Betsy DeVos, a Friend of L.G.B.T. Rights? Past Colleagues Say Yes

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/politics/betsy-devos-gay-transgender-rights.html

Version 0 of 1.

WASHINGTON — When Greg McNeilly, a longtime Republican operative in Michigan, and his husband filed paperwork in 2015 to adopt a child, it included a warm testament of support from a seemingly unlikely source: Betsy DeVos, the conservative school choice advocate whose family has donated heavily to groups that oppose gay rights.

As a couple, she wrote, the two shared “a close, caring relationship where they treat each other with respect.”

Ms. DeVos, who is now President Trump’s nominee for education secretary, was also the first person to text her congratulations to Mr. McNeilly after his 2014 marriage in a small and hurried courthouse ceremony. If she had been able to attend, it would not have been her first.

In 2013, some two years before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, she was in the audience at the the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, when the center’s president, Michael Kaiser, wed his husband in a ceremony officiated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ms. DeVos’s support for her gay friends and for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are a largely unknown but deep-seated aspect of her history, dating as far back as the late 1990s. At that time, two colleagues recalled, she made accommodations for a transgender woman to use the women’s restroom at a Michigan Republican Party call center. She also used her political connections to help persuade other Michigan Republicans to sign a brief urging the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015, though she did not sign it herself.

This aspect of Ms. DeVos’s personal story is not only at odds with the public image of her and her family as prominent financiers of conservative causes, but it also stands out in a nascent administration with a number of members who have a history of opposing gay rights. A Senate confirmation vote on her nomination is scheduled for this week.

The incomplete picture of Ms. DeVos, 59, exists in part because she has never publicly sought to correct it. Doing so, friends and associates said in interviews, would have put her in the awkward position of clashing with the elder members of her and her husband’s families, something she was loath to do.

But over the past month, associates have come forward to share stories that they say they hope offer a fuller and more nuanced portrait of her character and beliefs.

“She would say it’s a part of her faith,” said Mr. McNeilly, who has worked for Ms. DeVos in various capacities for two decades. “Her faith teaches her to be tolerant. And like most of America, she’s evolved.”

While Ms. DeVos’s acceptance of gay rights may be welcome news to Republicans who think their party needs to move past the issue, it is likely to be worrisome to social conservatives who hope that the Trump administration will roll back some of the liberal social policies that went into effect under President Barack Obama.

Chief among these is an Obama administration directive — issued by the Education and Justice Departments — instructing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

“I’m concerned about any centralized idea of what should be the norms for students across America,” said Frank Cannon, president of the American Principles Project, a conservative policy group. “And I don’t think that any worldview, whether it’s the most conservative or liberal, ought to dictate a centralized form of education.”

“Obviously, when you’re talking about bureaucracy,” Mr. Cannon added, “the worldview is much more likely to be a liberal one.”

Ms. DeVos declined to comment for this article. Mr. Trump has left open how he will approach the school bathroom issue. He has, however, taken a more liberal attitude toward transgender rights than most other Republicans, saying, for instance, that Caitlyn Jenner could use any bathroom in his hotels that she wanted to.

Ms. DeVos’s personal experience with the debate over gender identity and bathrooms dates back decades. As chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, she came to the aid of a transgender woman who wanted to use the women’s restroom at a call center, upsetting some of the other women there, according to two associates at the time — Mr. McNeilly, who was the party’s political director, and Eric Doster, the general counsel.

“We made the accommodation, and that was Betsy’s call,” said Mr. Doster, who did not recall the woman’s name but said this happened in an office near the Michigan State University campus in 1997 or 1998. “A lot of the co-workers weren’t happy with it. But that’s who Betsy is.”

But, like other supportive moves she has made over the years, it was done quietly. When Ken Mehlman, a former Republican National Committee chairman, was collecting signatures from Republicans for a 2015 legal brief that argued in favor of a constitutional right for same-sex marriage, he turned to Ms. DeVos for help in recruiting people in Michigan. She agreed, friends said.

Peter F. Secchia, a friend of Ms. DeVos’s, former ambassador to Italy and one of the Republicans who signed the brief, recalled that the episode was not without some minor discomfort, given the elder DeVoses’ support for groups opposed to gay rights. Mr. Secchia said that after he signed the brief, he called Ms. DeVos’s father-in-law, Richard DeVos, the billionaire co-founder of Amway, as a courtesy.

“I think he was very understanding and very happy that I’d called him,” Mr. Secchia said, noting how Ms. DeVos’s involvement with the brief also put her at odds with her mother, Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, whose foundation has also been active in socially conservative issues. “But this is a tough situation,” he added, for a woman “who has two families that lean the other way.”

Ms. DeVos’s opponents have often conflated her family’s financial support for anti-gay rights initiatives with her own political activities. Ms. DeVos’s in-laws and mother gave heavily to a successful 2004 effort in Michigan to enshrine a ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s Constitution. But records from the secretary of state show no donations from Ms. DeVos or her husband, Richard DeVos Jr.

At the time, she was chairwoman of the state party, and her colleagues said she was lukewarm to the idea at best.

“It wasn’t like, when we would meet, it was her top priority,” said Mike Cox, a former Michigan attorney general, who supported the measure but has since changed his mind about same-sex marriage.

Mr. McNeilly, who was the party’s executive director in 2004, was publicly critical of the ballot proposal then — acting, he said, with Ms. DeVos’s blessing. “Constitutional amendments are not good places to make bumper sticker statements,” he was quoted as saying in The Detroit News in 2003.

Ms. DeVos’s record has not always spoken for itself, however, and she has sometimes struggled to separate her activities and beliefs from her family’s. Under questioning at her confirmation hearing this month, she was at a loss to tell senators why her name was listed as vice president of her mother’s foundation, the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, a generous contributor to groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, both of which ardently oppose gay rights.

Ms. DeVos blamed “a clerical error” but did not elaborate. It turned out that the tax forms on which she was listed were prepared by a former associate of her mother’s who embezzled millions of dollars from Ms. Prince.