FoolThemAll

Gave up on the thread jack, host?

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

pig

I think that the questions of character, honesty, and integrity - not only with respect to the issues but also how the politician relates to those issues - that politicians run on in their campaigns is a crucial aspect of what motivates citizens to vote for them. Therefore, I disagree that these are irrelevancies when they are dealing with legislation and social climates directly affected by their positions on the issues. Therefore, I think that these statements are tantamount to a resume in terms of issues in the public eye. That is the reason that they run on these issues during their campaigns, etc.

Are you essentially saying that its ok for someone to misrepresent themselves on some issues, but not others? Where do you draw the line, and who gets to decide where the line is?

Those are your points, not mine. My stance on this has nothing to do with my particular leanings on the issues of drugs or sex, but simply on honesty and transparency on the behalf of our politicians with respect to their positions on issues.


exactly.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

FoolThemAll

It makes the most sense - to me, anyway - to draw the line where the misrepresentation is not material to political claims or political actions.

A lie about the politician's sex life - provided that it's all legal - is about as material to his political life as a lie about his parenting skills. Even if the voters think otherwise. Because you don't need to be a faithful husband or a good father in order to be an excellent politician. Even if the voters think otherwise.

If people like Maher or Haggard's outer have the ability to out someone without invading their privacy unlawfully - Haggard certainly opened a few doors himself with his adultery and drug use - then, sure, they're legally in the clear. But they'll not receive one iota of praise from me. They're still pretty scummy. No, they'll be the recipients of something else entirely...

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

pig

FTA: First, please answer the first part. If you think that lying on a resume is wrong, then we agree. Do you feel that the way that a politican represents himself in his/her campaign is similar to a resume in the public eye?

Second:

And where would that be? How is hypocracy in someone personal life not going to affect their public decisions? If nothing else, they are ripe for blackmail. At best, they have pyschological issues that will certainly affect their public/political stance.

Unless they are pursuing legislation that affects/restricts/immorlizes aspects of American citizen's sex lives, when they themselves partake in that lifestyle. I fail to see how it's not relevant. However, I can see we're not going to agree here, so let's scrap sex lives for a bit.

Where do you fall on the bigger picture. Is there any private action a person could take, where they pursue a diametically opposed public political agenda, where you would feel there private hypocracy was relevant?

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

Xera

Yikes, what an issue.

I personally don't care if my elected representatives like to have sex with stuffed barney dolls, so long as they vote the way they say will. It seems to me that outing a person that isn't ready to be outed is a type of sexual harrassment.

Are our politicians not covered by sexual harrassment laws? Does our right to know what our politicians do and say extend to the point that they have absolutely no rights in this department?

__________________

~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

Telluride

Does this mean that white people who support affirmative action haven't come to terms with their racial identity?

__________________
"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

FoolThemAll

Lying on a resume is wrong. But putting questions about one's sex life on a resume would be the greater wrong, in my view. (

I could see how it might, but not at all how it must. People are perfectly capable of behaving differently in different contexts.

So are the closeted ones who don't make sexual orientation an issue. Should we out them as well?

Ugh... it's perfectly possible that this is the case, but you can look back on my exchange with willravel to see why I won't take it for granted.

Sure. Unlawful actions, for one.

But I'm guessing you mean in the realm of the lawful. Well... any inactions from which the politician falsely claimed to gain relevant experience. It's pushing it, but the whole swiftboat thing if true might maybe fit here as an example (though, to be honest, I didn't care much about it). But as a contrived-yet-better made-up example, a politician that pushed his ability to pass the bar exam all on his own, despite his actual use of twelve Ivy League-bred tutors, should probably be exposed. He's making the claim that he can handle a big load and citing a fictional account as a basis. That's fair game, it throws a relevant claim into doubt. Unless, of course, he backed it up just as well with a couple of true episodes... then I'd tend to regard it as irrelevant once again. More later, if you want... though that was rambling enough, methinks.

Show me the effect of the private hypocrisy on the politics. "How does it not effect it?" doesn't cut it.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

pig

Ok, what if I lied about something irrelevant to my job on my resume. What if I said "pigglet was aboard the 1969 Apollo mission that went to the moon. he speaks swahili on alternate saturdays. beat bobby fisher in best of five chess match in central park. honorary member of the Royal Order of the Noble Otter - Grand Poobah." None of that is germane to my job one way or the other. What if I "elected" to put things like "family man, father of 10, Church Alderman and Sunday school teacher" and it turned out I was a single guy with no kids, and hadn't been to Church in ages? You think my boss might not point that out to me, and other people in the company, and possibly clients I work with? It goes to character - and my boss is thinking "I've got some crazy fucking pigglet working for me. Shit, is this grounds to fire? Can I get rid of this nutcase before he fucks something serious up? Who makes up this crap on their resume?"

Part of it goes to character, honesty and integrity.


I think they're taking a huge chance with their political office, and I don't really feel comfortable knowing that people could be so easily manipulated by something so stupid as who they like to fuck. Similar as to the above, I think that the rule is that we do expose people for their public lies about their private lives, particularly if its relevant to what they do for a living. You say its not relevant, I'll address that below.

