dc_dux

I think outing anyone is wrong and vindictive, unless it is directly related to the commission of a crime...

But I would suggest it is the republican "family values" base that ties sexual preferences and political stances together more than anyone else.

The ignorant comments of conservative talking heads on Foley (link)

The attack of Condi Rice by the American Family Association for her appointment of a gay as global Aids coordinator and her recognition of his "partner" (link)

The holding up of a Bush judicial nominee by a conservative repub senator because she attended a gay "commitment" ceremony.....(I thought the repubs wanted Bush's nominees to get an up or down vote and not be held to a litmus test) (link)

The examples of how "family values" conservatives politicize sexual preference are endless.

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Ch'i

If a person's sexual inclination is never an issue , under normal circumstances, then it wouldn't be necissary at all for such information to be "outed."

Gilda

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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kutulu

Yes, I agree that the individuals who make up the party obviously vary in their sexual practices. However, it is quite obvious that the party as a whole has had no problem with shitting on gay rights. They have had no problem with or have actively contributed to all of the following:

Attempts to ban gay marriage
Attempts to allow employment discrimination against gays
Attempts to deny benefits for same sex couples

So yes, the individuals have their own opinions about the subject but the ones controlling the party have no problems with these actions. They also have no problem aligning with and accepting money from extreme anti-gay groups.

highthief

I think this is too much of a blanket statement. Yes, for some people their sexual orientation is very much a part of their identity, for others, especially bisexuals, who they sleep with is a purely recreational (and private) issue, and not something that needs advertising unless they desire it.

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Gilda

I did not equate being out with advertising one's status or who one sleeps with. The point of my post was the relative status of homosexual and heterosexual identity. I was very clear about equating it with being out with one's heterosexuality under the same circumstances and how the same behaviors that go unnoticed for heterosexuals can be interpreted as advertising one's sexuality when engaged in by homosexuals.

In other words, a same sex couple walking down a city street holding hands can be described as advertising their status or putting bedroom issues in public, when the same is not said of heterosexuals. It isn't said of heteros because it isn't true.

Being openly gay is not about who you're sleeping with; that can and often still is a private matter. This does, however, point out another double standard: Heterosexuals who are open about loving their partners aren't described as advertising who they're sleeping with--it's usually just called being in love, with no up front implication that the relationship is primarily about sex. Homosexuals who are open about their status are "advertising it" and who are open about their loving relationships are more likely to have those relationships described in terms of sexuality. It's part of the subtle distinction constantly made and reinforced again and again--heterosexuality is about love, homosexuality is about sex.

I didn't address bisexuals at all or adveritsing who you're sleeping with at all, just the language used to describe the same behavior when engaged in by heterosexuals and by homosexuals.

You can be openly gay without ever getting into bedroom issues or who you're sleeping with, just as it's possible to openly straight and keep your sex life private, but the former is usually described in terms that make it seem fundamentally different than the latter, when it isn't.

Gilda

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~Steven Colbert

Cynthetiq

the activist is an asshole.

end of line.

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ratbastid

You just wrote "the religious right can't complain." Surely you're not actually that naive. What the religious right does is complain. It's their ONLY strategy!

I very seriously doubt a secretly-gay congressman would be at all acceptable to an Apostolic Lutheran or a Southern Baptist, regardless of that congressman's voting record. It's all about character with the religious right; they only care about voting record as it reflects character.

NCB

The best part about this whole thing is that the very people who claim to represent the values of homosexuals have no problem using the stigma of being homosexual as a weapon against their political enemies. And yet, no outrage from the homosexual community.

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ratbastid

Not that I agree with it as a tactic, but I think you're missing the point. It's not really the homosexuality that's being outed. It's the hypocracy.

kutulu

Why is that part so hard for people to understand?

xxSquirtxx

No, Craig is not single.

http://patterico.com/2006/10/17/5275...enator-as-gay/

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/...ves/008309.php

kutulu

If he is the guy he is not single. He's married and has two kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Craig

Some of his votes:

Voted yes to ban same-sex marriage (twice)
Voted no to add sexual orientation to hate crime lists (two separate times)
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation

It looks like we've got a hypocrite!

highthief

If a black politician voted against affirmative action, would he be an Uncle Tom and a hypocrite too? Cannot the person and the politician be seperate beings? Can the politician not vote the way his constituents would want him to vote?

I have no idea if this is the case, I'm merely pointing out that there are alternate possibilties.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

NCB

But you are aware that the Studds case represents even a greater hypocrisy, right? If the Dems were to be consistent and hypocrisy free, then they would need to give Foley a standing ovation in the House chambers and support him for the rest of his political life.

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xxSquirtxx

First of all, there is no proof that the idiot blogger's claims are true.

Secondly, do you actually believe that ALL gay people (openly or not) are in favor of ALL gay activist agendas? Man, do you have your head in the sand.

kutulu

Come on, there is a HUGE difference between forcing affirmative action (which can be either be called balancing things out or forced discrimination depending on your views) and voting against banning discrimination. I see nothing wrong at all with a black politician voting against affirmative action.

