I just received a document from the Human Rights Campaign that appears to be a "gay rights" questionnaire Harriet Miers filled out in 1989 when she was running for Dallas city council. (HRC says they got the document from a trusted source and thus believe it to be authentic.)
There are few interesting things about this questionnaire:
1. The questionnaire is from the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas.I'm not sure this questionnaire provides any definitive answers about Harriet Miers and gay rights - many of her answers aren't great - but it sure raises a number of questions. And I wouldn't want to be the Bush administration right about now, trying to answer why their wonder candidate was sucking up to gay groups as early as the 1980s (not that there's anything wrong with that :-)
2. Miers seems supportive of increased AIDS funding, which isn't a small deal in 1989, especially in a more conservative place with Texas.
3. Miers says she believes gays should have the same civil rights as straights. Again, perhaps no big shocker today, but this was 1989 in Texas.
4. At the end of the questionnaire, Miers says she is NOT seeking the endorsement of the gay rights group.
5. But then why did Miers fill out their questionnaire in the first place? Would a true conservative family-values candidate fill out a candidate questionnaire from a gay rights group TODAY, let alone in 1989 and in Texas to boot?
You can view a pdf version of the original questionnaire, with Miers' own signature on it, here.
PS Please link to this post and NOT the document directly - I will change the address of the document in a few hours, so don't go stealing my bandwidth :-)
