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AE: How should gays proceed now infighting for gay rights?
EJ: Political action and political action committees like Human Rights Campaigns are important. Candidates do clamor and fight for endorsements and campaign contributions. That's the reality and that's where peoples' voices are heard.

Honestly, they need to be a little less tolerant of gay Republicans or Republicans or Democrats who are not good on our issues. It was very frustrating when the Human Rights Campaign supported Al D'Amato over Chuck Schumer. That showed a naiveté that they don't have regarding the political process.

AE: Which is more frightening – Ann Coulter or the creature from Alien?
EJ: She is so smart, I think, the way she plays us all to the fact that we talk about Ann Coulter. Her marketing maneuver was brilliant on her last book. She sits around and says “What is the most outrageous thing I can say?” And she's having a great time doing it. I think she's vile, but she's a self promoter and a marketer. And she's very good at it.

AE: What do you think of her recent comments about Clinton being a latent homosexual or Al Gore being a fag?
EJ: Boy, is that a new one? I think I missed that one. He's a latent homosexual? He'd probably get in a lot less trouble if he was a latent homosexual. It's just more bullshit. The more we pay attention to her the more she wins.

AE: What does it say about the Republicans that they tolerate her or Rick Santorum?
EJ: She doesn't bother me nearly as much as the people that tolerate her and buy her books. I don't think she takes herself seriously. I think she's absolutely full of it and knows it. She's just cashing in on it. These people that follow her or think she's speaking truth, those are the people that get to me.

AE: Were you nervous to open your life up to the world?
EJ: I wasn't very much. The rest of the staff was very nervous. There was intense to debate as to whether to allow it. I can be such an egomaniac with the cameras. I'm willing to dive down that path. And I have been in public situations a great deal in my life. So for me, I was comfortable with it. I wasn't sure it was such a great idea after I started it. But other staff members were very seriously concerned about it and needed convincing.

AE: What weren't the cameras privy to?
EJ: Some conversations in Robert's office. Things that were pretty boring. John and Robert did not let them look at their personal lives. For the most part, everything else was fair game. The deal we had with Ivy [was] if we determined that it was fair and relevant, then she could do it. It didn't have to be fair in the moment. It had to be fair over the entire six episodes. So, I have some temper tantrums in there that I don't love. I think in episode six, I have a real bratty one. Everyone has moments they don't like. But in the context of how she presents it over the entire show, it's fair.

AE: Do you hope seeing you as a successful gay man with a husband and child that people will respect you or open up more to the idea of gay marriage?
EJ: I do have that hope. I don't know how naïve that is. I think people [who] hate gay people or are afraid of gay people, [won't] have some big change of heart. I think those who are supportive will be as supportive or more supportive actually. I think there's a bunch of people in the middle who haven't given it a lot of thought who this may help with.

AE: Is the office as tense as it seems? Is your relationship with Lale as strained as it comes across on the show?
EJ: Yes, it's tense. I think that is typical of most Congressional offices. People are under a lot of pressure. And in our office it's tense among the personalities because I've put together a staff of really type A personalities. They're very strong, opinionated people. I could get a quieter staff, and there are days I wish I had it, but I am convinced that we generally get a better work product when we're all done, even if there's a couple fights along the way.

AE: What's it like working with your husband, James?
EJ: That's been great actually. We get along much better at work than anywhere else. It's nice. We get to come in together and go home together. We bring our son into school right next to the Capitol. We have lunch often and that's a really nice time for us to spend time together without our son.

AE: How did you meet James?
EJ: I met him when he'd come to Washington to finish up his time in the Catholic seminary. He was playing hooky one day in DuPont Circle. And I met him on the street. I was with a friend and we started chatting him up. James and I started dating, and soon after he left the seminary

AE: It was great to see you as the one in the office in a committed relationship with kids. Do you feel like a role model now?
EJ: I've certainly never felt like a role model. And I don't want to set myself up as one. It sounds like asking for trouble. But I do think that it's useful to be on Capitol Hall and fight for issues I know about from personal experience.

AE: It seems like often your job is a huge uphill battle, no? It must be frustrating.
EJ: It's very frustrating. It seems like we never stop losing, and you can get extremely pessimistic. I have been fighting even getting slightly hopeful about us taking back the house in November. We have a shot at taking one or two houses of Congress back. I really pray for that. The country needs it so badly. It's demoralizing to keep getting beat. The Republicans have rewritten the rules. They don't make the fight fair.

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