The point is, we make an exception on sexual orientation, because people are so sensitive to it. Which is fine, and normally - no - I don't think we should out people. But, if they choose to make it an issue, then it comes on the table. It is standard fare to investigate the lies and hypocracy in our public figures, not only in cases like sexual orientation. Remember Gary Hart? Fucking a female model - but he still got in big time trouble. How about that Clinton guy. Seems like people got all up in arms about that shit - Monica had boobies. This shit happens all the time. You're essentially advocating that we withhold some information, in terms of sexual orientation, because of the sensitive nature. Fine. But if the public figure makes issues of sexual orientation critical to his public political persona, I say he loses that privelage of having his private life protected.

What if he claimed to gain relevance for his social/political agenda from his God-fearing straight wife-missionary-style fucking with four kids a white house and a picket fence existence, where he was advocating a social agenda in lieu of actual "political" issues (taxes, national defense, insurance, social security reform, etc)? That's what these guys do. They run on social agendas. Do I think that's bullshit? Yes. Yes I do. But they choose to run for election based on this horseshit - and live by the sword, die by the sword I say. He's claiming he represents their social agenda imagery, through and through. He's a real go getter, and man's man that all the ladies love. He's commited to his wife, he works hard to put his kids through college. He goes to the hardware store and he knows where they keep the spark plugs. He wants to keep America the way its been for at least 50 years for some of the people, some of the time.

Turns out, its not true. Well, he chose to run on it, he gets the shaft when its pointed out to be blantantly false. For many cases, even though I dislike the blantant lying to get elected, in the case of homosexuality its particularly bad. Why?

I mean, how could sexual orientation be relevant to a politicians career? Hmmm...There is no federal law preventing workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, and in 33 states it is currently legal to discriminate on this basis. As I said, these guys help create and sustain a pervassive environment that is discriminatory towards gay people. If that's your magic issue, twisted as it is, then you'd better at least live by your own statements.

How does hyprocracy affect public positions and politics? I was looking for a study on the subject, but can't find one at present. Essentially, if you are advocating positions that you don't actually believe in - it seems to me that you're always having to imagine contexts under which your arguments make sense. You clearly don't believe them yourself, because you act in ways that are contrary to your stated beliefs. So you have no choice to but to adopt a fantasy position, and then argue based on what you imagine the merits of it to be. Regardless of whether you *think* you undestand your "constituents" desires (presumable who elected you to keep the gays down...just a little bit), it seems to me that there is an inherent schism between your belief system and your constituents. They elect you because the majority of them think you fundamentally represent them. That's what they want. Not just a mouthpiece, but a person who shares their beliefs on a fundamental level. You don't. What if a question comes on a complex piece of legislation, and you have to pretend as though you understand where your consituents would draw the line in discriminatory practices. Would a person who really thinks that homosexuality is sin and evil, through and through, tend to believe that you love the sinner, hate the sin...or would they stone the bastards? To a certain extent these questions are always going to go through the mind of an elected official - but in this case, they don't have firm fundamental ground to make their own interpretations. To me, it makes them less useful, less predictable, and more easily influenced by what the think public perception might be.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

Lizra

Pigglet! Thank you for taking the time to put your excellent thoughts on this subject into words! I get too hurried/cranky to be arsed with such debate....but it is much more meaningful when someone takes the time to articulate.

__________________
Happy atheist

host

Background:
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A1100-2001May8">American Psychiatric Association: "Since 1973, when the association reversed its position that homosexuality was a mental disorder, all major medical groups have advised against attempts to persuade gay men and lesbians to seek treatment, noting that such attempts can be psychologically damaging. But some religious groups have waged a campaign over the past three years to convert gays to heterosexuality through counseling."</a>

The two sides to the argument on this thread are illustrated in the following examples:

One party's political platform seeks to exclude homosexuals from marriage and military service, and the other party's platform "support[s] the full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of the nation."

A congresswomen of one party openly states that she was <i>"The first openly gay person to be elected to Congress as a nonincumbent, Tammy Baldwin is a forceful supporter of civil rights and an advocate for those in our society whose voices, too often, are not heard."</i>

The party chairman, the V-POTUS and a congressman and his COS, all members of the other party, have worked for and voted for legislation that intentionally exludes homosexuals and/or denies rights to them that are enjoyed by the "rest of us", even as these officials themselves, deny, mislead, cover up, or refuse to answer whether or not they, themselves, or an immediate family member, are homosexual. In the case of the VPOTUS, he attempted to use the sexual orientation of his daughter, to attract the "homosexual vote", even as he, himself, relegated his daughter and her personal relationship with another woman, to a lesser status than that of his married daughter, and while his own background included votes against homosexual interests when he was a congressman, and while he supported his party's current, anti-homosexual rights platform provisions.

IMO, <b>to argue in favor of supporting the status of closeted anti-gay, gay republican elected and party officials, is to advocate for the continued hypocrisy and dysfunction of self-loathing folks who are overwhelmed by their own amibition, and who lack a sense of an obligation to be open about who they are, with the folks who they serve. To support the closeted hypocrisy of Mehlman, Cheney, Dreier, and Brad Smith, I would assume that one would also support the spectacle of a closeted gay presidential candidate who, when asked about his family situation, simply replied, as Mehlman and Dreier have, that such an inquiry is inappropriate or irrelevant. Aren't "we, the people" entitled to know the living arrangements and the family circumstances of all who represent us or run major political parties, especially of parties that "embrace family values", and pledge to exclude homosexuals, just as we would expect to know those details, of our president or someone running for that office? </b>

roachboy

the problem i have with maher's proposed tactic is that, in the end, it presupposes and relies upon ambient homophobia. while i understand the hypocrisy arguments made above, i think they explain the internal workings of the tactic and not the assumed effects of using it. what maher would do, effectively, would not only rely upon homophobia but would legitimate and reinforce it.

