"The job of any good opinion section is to challenge readers, not just preach to the choir," Crain wrote in a late September column.

But many readers, it appears, felt not simply challenged, but outraged at the appearance of Gannon's columns. Crain now says there is a "steady stream of 'feedback/vitriol' ... with each column, though a little less each time he is published." Gannon tells E&P, "The public reaction to my columns has been predictably negative and shrill."

Gannon became famous earlier this year when -- after he asked President George W. Bush a Republican-slanted question at a press conference -- reporters discovered he had been credentialed despite using an alias, and working for an organization, Talon News, that appeared more dedicated to supporting Bush than gathering news.

Later reports asserted he had some years ago advertised himself as a male escort.

Gannon, whose legal name is Jim Guckert, resigned soon after as a White House correspondent.

While he continued to report and comment on his own Web site, Gannon had been mostly off the media radar screen until the Blade began occasionally publishing his columns this summer.

In an e-mail interview, Crain said the Blade does not have regular columnists, and that Gannon submits contributions that are considered for publication just as any other freelance submission.

One difference is the reaction they get.

After Crain defended the decision to publish Gannon, A.J. Schuler, an Alexandria, Va., resident who identified himself as a "businessman whose clients in town include top attorneys and business leaders," wrote: "I will use whatever influence and leverage I have at my disposal to persuade advertisers to shun the Washington Blade, pending Chris Crain's removal as editor and the removal of James Guckert (a.k.a. Jeff Gannon) as a columnist. We don't need Chris Crain and his sambo (sic) rag editorial policies here in D.C."

In the rival D.C. gay paper Metro Weekly, Editor Sean Bugg responded to Crain's column with a vow that he would never publish Gannon. "Why? Not because he's a conservative," Bugg wrote, noting that the paper has run the gay conservative Dale Carpenter's "OutRight" column. "It's because Gannon's a conservative who's been aggressively hostile to GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender) concerns, while at the same time being hypocritically coy about his own sexual orientation."

But Crain told E&P, "Despite the controversy and volume of emails, not a single self-identified gay conservative has complained to me that Gannon is published in our papers. A number of gay conservatives, including some very prominent ones, have written me privately to thank me for standing up for the gay press as an open forum for everyone, including the politically incorrect.”

Gannon, in an e-mail interview, said that’s been his experience, too. "I have received private messages of support for my writings," he wrote. "The newspaper continues to publish my columns, which I interpret as an indication that its management considers my viewpoint relevant to discussion of important issues.”

Both Crain and Gannon denied that the writer was “hostile” to homosexual concerns. “I do, however strongly disagree with those claim to represent the entire GLTB community,” Gannon wrote. “They have marginalized themselves by attacking those with a different viewpoint and aligned themselves with a single political party that takes them for granted.”

In response to a question, Gannon declined to discuss his sexual orientation, saying, “My personal life is a private matter, despite that fact that I have become a public person.”

Crain, in his column, said the episodes illustrate that the “growing polarization of American politics has taken root within gay America as well.

“If we cannot tolerate the viewpoint of someone who tries to explain why one-quarter of us like and support the president,” he wrote of Gannon, “then how can we expect the 96% of Americans who are heterosexual to listen seriously to our demands for equality?”