NEWS: Is Outing Gay Politicians Good Politics?

POLITICS: Is Outing Gay Politicians Good Politics?

Last week, Yahoo news did a “People Of The Web” series on Mike Rogers. Rogers is the founder and writer of BlogActive.com. It’s a website that has earned him a reputation as one of the most feared men on Capitol Hill. Why?

Yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to say that outing gay politicians who work to undermine gay political gains is pretty fucking “politically motivated.”

At any rate, the list of government officials (elected and unelected) that Rogers has outed is long and distinguished. Because linking to his site is almost the same thing as publishing them, I’ll save you the click and give you some of the heavy-hitters he’s named.

Foley’s no surprise. The others may or may not be. His list also includes Senate staffers, White House aides, a former New York City Mayor and one extremely popular political blogger.

All, according to Rogers, are both anti-gay and gay enough to be dragged out of the closet on the world’s biggest stage. The point, of course, is to expose the hypocrisy of people who proclaim to work towards a certain moral standard, but practice something totally different. In a way, he’s like the gay version of Larry Flynt, but without the accompanying sex empire or biopic (yet.)

But is it ethical? Is it right? Is it fair? Is what he doing truly good politics? (emphasis intentional)

Whether I agree or disagree with the positions taken by GLAAD and the Log Cabin folks, I do not agree with Rogers on the point above. People who are upset about Rogers’ tactics are not just people who have a vested interest in protecting the closet in general, but may have a vested interest in protecting their own personal closet. And while it may seem like clear hypocrisy to vote against gay rights and be gay or have gay sex (and I concede it usually is), it may not always be. Sexuality is a fluid, complex, personal issue. Sex mixed with politics are doubly so. Rogers makes it seem like both are black-and-white issues.

Also troubling is the possibility of “collateral outings.” Check out Rogers’ interview with former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman.

The clear implication, of course, is that Mr. Berg is Mehlman’s gay lover. Whether or not that’s the case is immaterial. While Mehlman is certainly a complete asshole and may also be a homosexual, dragging someone else into the fray is irresponsible and more than a bit cruel.

This is not to say I don’t see Rogers’ side of the story and am not sympathetic to his cause. I do and I am. I am just saddened to see sexuality used as a cudgel. Even though these allegedly gay folks should have nothing to be ashamed of if they are in fact gay, Rogers is still taking advantage of the fact that some people think they should for political gain. That implication leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

i heard an npr piece on this last fall and they talked to barney frank about his thoughts on it (having been outed himself ages ago in a much more embarrassing way).

this is a troubling issue for me, because as much as i love exposing republican hypocrisy, the issue of sexuality is so deeply personal that it just seems well, icky from a moral standpoint to out these guys.

but frank brought up a good point--these people focus their jobs at least to some extent to limiting the rights of gays and lesbians. it's not really fair that they be able to do this by the light of day, then retreat to that community after dark and expect it to welcome them.

clearly i think there are huge psychological issues that cause someone to live a double life like this, and i feel bad for anyone dealing with that, but the rest of us shouldn't have to deal with the fallout from those issues in the form of legislation.

so, while i'm not entirely comfortable with it, i have to come down on the side of the outers here.

That seems like a thoughtful position and I basically agree. Though I do feel a bit of the " two wrongs . . . " angle it seems justified if they are engaged in ongoing hypocrisy.

That was fantastic use of the word "cudgel". And an excellent piece.

yeah, see this is the part that makes me sit back and actually contemplate the right or wrong of these outings. but at the same time...its a personal choice and it should be left personal. i dont know, its a complicated issue. im on the fence with this one.

It's a very tricky issue. I'd have to think (or at least hope) that most conservative politicians are conservatives because they truly believe in conservative values, for the most part. They think that conservatism is the way to make the country a better place. And because successful politics requires mastering the art of compromise, it's inevitable that eventually a politician is going to have to vote for something that they personally disagree with, for the sake of getting support on other causes that are also very dear to them. I don't see this as being any different than a Democrat who is personally opposed to abortion voting pro-life, or a devout Christian who votes to preserve the separation of church and state. Yeah, it's a bullshit sellout move, but try to get anywhere in politics without selling a good chunk of your soul along the way.

