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On a personal level, I think being out and unashamed of who you are, unwilling to hide it from the world is the single most powerful thing a gay person can do to effect change. Staying in the closet sends the message that being gay is shameful, it's something that should be hidden away from decent society so that good people won't have to witness it and children won't be influenced by it.
I'm about as openly gay as a person can get short of wearing a "Kiss Me, I'm a Homo" button on my blouse. In other words, I don't advertise, but I refuse to hide who I am as if there were something wrong with it.
On the other hand, I do understand staying in the closet. I can understand being in a position where being out could hurt one's career, could push family or friends away. It should be irrelevant to anybody other than potential sex partners, but it isn't.
While I understand it, I do think being in the closet is inherently decietful in a lot of little ways. I know this from personal experience, that the process of editing pronouns and avoiding certain topics of conversation, concealing attraction or feigning attraction, all of these are part of the little deceptions that we go through when staying in the closet.
It isn't just a matter of not expressing one's sexuality in public. It can, and usually does require concealing a fundamental part of yourself that most people display casually and freely.
Keep in mind that orientation is almost always a part of a straight politician's image. It's there in family-oriented campaign ads, in appearances with his wife/children, imlpicitly and explicitly in "family values" issues. Politicians make the fact that they are straight an issue all the time without ever actually mentioning it, and it never has anything to do with going into the bedroom.
Most people do the same, displaying evidence of their heterosexuality on a regular basis in ways large and small.
Somehow, though, when it comes to a gay person being out, this is implied as bringing bedroom issues out where they don't need to be. That's nonsense. Being homosexual is status, and being out as a homosexual is likewise not about what you do in the bedroom but about who you are as a person.
However, while I think it is deceptive in some small ways and ultimately more harmful to the cause of equal rights, I also think that it should be a person's right to be in the closet. Outing gay politicians who vote against gay rights issues is preying on the prejudices of those who would vote for him because of those stances. It is using sexuality as a weapon and reinforcing the idea that there is something wrong with being gay.
I found the practice of outing odious when it was done to expose positive role models for reasons outlined above, and I still find it odious to do it with those who oppose equal rights.
It doesn't become ok just because you're doing it to one of them rather than one of us.
Gilda
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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.
~Steven Colbert
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