it seems to me well past time to dispense with the illusion that being gay in itself corresponds to a particular politics--the population of people who happen to be gay is widely distributed politically, and sexual preference need not translate into any particular set of broader views toward the world. the assumption in the 80s, say, seemed to be that there was a single coherent response to the fact of exclusion/marginalizaton rooted in homophobia, and that this single coherent response necessarily positioned everyone in a context of political opposition.
i think this was and is naive--wishful thinking.
it seems obvious to me that folk can experience problems in positioning/self-positioning at one level and integrate that experience into a whole range of wider political worldviews, which can and often are explicitly reactionary. while i would imagine that the probabilities of a reactionary political viewpoint being built around such experience (at one level or another) are different from those which obtain in a population not so affected, it nonetheless seems to me that there is nothing particularly surprising to find gay people who are extremely conservative and others who are not.
if that is true, is there anything in itself hypocritical about being gay and conservative at the same time?
i am not so sure.
i think the discussion about this should be much more wide-ranging than it has beens so far in this thread, and arriving at a judgment about it seems to me complicated.
and if anything like that is true, then this loops back onto the problem that i have with maher actually following through on his threat to out conservatives who are gay.

and believe me, i have no sympathy at any level for the right.
i find the contemporary american right to be dangerous on any number of levels, and damaging the right through tight argumentation is a worthwhile political project.
i am just not sure that what maher is proposing is anything like that.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pig

roach,

I don't think there's anything surprising about gay people being conservative, or bdsm types being conservative, or gun owners being liberal. Afterall, I'm pretty much liberal (in the context of where I see American political spectrums...probably not so liberal on a real political scale) and I've got five guns in my house and used to sleep with a loaded shotgun behind my bed. I can easily understand a gay person endorsing the "conservative" ticket, and I can understand a gay person who doens't believe in gay marriage. It takes all types. To me, its about the honesty concerning the political stances and the hypocritical public depiction of their realdeal Holyfield private personas, not about the actual political positions they adopt. If a gay guy wants to adopt an anit-gay-marriage position, great. He can argue it from that standpoint. I just don't understand adopting a position, as a voter, that advocates having my representatives lie to me about their backgrounds and personal de-facto politics, when they put themselves in the public light. There's a lot more at stake in this game than just gay marriage, you know?

edit: i can understand your position that maher's tactics perpetuate, or rely on, the present homophobia in our society...but how else could it be done? He obviously wanted to beef up ratings, but I don't see how that's substantially different than any other talking head.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

roachboy

i dont know.
i am deeply ambivalent about this.
were i in a situation like maher's, i dont know that i would go there at all.
the ratings boost thing seems to me an external criterion that would function as an outside pressure to go with a questionable tactic.

i understand your main arguments, pigglet, and agree with them up to the point of implementation. at that point, you have to travel outside the logic of the tactic itself, and that is where things get dicey in my view.
because i dont really see how maher could possibly proceed on these lines in a way that does not function in a manner wholly at odds with what i take the tactic to be about.

it looks to me like a loose/loose scenario.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pig

yep, because its easy to get into the Salem Witchtrials. I suppose if someone comes forward with incontrovertible evidence - particularly someone politically non-partisan - there might be reasonable ways to approach the subject. In the particular case cited in this thread, or in the thread on that Craig guy out in the midWest, a lack of evidence is rather a problem. I would think an actual journalistic approach would be about the only way I could see it working out in an intellectually satisfying manner.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

host

Two things.....

Maher plays to a subscription audience....on HBO. He enjoys a regular following, and gets plenty of play via internet blogs with his weekly "new rules" segment, and via the diverse and interesting slate of guests who appear on his weekly "panel". His audience is what it is.....between Tivo and multiple scheduled slots, there is plenty of opportunity to catch a viewing of his show....I doubt that he was motivated by ratings.

In the examples of Mehlman, and Dreier....what "evidence" are you looking for,
pigglet? The "norm" for political luminaries is illustrated in my example of Tammy Baldwin. An "open" political person simply supplies a line in a web bio or in a press kit that says that they are married with two children, blah, blah, blah.....or live with a long time signifigant other, or are recuperating from a recent termination of a long term realtionship.....or....reside with a partner....
the point is.....the "norm" is to reference that segment of one's life.

I can't think of a better example than to compare the detailed disclosure of a presidential candidate's home life.....the public expects nothing less.....on one extreme end of the spectrum.....vs. the "silence" of Mehlman, RNC chairman, or of Dreier....the chairman of the house rules committee and one of the most frequently televised republican congressional caucus spokespersons, during the early phases of Tom Delay's implosion...because he was genial, photogenic, and perceived as untainted by Delay's impropriey.

Doesn't it follow, that the "silence" of Mehlman and of Dreier, combined with scuttlebutt that always surfaces, combined with their high visibility, speaking for a party with an anti-gay platform, and advocating anti-gay legislation, that they at least be asked, even by a press as uncurious as ours is....if rumors about their non-heterosexual "leanings" were true, or not?