He could possibly get a pass on the hate crime votes, depending on his overall view of hate crime legislation. However, if he's previously supported hate crime legislation for other purposes, then he's again aligning with anti-gay groups.


NCB, either you don't know the details or you are being intentionally obtuse. Although there are similarities, the main difference between Foley and Studds was that one involved repeated unwanted sexual harrassment of several pages and the other was a consensual relationship (the relationship was consensual and therefore legal, despite the page being 17, it was still VERY unprofessional).

There is also a difference in the reponse by the people involved. Foley blamed it on alcohol abuse and the party attempted to cover it all up for over 5 years.

mixedmedia

What is to be gained by exposing this man as a "hypocrit"? Which it is impossible for us to quantify since we don't know his views, how he views his duty as the representative of his constituency, or even whether the "scandal" being mongered about him is true.

I don't see how this doubtful episode of political comeuppance serves any constructive purpose. Not for the benefit of GLBT-rights related issues, nor for the furtherance of liberal principles as a whole.

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kutulu

Jesus, you are assuming that someone is on the fringe of the bell curve and say I have my head in the sand? lol

highthief

So affirmative action, designed to decrease discrimination and provide opportunities to minorities, can be voted against by a black politician, but a possibly gay or bisexual politician cannot vote against measures to ease discrimination towards homosexuals?

Hmmm ...

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

xxSquirtxx

I'm actually not assuming anything. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

kutulu

Whatever, make no reasonable attempt to think about what I said and just completely misrepresent my arguement.

The goal of affirmative action may be to decrease discrimination and provide opportunities to minorities but the typical implementation of affirmative action uses discrimination to fight discrimination.

You are attempting to derail the thread by using affirmative action instead of an actual anti-discrimination law.

FoolThemAll

And a useless outing!

The thing about shouting "HYPOCRITE!" is that it doesn't really accomplish ANYTHING AT ALL for your argument. Regardless of whether the guy lives by his stated beliefs and political actions, the beliefs and actions are either right or wrong and the hypocrisy has no bearing on that. The hypocrisy's irrelevant

Assuming that the asshole who outed him is telling the truth, the politician could simply tell us that, yes, he's a hypocrite and an imperfect human being and that he'll start supporting gay-friendly legislation. More likely, he'll tell us that, yes, he's a hypocrite and an imperfect human being and he plans to stop his 'sinful' gay ways (and actually sinful adulterous ways).

Even more likely, he'll continue living his double life and the constituents will simply elect another closeted - or, perhaps in a twist, straight - politician who supports "anti-gay" legislation.

And nothing is accomplished, save for petty revenge.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

xxSquirtxx

BTW, I would like links to these specific votes you quoted, please. I went through his voting record, and I don't see them. Point them out.

kutulu

Sorry, I thought I had included that link as well. Here it is:

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/...vil_Rights.htm

There are links to the votes of all who did vote on that page as well.

pan6467

That would be great, until the press and the Limbaughs started pushing and saying the activist doesn't have anything and that he's doing this for attention. And in some fashion, whether he is paid a lot of money, subpoenaed someway, or got fed up with the hypocritical media calling him out and wanting to see his evidence and who he is talking about..... he will "out" the congressperson.

It's all a game right now. The GOP and Dems only allow scandals on those they want out. Foley was probably going to have worse and maybe others would have gone down with him. The way he goes now, it's a little on his own terms and noone else goes down.

All the other names, bandied about..... including Hastert.... nothing's going to happen, it will die.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

hiredgun

I liked ratbastid's compromise on this one, even though it really would have little effect. I don't think it was moral to out the man, no matter how much of a hypocrite he was.

I wish there were a better way of showing the christian-right base the hypocrisy of its leaders.

highthief

Whatever, dude!

(I think the is nicer than the , don't you?)

Try not to get all bent out of shape, just because someone sees a contradiction in your position.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Elphaba

Yes, he is married. I didn't check on his marital status until later and really didn't think it important enough to post a correction. I don't think marital infidelity is or should be the issue in this topic. But thats just me.

lindalove

It's recreational for bisexuals - where did you get that idea?

NCB

How is it not recreational? Two people of the same gender cannot reproduce.

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highthief

From the bisexual people that I know and have associated with?

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

pig

I'm closer to kutulu's position in this one. I'd really have to know a lot more about the guy - not only his voting record, but also the content of his public speeches. If his rhetoric and his voting record are consistently anti-gay, I can see some merit to outing him. I'm not saying that's the case here, but you take a public office and push a political / social agenda, then you put yourself in a position to have such hypocracy exposed.

Its not just the affect of the voting record on gay rights, its also if the content of a politician's speeches further an atmosphere of hostility towards gays. I think that under "normal" circumstances, outing someone for being homosexual is repulsive; but your "normal" person doesn't affect the prevailing attitudes of hundreds or thousands of people if they are brazenly in support of homophobic positions.

Let's say that the United States passed a law stating that all Muslims had to wear identifying arm bands, and that they could only travel on special buses, planes, and roads, couldn't gather in groups larger than 10, and would be deported for failure to follow these rules. The law is highly debated, and a politican who voted for the rule and / or publicly spoke out as anti-Muslim or in support of anti-Muslim legistlation..was found to be a closet Muslim. You don't think that's germane?

