This week’s column: ‘Outing Capitol Hill’
My weekly column in The Carolinian (UNCG). This column was inspired, in part, by the Patrick McHenry gay rumors.
Outing Capitol Hill
Anti-gay hypocrisy & deceitfulness must go
by Matt Hill Comer, Don’t Ask (I’m Telling)
Issue date: 10/24/06 Section: Opinions
Believe me, I am a supporter of privacy. I believe strongly that people should have the right to a private life. The public should not delve into the lives of public figures. It is a great principle.
But what happens if those public figures, especially elected officials, start to use the private lives of private citizens to advance their own (or their party’s) political agenda? What happens if that agenda is an anti-gay agenda and the public official is gay, but closeted?
Should anti-gay, closeted gay elected officials (of any party) be outed? Does the public deserve to know the truth about individuals who portray themselves as being a part of the Irreligious Wrong’s strictly defined, so-called “moral” and “traditional values” lifestyle, but in reality aren’t living up to the strict “moral” code they try to push on everyone else? Does the public deserve to know the hypocrisy of those in government or should we just ignore it?
In recent days, activist Mike Rogers (who runs Blogactive.com and PageOneQ.com) has taken center stage in the debate over anti-gay, closeted gay elected officials. According to Rogers, who has been 100% accurate in outings he has done in the past, these closeted gay officials are living and working hypocritically and deceitfully. By day they push a strict, anti-gay, “moral” code of “traditional values.” By day they vote against marriage equality, employment non-discrimination, the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and every other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-inclusive proposal you can name. By night, they seek out anonymous sex with men (for Senator Larry Craig, R-ID, that meant “visiting” men in restrooms at DC’s Union Station). By night, they engage in the very same acts many of them describe as “immoral” and compare to pedophilia, incest and bestiality.
During a recent conference I attended in Greensboro, I was given some great advice, valuable to any public person - be that a blogger, columnist, reporter, Student Government official, city or state government official or a member of Congress: If you have biases or conflicts-of-interest that may influence or be in some way connected to your job or issues with which you are working, then openly and honestly admit those biases and conflicts up-front. Don’t hide them. If you do hide them, then you are being, in some ways, dishonest and deceitful.
Personally, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable to out anti-gay, closeted gay elected officials. These public officials use the private lives of private LGBT citizens to advance an anti-gay agenda. These public officials deserve to have the mirror turned on them. They deserve to have their hypocrisy and deceitfulness shown to the public. These anti-gay, closeted gay officials who push the Irreligious Wrong’s anti-gay agenda deserve to have their self-righteous supporters see just how much they are not conforming to their own strict, so-called “moral” code for humanity.
Morality can’t be legislated, but these anti-gay, closeted gay officials seem to think they can, while they go off and break the standards they set for others. These hypocrites think they can have one set of rules for themselves and another for everyone else.
How would the public feel if a female legislator were pushing a ban on abortion when she had undergone an abortion herself as a younger woman? Wouldn’t her bias and conflict-of-interest be of worthy public debate? Shouldn’t the public deserve to know why she thought it was okay for her to have an abortion but for others it isn’t? Maybe that female legislator has a good reason for pushing the ban. If so, she should tell the public about her past and why now she thinks abortion is wrong.
The same goes for these anti-gay, closeted gay elected officials. No one is outing them just because they are gay. They are being outed because they refuse to admit their own biases and conflicts-of-interest and refuse to tell the truth. Maybe these anti-gay, closeted gay officials have good reasons for taking the stances they do. If so, they should tell the public: “Yes, I’m gay, but these are the reasons for which I am voting against proposals that may help people like me; these are my reasons and these are my biases�”
The public deserves to know that. LGBT citizens deserve to know that.
Many will say I am wrong. Many will say Rogers is wrong for the outings. I ask just one more question:
If elected officials can use the private lives of private LGBT citizens for political gain and to advance a political agenda, why can’t those LGBT citizens stand up and fight against it by exposing the deceit and hypocrisy of the anti-gay, closeted gay powers-that-be?
Feel free to comment away on here, but be sure to go to the column on CarolinianOnline.com. You can comment there, too.
Technorati Tags: gay, closeted politicians, gay politicians, Republican, Congress, Mike Rogers, Blogactive.com, Matt Hill Comer, Carolinian, UNCG, Greensboro, North Carolina
About the Author: Matt
5 Responses to “This week’s column: ‘Outing Capitol Hill’”
Matt
You make one assumption that I think is wrong. You assume that these closeted gay men are using private people to advance their political agenda, be it gay or anti-gay. Neither you nor Mike Rogers has shown this to be the case. The only thing that keeps being presented is that they are voting anti-gay and then having sex at night. This is not using the public. Although it may be hypocritical, it is not illegal and therefore not wrong to do so.
Hypocrisy is not against the law. Neither is outing. But which is worst? Does the end justify the means in this case? You know my opinion.
By DJ on Oct 24, 2006
Yes DJ… they use the private lives of private citizens to advance a political agenda. They sit in DC and in their districts at home and bash gay people by comparing them to pedophiles or comparing their sex lives to incest of bestiality.
They take the sex lives of private citizens and insert it into the public square, yet they squirm when it happens to them.
By Matt on Oct 24, 2006
“Although it may be hypocritical, it is not illegal and therefore not wrong to do so.”
This sort of sentence is destroying good politics in America.
Anything that hasn’t been explicitly outlawed isn’t wrong? Things that are ethically indefensible? Eh - so what?
I’ve heard so many young people who want to get into politics tell me, over the last few years, that politics isn’t about right and wrong, isn’t about ethics, that you have to expect people to lie, cheat, play dirty and double-deal and that those who expect anything more are suckers. It’s amazing to see so many people with such a low opinion of their own desired profession still trying mightily to involve themselves in it.
By Joe Killian on Oct 26, 2006
Great points, Joe. I try desperately, although I am human and sometimes slip into the mold everyone else expects of politics, to try to be honest when I’m dealing “politics” on campus or politics in the community. We need integrity back in government, not more liars, cheaters, hypocrites and the like.
By Matt on Oct 26, 2006