Steve Gunderson is openly gay, and was a member of Congress, (Republican from Wisconsin); he retired, but it is not his being gay the reason the congressman is stepping aside. Gunderson's rural, conservative Wisconsin district had already re-elected him once since he acknowledged he is gay.

It's not the House that Gunderson first came to when he was just 29. "It was a good time to be here and a good time to be young, because I found myself riding in with the Reagan revolution," he recalled. It was the Reaganite right wing, however, that was uncomfortable with Gunderson's personal lifestyle. In 1994 California conservative Bob Dornan "outed" Gunderson on the House floor.

Rob Morris, an architect and builder, met openly gay Congressman Steve Gunderson from Wisconsin, in Washington in 1983, and they became lovers and live-in partners. Gunderson has also become an activist for gay and lesbian issues. He has read the names of AIDS victims with his partner Rob Morris in memorial services on the National Mall in Washington. But, as Gunderson reminds the gay community, it is not his only issue. It is not what got him re-elected in Wisconsin. Rob Morris and his partner published the book House and Home, about "being family".