Both answered vaguely and without a vigorous, or even a reflexive assertion of their heterosexuality.....hence.....it seems obvious that they brought the speculation by folks like Maher....on themselves......all they would have had to do to avoid it, is what Tammy Baldwin did.....she did it at the start of her first campaign for congress......but Dreier and Mehlman could have offered disclosure or clarification about their dating or living arrangements, anytime before political opponents, press, or Maher, brought up the accusation......and they could have done it before they worked for, and/or voted for legislation that discriminated against homosexuals. Discrimination as basic as the "pocketbook issue" of whether gay partners hold the right to receive benfits afforded to married or unmarried partners by employers, government, or within the legal framework of joint ownership and inheritance.

Anonymous hypocrits who do not have the power to legislate other peoples' rights away, certainly should retain the right of privacy, challenged only by evidence that would stand up in civil court,,,,,,and they do.....via proection against libel. Mehlman and Dreier enjoy, IMO, a much lower threshhold of privacy protection or respect, or "evidence".....the moment they chose to be aggressors against the rights and reputations of all open and closeted anonymous homosexuals.

FoolThemAll

Taken together, though, it is germane. Because it probably indicates that you're a habitual liar in various contexts. Not to mention, a bit of a nut.

Lying about sexual orientation isn't equivalent.

And I can't claim that I ignored this shit when it came out, but I would if I could go back and do it over. Though I wonder if one could find a few key differences between, say, the Mehlman situation and the Clinton situation. Just a hunch.

No, he loses the privilege much sooner than that. He loses the privilege when he makes the facts of his private life accessible to people other than trespassers. But there remains no positive value in the outing until it bears practical relevance to something public. Hypocrisy doesn't automatically have practical relevance. If the lie's irrelevant, so's the fact of the lie.

I don't understand how a social agenda isn't an 'actual' political issue. But to address the other point here... no, I don't agree with "live by the sword, die by the sword" when it means that you're punishing politicians for not adhering to a bad consistency. The primary/relevant wrongdoing isn't in the masked private life, it's in the unhidden political life.

But in every relevant way, he does.

See, this is it right here: I don't see a point in pressuring them to adhere to a bad moral/law/code. I don't think that correcting hypocrisy is necessarily a good thing. It all depends on which way it's corrected.

In the case of outing an anti-gay politician, there's the possible good of getting him to change his anti-gay ways, but if that were the object then there'd be no point in a public outing.

But this schism doesn't actually make any visible difference in what you get.

Who says you don't understand? You don't have to share a perspective in order to understand it.

Because they have no such obligation. It isn't their constituents' business.

And again, those blanket assumptions of hypocrisy and/or dysfunction and/or self-loathing. I see no reason to take the truth of these accusations for granted. Perhaps you're limiting your comments to those who are actually hypocritical, but even then, I won't assume dysfunction or self-loathing. I doubt it's so black and white.

Sure.

No.

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Ourcrazymodern?

What you are is scary if you hate it. Otherwise it's delightful. ILYA!

pig

Why not? Showing a pattern of habitually lying in some cases is bad, but in others is ok? Aside from sexual orientation, what else can you habitually lie about and be ok?

Let's see...Clinton committed perjury? Ah yes, 'tis true. The best commentary I've heard on that is from Eddie Izzard - essentially, that you should have degrees of perjury, just like you do for murder. Lying about something like whether the holocaust happened (or, I would say reasons for going to war...) are perjury in the first degree, lying about some girl you were shagging is like perjury 9. I'm glad Clinton got called on that shit - it was completely unethical. I just don't think impeachment was really prudent. But the important thing is - he lied, and he got called. About who he was fucking. Completely relevant, in my opinion. I'm not saying these politicians should be flayed, only that they sit around and blantantly lie, and then act surprised when someone says "Say friend, you sir - are full of shit." It just so happens the lie in the case is something people are really, really sensitive to.

For social agendas vs. political agendas: what I mean is that I wish all the social planning shit would be left out of it, and just let people make up their own minds about things that are directly harmful to other citizens. I would have to agree that these social agendas are political issues...I wish they weren't, and I don't consider them to be the issues we should have to be concerned with.

So, in the end, that divergence in the "live by the sword, die by the sword" thing is going to be what separates you and I on this issue. The rest of it is just interesting for discussion.
I'm going to have to go ahead, and sort of disagree with you right there. So, it's not relevant that he, um, actually doesn't? Me confused. Sounds like you're ok with politics being a dramatic play put on for the crowds, while the people behind the scenes make actual "decisions?"

No one is forcing anyone to adhere to a bad moral code, in my opinion you've got it backwards. Either espouse the moral code you actually live by, or don't run for office claiming you do. No is forcing this guy to be a politician. It seems to me that you're taking the stance that this is the only job this guy could have, and so he just has to further this agenda, and hell be damned if he lives a life diametrically opposed to it. I mean, as long as he says he doesn't, that's ok, right?

Quick question for an analogy: do you feel that a cheating spouse should be called out for cheating, even if he/she appears to love his/her wife/husband and acts accordingly? If functional fit is all that is important to you, is it only important to you in the case of politics, or do you live by functional fit across the board?

I would think that it would, for the reasons I outline above. Frankly, that's not a chance I'm willing to take, nor do I think I should have to. I don't think there's a conclusive experiment that can be performed for this case. I don't want the people I vote into office lying to me about the issues they chose to run on, and that they enact legislation on, period. I don't personally give a rats ass if its about who they fuck, or what school they went to, what they intend to do while in office. I don't really see where this is that difficult.