That being said, if we're talking about outing as a lethally effective tool of destruction, you really can't ask for a better one. There's nothing the public loves better than watching a hypocrite be torn down from their pedestal. Politics is a rough sport. If you leave yourself open to that sort of thing, you can't expect your enemies not to take advantage of it.

There was a time when I would have been more sympathetic to outing others: at the worst of the AIDS crisis years, when most politicians simply ignored the problem and SILENCE did quite literally equal DEATH. In some sense, anything that called attention to the problem of AIDS and to the incredible stupidity and heartlessness of the rhetoric that confined it to a homosexual problem (and hence irrelevant to most Americans?) seemed a passable politics, if not a preferable one. I was still opposed to it, but I could understand and sympathize with the impulse.

Now it seems we're in a different moment. AIDS is still a problem, but that particular marginalization of it as a LBGT problem only has diminished, with the exception of a handful of peculiar loons. Sexuality is also, as Subrosa points out, generally acknowledged to be more fluid with the advent of self-proclaimed queer sexualities that strut right by binary conceptions of homo and hetero. It seems to me that outing actually drags out the logic of the closet.

More importantly, I think the asshole antihomosexual right-wing-nuts should be dispensed with through political action and argument, not media-grabbing tactics and shaming. But that's just my opinion.

There is a little, loud, vengeful part of me that thinks this is a kick ass idea. It's the part that always pipes up in the back of my mind saying "Fuck (insert anything here). They fucking earned it." But personal and national history prove that part wrong. Anybody remember Randy Shilts?

I'm curious what people have to say about other issues relating to personal lives. An anti-abortion activist who paid for his girlfriend's abortion? A marriage traditionalist who treated on their spouse? An jail-not-rehab hardliner who quietly sends their kid to the Betty Ford?

But no one's actually hitting anyone. No one's even libelling/slandering anyone. They're simply compiling information and distributing it.

this was actually posted in the wrong topic, my bad.

if these people are all holding public office and spending their energies on said issues, i don't think it's unheard of for this stuff to come out at all, if anyone has the damning information.

Well, on some level, those are all examples of people being hypocritical for what they do, not necessarily what they are. With homosexuality, that's sometimes a difficult distinction to make, but I think it's a valid one here.

I also think that in all of those examples (with the possible exception of your first one) that there is still greater social stigma among the American population for being gay than those situations.

good point.

Someone may become anti-abortion after having been through one, or been a party to one. People change, often due to personal experience. The problem is when someone says one thing and then does another; which I have a problem with, because my father did that every other time he opened his mouth.

Whichever way you paint it, the person in question is some kind of smeghead. Pointing out the homosexual activities of an anti-gay politician may as well be the same as pointing out the bribe taken by someone reputed to fight corruption, or the weekly visits to the whorehouse by the 'family man.' Who wants to be represented by a politician you can call bullshit on?

I have to say I don't have an issue with "outing gay politicians who work to undermine gay political gains."
They are politicians, I suspect they are aware of the risks of playing their game.

However, I am very disturbed by this guy bringing other people into the fray. Boyfriends of these guys have no responsibility for how they're acting and he has no right to wave their names in front of the public.

I don't see the idea in general as a bad one, but Roger's is clearly an inconsiderate asshole for not caring about possibly outing people who are not "gay politicians that work to undermine gay political gains."

I tend to agree to some extent. But the politicians aren't the only ones he outs. He also outs aids and staffers of those politicians. Now, that's not to say those folks don't have some blood on their hands (for lack of a better phrase) for working for those fuckwads, but it's at least one step removed from the public eye, no?

Agreed, the aids and staffers shouldn't be outed either. The way he is going about it is really fucked.

Gay Terrorists? Do they go around blowing up people's wardrobes and replacing it with Haute Couture?

