend's house and not talk about politics, not talk about anything more mind-consuming than what was on television, was a relief," Wu says.
Hormel and Wu made countless calls to supporters with influence on Capitol Hill, and occasionally called or wrote lawmakers directly to respond to a particular attack.
Hormel says he attempted to talk with the three Republican senators who put a hold on his nomination—Bob Smith of New Hampshire, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas. But Smith and Inhofe refused to meet with him, and Hutchinson, who did, "chose to focus not on my qualifications, not on the office, but on matters that were straining the truth and inflammatory."
Hutchinson told an Arkansas reporter at the time that he opposed the nomination because of Hormel's opposition to U.S. policies on gays in the military and same-sex marriage.
The Senate had approved other openly gay candidates nominated by Clinton for federal posts. The difference with Hormel, argued his critics, was his activism on behalf of gay rights.
Low-key by nature, Hormel found the constant pressure to blow his own horn disconcerting. "Frankly, I find self-promotion rather distasteful," he says. "This is not our metier, it's nothing either one of us is used to."
The two men, who met at a fund-raising dinner for a nonprofit organization, had been together only a few months when discussions about a possible ambassadorial post for Hormel began early in Clinton's first term. After the nomination, the constant pressure exposed some rough edges in Hormel and Wu's relationship.
Wu recalls many days when he came home exhausted, hoping to kick back and be catered to by Hormel. But he often found his partner equally stressed and in need of attention. "That's when you say, 'God, why are we doing this to ourselves? We're both wiped out.' "
But, in the end, both men say, the political firestorm strengthened their relationship.
“My life has been enriched. Our lives together have been enriched. We have learned the meaning of integrity.”
"My life has been enriched. Our lives together have been enriched. We have learned the meaning of integrity," Hormel says.
But there is little doubt that Hormel's relationship with Wu complicated his road to Luxembourg. Much discussion was given, for example, to where Wu should sit during the confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the end, Wu sat with other members of Hormel's family, including his former wife, their five children and several of their 13 grandchildren.
"In some ways it was harder on Tim than it was on me because he was the foreign object," Hormel says. "There are spouses, and then there's Tim. I have no doubt that there were some people in the department who thought it would be a lot easier if there were no Tim."
Hormel and Wu belong to different generations -- Wu is three decades younger than Hormel -- and have different social and cultural backgrounds. Hormel, an heir to the Hormel meatpacking fortune, was raised in the Midwest amid servants and chauffeurs. Wu was born in New York of Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in Singapore.
"People in this country are not used to gay couples, period," Wu says. "They're not used to interracial couples, period. They're not used to couples with age differences, period. You put all those in the same blender and you get a lot of preconceptions and misconceptions about what the relationship is."
The low point in their struggle came when they learned that the three Republican senators had placed a hold on the nomination only hours before the full Senate was expected to vote on it. (Despite the heated opposition, the nomination had sailed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by a vote of 16 to 2.)
"I felt very dejected, about as low as I could get," recalls Hormel, who was in the midst of a two-week ambassadorial training program at the State Department when he got the news. What helped Hormel and Wu get through the ordeal was the outpouring of support they received from friends and family, members of the gay community, and ordinary citizens across the country.
Despite the barrage of accusations and innuendoes, Hormel says he never gave serious thought to withdrawing his name from consideration. "I started it and I wanted to finish it," he says.
For Wu, the battle over the nomination strengthened his relationship with his own family. His parents, who emigrated from Shanghai, had a difficult time accepting his sexuality, Wu says, but the unfounded attacks on Hormel drew the family closer together.
"They saw these incredibly vicious accusations against somebody they really like and really value and really care for, and they realized this is not the man they knew. This is not Jim Hormel. It made them realize we need to take a stand, we need to support our son, we need to support Jim in this. It made them perhaps confront their own concerns and realize that the people who were saying all these horrible things were wrong."