As I said, I'd settle for journalistic approaches, with sources. Frankly, I don't really like the idea of these guys being put in front of a microphone and asked probative questions about their sex lives. I can think of several reasons someone wouldn't want to get into that in public. However, if Jeff Gannon shows up and testifies that he was in a Mehlman/Dreier sandwich last weekend, I think he has the right to make it public if he wants to, and I can understand how there could be some public interest in knowing that key anti-gay-legislation Republicans are in fact, gay. That's all I'm saying.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

loquitur

I'm very troubled by the idea some people here seem to have, that they are the ones who get to decide what kinds of facts about other people get made public. Everyone has their own zone of privacy they want to maintain, and it can be about a number of subjects, sexual or otherwise. As I posted before, those sorts of decisions are very intimate, and very personal to each individual. For others to decide for reasons of their own to invade that is highly offensive to our common humanity.

The hypocrisy argument doesn't fly. If someone is running for office on some sort of platform that is less pro-gay than someone here would like, the question to ask is whether, if elected, s/he would promote the policies s/he advocates in the campaign. If s/he does, then s/he has been totally honest and has delivered precisely what s/he said s/he would - that's honesty. What's more, if that person secretly is engaged in some form of gay sex, then what that person is doing is advocating restrictions on him/herself - in other words, that person is arguably in the best position to make judgments on these things because any laws s/he may enact will affect him/her directly. If we want lawmakers to have a sense of responsibility about what they're doing, how can this possibly be bad?

In the final analysis, the outers have made a judgment that their own views of the world and of how things should be done are so important and so superior to everyone else's that they have the right to determine how other people present themselves to the world, and to interfere with other people's personal decisionmaking. To begin with, that is egotistical and arrogant in the extreme - no one appointed the outer to be anyone else's guardian. For another thing, by taking for yourself the license to do that, you have empowered those who disagree with YOU the right to do the same thing to you, and publish YOUR secrets and things you'd rather other people not know. (I know you think you're immune because you're not running for office - but you've opened your mouth and publicly fingered other people, right? so that makes you fair game - those who can't stand the heat should stay out of the kitchen). And finally, you simply don't know for certain how someone else lives or how certain aspects of their personality fit into their lives, or what decisions they may have made or when they made them. Deciding to "out" someone inherently assumes a whole lot about the person being outed that may or may not be true. And that's especially regrettable in those cases where the person being "outed" has a wife and kids, who are going to suffer from the outing - these are totally innocent people who are going to have some serious difficulties for no reason other than some person has a political agenda.

Sorry, I believe in respecting other people. I respect them if they're gay, I respect them if they're not, and I respect their choices about what to tell other people about their private lives. I'm not so arrogant as to think that my own views are automatically binding on other people.

host

I'm much more troubled by the ones who get to decide....for all of the rest of us....who keeps the right to marry or to form legal unions, the right to insurance benefits, to inheritance, to be hired or fired, based solely on sexual orientation;

....the ones who get to decide these things....to make them law....when their public ambition triumphs over who they are....and they vote as the person who they pretend to be. I want to know the people who legislate away my rights and the rights of my friends. I want to know who they are, and why they are doing that. I want to know if they are doing it for money, if they are of "sound mind" when they vote, if they are secure in who they are.

We live in a society that demands drug and alcohol testing of people trying to qualify for some of the lowest paid and least responsible employment "opportunities".....yet we witness a signifigant number of posted opinions from folks who defend the "right" of closeted gay elected officials to vote away the civil rights of all other gay residents of the U.S.

pig

loquitur,

great post; albeit i pretty much completely disagree with it, but i'm glad you're here to take up the other side with foolthemall. you've both made several points that are giving me cause to think about this.

1. i'm guessing from your post that this attitude carries over to other issues as well. you don't care if someone is honest in their representations of their character, as long as they espouse and are consistent to a list of campaign promises? do you care if they are true to their socio-political agenda?

2. i agree that everyone has a zone of privacy they deserve and should be able to maintain. i think that a person who chooses to disclose certain aspects of their lives to the public should be honest about those statements. if you're not, then don't make statements about that topic at all. it seems to me you're not advocating passive non-disclosure, but active lying. is this correct?

3. the affect of the hypocracy isn't only a product of their legislative power, but also in terms of creating and sustaining the environment of discrimination. as a politician, they have the bully pulpit, so to speak. they run for office so that their opinion can be heard more loudly and can recieve more attention. in this case, its not just about "gay marriage," its about an atmosphere wherein people are deprived of basic rights.

do you respect them if they are being lied to? of course you think your views are binding on other people, or that they should be. you don't want private details disclosed to the public. how do you feel about murder? rape? etc? we all want some of our views to be binding on other people, we're just not in agreement on which views in this case, or at least it seems that way to me. i'm not saying, nor are others in this thread that people shouldn't be allowed to keep their lives private, or that they shouldn't be allowed to be hypocritical in areas...but then don't be a politician or else don't legislate those activities. otherwise, you're going to get caught with your pants down.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

loquitur

Pigglet, just briefly:

1. Depends what you mean by representations of character. What I'm concerned with mainly when I deal with someone is whether s/he is reliable. If s/he says s/he'll do something, can I count on an honest effort? If s/he says something is true, can I rely on it? If the person advocates good personal hygiene in public, I don't care if s/he picks his/her nose when s/he is in private. That's his/her business, not mine. It doesn't take away the least little bit from the validity of advocating good personal hygiene - that position has to be evaluated on the merits, <i>irrespective</i> of whether the person who advocates it goes mining for boogers at home. If a congressman advocates charity but is personally a tightwad, that means zero about the validity of the position that giving to charity is good. See what I mean? If you think a congressman shouldn't be resisting gay rights, your argument is with his position, not with whether he has a secret gay lover. If he didn't have a gay lover but still resisted gay rights, you still would have to try to change his position. So his position is what you have an issue with, and that's what you need to try to change. His private conduct is not relevant to the validity of his position, because someone else who does not have his character flaws could equally well articulate the same position.


