SUMMARY: The conservative Family Research Council warned that President Bush is implicitly endorsing the "homosexual political agenda."

A memo from the conservative Family Research Council last week warned of a "disturbing trend" that it says has emerged in the Bush administration: an "implicit endorsement of the homosexual political agenda."

The memo, written by the council's president Ken Connor, focused on the alleged discrepancy between President George W. Bush's "rhetoric on behalf of the family" and the "reality of the agenda occurring under his administration."

Connor cited several examples of recent events, including a vote in Congress to lift the ban on domestic partner benefits in the District of Columbia. "We lost this vote," he wrote, "because 41 Republicans bolted to join 184 Democrats. Doubtless some of these GOP defectors took a cue from the White House."

Other affronts to family values, according to Connor, included: allowing openly gay Rep. Jim Kolbe, R.-Ariz., to speak at the Republican National Convention; naming former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci, "a militant advocate of homosexual rights," as ambassador to Canada; appointing "prominent gay activist" Scott Evertz to lead the White House AIDS Office; and swearing in "openly homosexual foreign service officer" Michael Guest as ambassador to Romania.

Citing the persuasive power of a "sports superstar endorsing a breakfast cereal," the memo concluded that the cumulative effect of Bush's actions could have "enormous influence" on the American public.

David Smith, communications director for the nation's largest gay and lesbian political organization, the Human Rights Campaign, criticized the memo's timing, in light of the country's focus on responding to the Sept. 11 attacks.

"There is a time and place for these types of debates," he told the Washington Post. "Now is not the time."