I'm not so sure.yourfashionwar raised a vital point not really covered in your post or the source, which is that there are significant issues of community and trust here that certainly balance or even outweigh any alleged right to privacy. The argument against outing arises out of some expectation of shared eperience, but really it depends on empathy and the demand for manners. You can't dictate that. This is not like cheating on your wife or having an abortion, because there is no expectation of privacy here. You are expecting a large group of people to keep your secret merely because you have something in common with them, while at least in some instances you are actively attacking that selfsame community. Moreover their knowledge comes not from a state of homosexuality, but from homosexual behavior, and not generally sexual, but social behavior at that. I know sexuality is complex and powerful, but you really have to be a complete idiot to trust casual acquaintances who are really pissed at you to act in your interest. Remember, this is just information.

I'm sorry. I'm against this one. It's their personal lives. I'm pretty much all for leaving someone's personal life out of the political arena unless their personal lives are affecting the political arena--bribery would fit this exception, sexuality does not.

Ideas should be challenged in the arena of free thought and exchange. I just think this one falls in the category of an ad hominem attack. I don't buy it and I don't condone it. If you have a trouble with his political stance, challenge it on its merits. Obviously it indicates that the individual has some personal issues which they should be free to resolve independent of public criticism. I put this in the category of Clinton getting a blow job. Don't care, don't need to know.

Also consider, politicians are elected to represent the beliefs of their constituents. People always bitch and complain about electing someone and then them not doing what they were elected to do, because they were following there own personal beliefs. A politician should be able to argue for a set of beliefs that are exactly opposite of his personal beliefs, if that was what he was elected to do.

Sure. And I certainly don't think that Rogers is remotely as high on the scale of political fucked-uppedness as are the people he outs, but that doesn't make me any more comfortable with his tactics. While I'd agree with your statement that some aspect of the argument against outing comes from a feeling of shared experience, I don't think that's the only part of it. Nor do I believe that doing things that certain members (or, indeed the vast majority) of the community find distasteful or counter-productive necessarily dissolves any claim that person has to the benefits bestowed upon that community. This also isn't the whole of gay-dom getting together and voting on whether to out someone. This is one guy.


Edit: I should hasten to add that by no means to I purport to speak for what are and what are not acceptable terms for outing someone. I certainly can't speak for the Gay Community writ large.

Their sexuality arguably does affect their politics, in this case.

That's why it's being debated at all. I'd concede that it's basically an ad hominem, but I'm not sure that ad hominems are always inappropriate.

If you call for stoning adulterers to death, and have yourself had extramarital affairs, I think it's pretty reasonable for your audience to be aware of what kind of person you are. If you're a public figure, you really do forfeit a lot of your rights to privacy, or at least to private hypocrisy against your public positions.

I'd also have a problem with a coke-snorting politician who simultaneously pushed for zero tolerance drug laws.

False and disagreeable positions are still being challenged on their own merits. This is just an additional challenge that exposes a further layer of falsity.

Except that the people doing the exposure are not demanding impeachment over it. That's a pretty critical difference.

Its not one guy, though, it's lots of people. Rogers doesn't go to every circuit party or private mixer in D.C. He doesn't skulk in the shadows waiting to see if someone starts making out with her "friend" after a few too many cocktails. For the most part, these are open secrets. The only reason they are "secret" at all is that straight people don't go to those bars and clubs and parties, at least not straight people who aren't part of the club. Everybody knows.

Moreover communities don't have hard rules, and I know an awful lot of people who would argue that collective secrecy is not a "benefit" of the community. There are many who feel, quite validly, that acting like you're ashamed to be gay is what makes it harder to be gay, at least in part.

Try this, your married friend brings his mistress to a party. Do you tell his wife? Is it wrong to tell his wife? It's a different scenario in that in the analogy, there is no debate as to whether the "wrong" behavior is the cheating or the being married, but on the other hand he's probably not undermining everyone else at the party's ability to cheat.

Frankly I know lots of gay or bi people whose sexuality is not commonly known, and I'm perfectly fine with that as a personal choice. I don't broadcast my sexuality, either. On the other hand if, say, David Vitter's CoS staggered into a gay bar I was at with his hand in some dude's jeans, I'd be sorely tempted to fuck with him.