2. No, I don't approve of lying. But let's be clear about what lying is. Lying is saying something you know not to be true: a factual statement. What we're talking about isn't lying. What we're talking about is maintaining silence about a personal matter. Very different. I guess your premise is that someone who is a closeted gay necessarily must in reality think it's ok to be gay, and therefore is a lying hypocrite if he advocates a different position. Well, you can't assume that: you don't know what the other person is thinking and you don't know how he feels about his gay activities. If he is ashamed of them, then he's not a hypocrite, he's just weak - or so it would seem to him. Now you and I could agree he is just a conflicted soul who needs to come to terms with himself, but that would be our diagnosis, and not necessarily the way he sees it. You can't simply jump to the conclusion that your way of looking at things is the only correct one.

3. This point of yours is an argument on the merits of gay rights, rather than about outing. I don't take issue with equal treatment (as I think I said earlier, I believe I probably have more gay people in my home on a regular basis than most of the people here). But it's off point.

As for murder, rape - those aren't issues that are reasonably the subject of debate in society. Bad analogies. My point simply was that there are things that in current society are open to disagreement by people within, say, three SDs of the mean. I have my own views on them, and I would expect the social fabric to work the issues out over time, but I'm not about to start consigning everyone who disagrees wtih me on some issue or other to the outer limits of hell, or brand them as evil. They're not - they just have the bad judgment to disagree with me. And just as I don't want to be treated badly for disagreeing with them, I don't treat them badly for disagreeing with me.

Host, I don't understand your post other than that you're angry at people who see the world differently from the way you do. You say you want to know who these people are who have different opinions from you - well, suppose they were all totally blameless, upstanding, non-hypocritical types who <i>still</i> voted against what you perceive as the correct position -- does that change the result one bit? Of course not. You have not made yourself the slightest bit better off. If everyone who voted against you was some sort of saint, they STILL will have voted against you. So what does prying into other people's lives gain you? ZERO.

Outing doesn't make you the slightest bit better off; it just hurts someone else -- which means that your objective apparently is to inflict pain on those with different views, even though it helps you not one bit. Unless I'm missing something here, that's what you appear to be saying. And that's not very attractive. What you should be caring about is changing minds and persuading people, not inflicting pain on those who disagree.

Advancing equal treatment for gay people is not going to be achieved by hurting other people. Other than giving yourself a little bit of vindictive satisfaction, it doens't advance your goal one bit.

Let me add one more thing: I don't expect to be governed by saints. All I expect is good faith effort to keep promises, and an avoidance of corruption. Do that and I'll be a happy man. And if they want to pick their nose or buttfuck their pet goat in their spare time, go right ahead, just don't tell me about it.

As it is now, I would never stand for election to anything, or appointment to anything (even though I am pretty sure I could do a better job than many of the bozos now in govt) because I don't want to have my privacy invaded or be potentially subject to political grandstanding at my expense. And I know a lot of people who feel the same way -- talented people who have a lot to offer, but simply won't do it because the price in terms of the abuse and other shit you have to put up with is just too high.

pig

loquitur,

all i can say is that i agree with your points 100%, save for when someone volunteers to be shephard for the rest of us. i don't expect them to be perfect - i do expect them to be forthright about issues that, right or wrong, are obviously huge controversial issues of our time. as i said, to me homosexuality is just one example, but it could go to any of the drugs, sex and rock 'n roll sins. these people get to set the agenda for our national focus in a lot of key ways. in addition, the way our system is set up, these guys (particularly for national offices) get a pretty sweet deal out of it - salary and speaking engagements, whip-ass insurance, not-too-shabby pension...yeah, i expect a little higher standard out of them. not to mention that they, ummm....sort of claim to hold themselves to a higher standard as well.

if those expectations keep people who aren't honest about their lives from running for office - i can't really say i'm upset at that prospect.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

highthief

Agree with this and with everything else so well said by loquitur.

People have private lives and public lives. We all do. And they don't always converge neatly. But that is the decision of the individual, no one else.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

host

My last post included this:
This was the response....followed by endorsements from pigglet and from highthief:
...our conversation comes in the context of closeted gay citizens, joining, supporting....contributing time, energy, money.....and engaging in persuasion of others to do likewise, to support a political party that views their homosexuality as a pathology....a deviance.....a "sin".

These secretly gay folks rise to prominence in this party, and support it's platform of singling out homosexuals for reduced rights, and exclusion from equal protection. The agenda of their party is to remove "sexual orientation" as a class description that is afforded civil rights protections, and to actually relegate anyone but heterosexuals to second class citizenship.

The closeted legislator devotes part of his political life to advancing this anti-gay agenda.....he votes for the legislation that will exclude homosexuals from equal rights and equal protection as a class that is discriminated against.

It has never been easy to be openly gay. Even in these enlightened times, gay people still suffer physical assault, occasionally fatal, merely because of their sexual orientation. Our closeted republican congressmen have witnessed the persecution....the harassment, bullying, and humiliation of homosexuals who have been too "matter of fact"....too open, about who they are, to the rest of the world.

