The Washington Post ran an article yesterday about Mike Rogers, blogger from BlogActive, who’s goal is to out closeted gay politicians who support anti-gay policies. Rogers’ targets have included Senator Larry Craig, Virginia Congressman Ed Schrock, and Congressman Mark Foley. Rogers is also aiming to out 33 more closeted Congressman with anti-gay records.
Rogers defends his tactics saying, “I write about closeted people whose records are anti-gay. If you’re a closeted Democrat or Republican and you don’t bash gays or vote against gay rights to gain political points, I won’t out you.”
I am somewhat conflicted about the tactics of Rogers. The process of accepting and disclosing one’s gayness is very stressful and scary–you have to worry about rejection from the people you care about the most, and begin to deal with the changes that come with being identified as a gay American. When someone else outs you, you loose control over this very difficult process, and it adds to the emotional turmoil.
What’s more, Rogers’ tactics create a new sort of McCarthyism targeting gays. It makes me somewhat uncomfortable to see again this kind of a witch hunt going on within the walls of our government.
Those concerns noted, I ultimately support the outing of anti-gay politicians. These politicians take their own shame and self-hatred over being gay out on open gays who just want to live their lives with dignity (as opposed to finding sexual fulfillment through secret trysts in public restrooms and parks). To me, using your democratically elected office as a closet is an abuse of power, and we need people like Rogers to expose that.