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Elphaba

You have presented an intriguing argument. Have I mentioned lately that I love your piggy style?

FoolThemAll

No, it's not germane. It does nothing to refute the person's beliefs or even his political actions. It's pure ad hominem.

I'll give you this much: for those people who view ad hominem as a legitimate device in debate, the revelation of hypocrisy may sway them away from a particular viewpoint. But if such swaying wasn't primarily the result of a preexisting bias, and if they really are moved to reject any worldview with hypocritical 'adherents', then they're well on their way to nihilism. And if the real reason is a preexisting bias, as I suspect it most often is, then "Hypocrite!" is just a disingenuous weapon, wielded when your opponents are ugly and holstered when your friends are.

Of course, I suppose you could out the guy in your example on the principle that the law should apply to everyone, but that strikes me as a "foolish consistency". Unless you agree with the law.

As for outing on a personal level, I'm still not seeing a real motivation other than revenge.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

lindalove

And if he's outted as a "closet muslim", but is not in fact a muslim, closet or otherwise? The problem with these "outtings", is there isn't always proof, it's the accusation.

dd3953

wow, what an interesting discussion. . . i don't think that someone has the right to out someone else.

first you have to come out to yourself. i just finished a book of short stories (The Black and White of It by Ann Shockley) and there was more than one story where one or both of the people (enjoying the lesbian sex or relationship) didn't consider themselves gay. this senator could be one of these people. . . yeah it doesn't make much sense to me but they are out there. . .

and even once you come out to yourself there is a lot of thought and fear involved with telling other people & people choose to (or not to) do so for different reasons, but that chose should be theirs.

if this gay activist person has such a problem with it, he could meet with the senator and talk to him one on one, at least find out where the senator is coming from before he makes a truly life changing decision for him. . . that would also give the activist a chance to find out if the story he has is fact or fiction

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[Technically, I'm not possible, I'm made of exceptions. ]

pig

Ok, FoolThemall, think about it from this perspective. What if you were gay or Muslim, and this person (again, I don't know anything in particular about Craig or his public positions, so this is more to the general question than this particular scenario) is directly leading to the creation of an environment that makes your day to day life more difficult. Maybe you have a lot of anxieties and daily fear associated with being a member of this community, and then it turns out that not even the people who are persecuting you actually really believe what they are saying. They are also part of your community. I can see how that can be empowering within the community. If people set themselves up to an extent as demogogues, and put themselves in the public eye, then I think there's a certain expectation that these sort of details of their lives can come out. I don't see many political figures holding themselves up as idealogues operating in a vacuum, but seems that most of them want to be seen as typical good old Americans, one of the people, living and working for the American Dream. If the politician were to adopt a "Do as I say, not as I Do" position in developing their public personas, then sure - they're just setting policy as strategic political philosophers, and thus the details of their actual lives are incidental. I don't think that they position themselves this way, and thus I can understand how directly attacking their credibility is germane to their political position. As I see it, its a little different than the regular old guy at the end of the street who is hiding part of his identity.

Now, in the particulars of this case, from what I can gather the activist is using the old "anonymous sources" technique, and I think that's just crap. If you're going to do this sort of thing, I think you have come with it. Otherwise, it looks like useless horseshit political maneuvering.

And Elph, here's some piggy style coming right at you...

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FoolThemAll

Germane to their political position, perhaps, but do you agree with that position?

The "hypocrisy is a terrible thing that is worth exposing, even if its relevance is wholly within the domain of the hypocrite's personal life" part, I mean?

I don't. I don't see sense in it. And if there isn't sense in the outing, then it's wrong. Even if it makes sense by the nonsensical standards of the closet case.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

pig

FoolThemAll,

I'm glad you linked this thread from the one on Haggard, I had completely forgotten about it.

I think your second sentence in the post above is the key for me - I disagree that in these types of instances, the relevance is wholey within the domain of the the hypocrite's personal life. They set themselves up for political office by buidling an image of their private lives. (Once again, I'm not speaking about this particular guy - rather, the question in general and the situations under which I can understand the validity of "outing" someone for closet behavior, whether it be specifically homosexuality or something else) If their private lives, in actuality, are significantly different than the image of the private lives they build up, run on, and are elected for - then I think its entirely valid to point that out. They are inherently lying to their constituents about topics they have inherently conceded are of political importants to their consituents - otherwise they wouldn't run on family imagery in the first place. They would just stand up in their commercials, outline their platform, and then stfu. I'd be fine with that.

It's not how the game is played. In addition, I can understand how someone within the community that the politician is secretly a member of, while publicly enacting legislation and enforcing attitudes counter to the interests of the affected community, could easily have an attitude of "fuck you asshole hypocrite bastard," such that they might feel empowered by the outing. I find that reason less compelling, but I can certainly understand it. As I said, I think the affected politician sets themselves up for it, and if the accusation is a lie, the politician can always sue for slander or libel - like anyone else in the States.

I guess we just disagree on this one.

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