The movement to "out" these congressmen is led by homosexual activists like Mike Rogers at http://www.blogactive.com/

There is no advocacy for outing closeted gay congressmen who do not specifically promote an anti-gay legislative agenda. Voting for anti-gay legislation....such as prohibiting adoption of children in DC by homosexuals, or to exclude sexual orientation from a workplace anti-discrimination category, is grounds for outing, if you are determined to be a closeted gay congressman.

Merely supporting the republican party anti-gay agenda is not grounds for outing. One must be, or work for a closeted gay congressman who actually casts anti-gay votes in congress.

These congressmen are closeted because they know that it is difficult and risky to reputation and personal safety to come out of the closet, yet they make the decision to make it even more difficult to live an openly gay life in American society.....to be hired and earn a living under the same assumptions of fair and equal treatment by employers, landlords, lenders, realtors, school administrators, and law enforcement, as heterosexuals live under.

We live in a day where the societal reforms of more than forty years ago are too casually dismissed. Many of us "know" that there is no reason or justication for affirmative action programs, just as we "know" that outing closeted gay congressmen "only hurts others".

Formerly....we had greater empathy. If we were not a racial minority, or if we were not gay, or female, we did not presume, as vigorously, to dismiss the challenges that non-white protestant heterosexual males faced in their everyday lives.....in school, in the workplace.....boarding a bus and choosing a seat....buying or renting a residence in a "good neighborhood".

Now....we presume to know all of that....even without personally experiencing it. That J6P over there.....he's/she's (insert whatever class description here) ....he "made it".... the rest of 'em can, too....

We are engaged in an argument that I think requires empathy. If you have never been chased, spat at, punched in the face, embarassed, or excluded, simply because you were perceived as "not heterosexual", why would you take the time to post so much in favor of protection of the sexual identity of folks intent on making life as a homosexual.....harder to live, via personally legislating to make it harder?

Consider that, for these closeted gay congressmen, living openly gay was perceived by them to be too dificult, evn before their own efforts to legislate more difficulty into living that way.....living openly as who you are.

I think that you have it backwards. It isn't "none of our business", who the closeted anti-gay members of congress are. It's "none of our business" how the homosexual community and it's supporters choose to react to these hypocrits and their political party with an agenda that works against homosexuals. No one is "outed" without a chance (numerous opportunities) to initiate a discussion about who they are, and what they stand for. This is not balckmail. They make the choice to portray themselves to be just like any other anti-gay republican legislator or staffer.

<b>After they've worked to create a more difficult and unfriendly society for gay people to live in, isn't it only fitting that the rest of the gay community makes an effort to make the closeted gay politicians who serve an anti-gay agenda, live in that unfriendly society, too?</b>

highthief

I have no idea what to say to this, host. You're speaking Swahili and I speak English. You statement is the very antithesis of what I believe and how I see the world.

I'm the first person to support gay rights, gay marriage, whatever - but people have an absolute right to keep their intimate, private lives seperate from their public life, no matter who they are or what they do for a living. Whether this is a closeted gay person who votes against gay-friendly legislation at the ballot box, a gay person who doesn't campaign for the candidate supporting gay-marriage, or a politician who would rather his or her sexual identity not play a role in their public life; everyone deserves this.

I see this as far, far more important a principle than scoring a few paltry political points - which seems to be the only motivation for "outing".

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

loquitur

Host, I'll make this real simple. Your position is just plain spite. Outing has yet to produce any social change, so far as I can tell. All it does is inflict harm on people. All it does is give YOU a bit of a rush, some vindictive satisfaction. Basically, it's a form of terrorism: you think your pain is so important that it's ok to inflict it on others, even if inflicting that harm doesn't get you closer to where you want to go.

But that is the kind of act that gets perpetrated by those who are LOSING an argument. Your pro-gay rights position happens to be gaining ground -- mark my words, in ten or 15 years everyone will wonder what the fuss was about. All you're accomplishing by this viciousness is slowing down acceptance of your position. People don't like viciousness, and when they see it, they tend to tune out.

roachboy

i would echo the above (and my own ambivalence about the tactic)...it presupposes, reinforces--legitimates even--exactly the homphobia that one would imagine it to be combatting if you allow yourself to stay entirely within the logic of the tactic itself. the responses it would elicit would not be symmetrical with the intent of the act---you would probably get a shitstorm, but in the main it would be a homophobic shitstorm, the source of which would not necessarily be "pillory the hypocrite" but rather "pillory the queer".

do you really think, for example, that evangelical protestants--who would react to outing these folk--would do so in the main for the reasons that you would prefer?

and if one were to try to explain the motives--and so try to shape the responses--the tactic would be revealed in ways that line up with what loquitor is saying above.

had maher just thought this up and done it, you could have said that the consequences would be of the order of unanticipated consequences. but he didnt. at this point, the consequences, in all their perversity, would be predictable.

it is a bad tactic.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

loquitur

oh yeah, and let's not forget the wife and kids that most of these guys have. Why the heck should they be made to suffer just because someone don't like the husband's politics?

Roachboy, you're right that the tactic feeds into homophobia, because outing would have no sting otherwise........ although I suspect it is more <i>presumed</i> homophobia than real homophobia.

pig

Ok, so what does a politician have to be honest about? Anything that's not sensitive? Is that where you draw the line now - things that aren't uncomfortable or that don't hurt anyone's feelings? Its kind of funny to me, that at least with the class of politicians I think we're talking about - that the spectre of homophobia they help create is what you're claiming should protect them from disclosure.

No one forces anyone to run for office.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

highthief

His or her campaign promises and anything covered by the law (campaign financing, criminal record, etc)

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

ratbastid

You know, the New Jersey governor who was outed a year or so ago, I forget his name, came on the talk show circuit recently to support a book he'd written. He was all about how coming out (in his case, to short-cut his imminent outing) was hard, hard on his family, hard all the way around, but in the end it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. His wife is happy now, in the life she now has. His kids are happy. There was a specter of lies hanging over that family that, once it was out in the open, and people had some time to heal from it, allowed everyone to have a lot of freedom and peace.

I don't know if his case is typical, but from his point of view, being outed ended up being way better than continuing to live the lie.

host

roachboy,
I agree that, on his own....motivated by his political beliefs, it shold not be Maher's "place" to use his own celebrity to "out" anybody. This is not his fight.....his life is not adversely impacted by the political activities of closeted gay people who work for an anti-gay agenda.

I expanded my responses to discussion of the issue of outings by gay activists, of closeted gay republicans who work to legislate their party's platform into law, reinforcing the myths of the conservative/christian fundamentalist political alliance of homosexuality as deviant pathology.

I view Maher as a sympathetic ally who can provide a "bully pulpit" for Mike Rogers or any other gay activist, to publicize and press discussion of the phenomena of closeted gay political operatives with an anti-gay agenda. If Maher's intent during his Larry King interview, was merely to boost media coverage of the activism of gay people who have to live in the more repressive circumstances resulting from the activities of closeted gays who wield anti-gay political influence, I am in support of what he said to Larry King.

I think that it is not "my place" to disapprove the actual delivery of the details of an "outing", if it is delivered by a Mike Rogers, in an appearance on Maher's show, or elsewhere, if Rogers provides the details of the circumstances that have resulted in the outing, as he did in this example:
....and aside from former rep., Ed Shrock who was married and has a child when he was outed, this does not seem to be an issue where "fallout" includes humiliation of "wives and children". This is about closeted gay political operatives who practice an anti-gay agenda who are single and decide not to provide any details about their personal lives....as in the examples of Mehlman and Dreier.

Bisexual Ed Shrock would have been free to spout crap like this:
...under the "cover" that his marriage provided to him, if not for:

pig

How do you separate the issues, though? It seems to me that the main justification to not "out" someone in a sensitive area like this is chiefly a plea to emotion. As I said previously, I can understand these things for regular people, who are just living their lives. In a sense, I find your response to be exactly my point. Some areas are ok to look into, in terms of consistency with their campaign promises, but some areas aren't. Every campaign ad I saw during the recent elections had some mention of "family values," "common man" imagery. At the same time, many politicians are fighting to make sure that this "family values," "common man" image is equated, in the minds of their constituency and the general public, with a falacy that they themselves contradict in a de facto sense. They're playing both sides of the ball, so to speak. I don't think its "right" to assault people with these bogus, homogenized images in the first place - but if you're going to do it, you're claiming that you are perpetuating this image because you stand for it, its your way of life, its just downright the "American" (or other nationality, etc) way...I don't see how its not germane if that is, in fact, a lie. How do you separate some campaign promises out as protected? Its all an emotional appeal.

I don't "like" the idea of forced outings, whether it be sexual orientation/practices, drug/alcohol use, gambling, etc - but I dislike even more the idea that people who do these things - just like a lot of citizens - are perpetuating stereotypes that demonize these practices - using the propaganda and legislative power of their public office. Of course I can see how such disclosures will be painful - I'd hate to have to go through that type of scenario myself - but I don't think I'd really be able to call it a "low blow" if I was speaking out against it on one hand, and practicing it on the other. Long term, such forced realizations on the part of the public might have the benefit of forcing our public/political awareness to be more inclusive.

Guess what? You can be gay...and conservative. You can be a family guy, and use marajuana. You can balance your checkbook, and gamble online. You can work to feed the homeless, and enjoy the company of a paid lady-friend. I'd like to see our ethics and morality claims challenged, and I can't see how the imagery that we allow our politicians to throw in front of us helps to do anything but perpetuate the current demonization of our "outcasts" and "taboo" behaviors.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

highthief

I seperate such issues, as I have already said, by what is covered under the law. Until someone decides to legislate against having both a private and personal sexual persona, there's no issue for me.

Keep your campaign promises (even if you are a closeted gay person who campaigns for restrictions on gay rights) and obey all the legal requirements of the job.

Anything else is nobody's business.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

pig

That's my point - they are breaking their campaign promises. Is this a semantic question of "promise?" They say one thing, they do another. Is their public representation of their private lives during campaigns / at political meetings / in office - in your opinion, how do you characterize or label that? To me its a lie.

__________________
You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

highthief

A broken campaign promise is a statement like "If elected, I vow to provide free milk to all children under 6", and then, having been elected, not providing said milk.

That's not to say I might not care if someone is fake. Many politicians are, on a variety of levels. But I'll decide that for myself. I see no need for someone's personal life, and the lives of their family, to be torn apart over this just so someone else can win an election.

To me, you can be a pot-smoking, hard drinking, jaywalker in your private life - I don't really care, so long as you do a good job and keep the promises made during your campaign. Equally, you can be gay behind closed doors so long as your campaign promises are met, even if those promises are not gay-friendly.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.