Maher to out gay Republicans; and CNN censorship
 

On CNN's Larry King Live, Bill Maher promised that on his show Friday night, he will name members of the Republican leadership who are closeted homosexuals.

Live on the air, Maher mentioned RNC Chair Ken Mehlman as one of them. Larry King claimed to be completely surprised.

Even more interesting is that CNN censored the mention of Mehlman from subsequent airings of the show, and is now sending out cease-and-desist letters to have it pulled from the internet. Link: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006...own-video.html

Link of the videos and transcripts (live and taped versions): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/1...h_n_33701.html

So the long line of staunchly anti-gay homosexuals in the GOP has at least one more member; from the sound of it, Maher will announce a few more tomorrow night. I find the timing interesting in that at least this can't be seen as an attempt by Maher to influence the elections. At the same time, I'm not sure a witch hunt should be the first thing on the progressive agenda at the moment, when there is so much to be done.

I find it even more interesting that CNN is scrambling to keep a lid on this thing. They can't possibly believe they will really contain the information; in the age of TiVo and blogs, it's far too late for that. Perhaps it is just a measure to minimize their own liability in the matter, if Maher draws fire for Mehlman's outing. I'm sure they also don't want to be seen as a venue for some 'left-wing agenda', and would rather let Maher take the inevitable flak.

I'm also left to question the wisdom of this revelation when Mehlman is soon stepping down anyway (or so I think I've heard... someone want to confirm that?)

Some questions:

This has been done recently, but what is your take on the propriety of outing public figures? Is it more legitimate to do so if that figure's public position on homosexuality is hypocritical?

What is CNN's proper role here? They are obviously within their legal rights to alter a broadcast or control the use of their copyrighted material, but do you see a problem with journalistic ethics here?

What implications might this have for the social policies of the Republican party?

CNN is covering their ass. Libel lawyers are a tenacious lot.

ANd here I thought the election was the reason he stepped down...

Sounds like Bill Maher's trying to stir up some controvercy so when the season starts again people will watch.

Hope he enjoys libel lawsuits.

Seriously though, who cares? I thought Dems were supposed to be accepting of everyone. Yet so far every gay republican has been treated worse by them then terrorists.

Let's say that a Republican leader is pushing legislation that brings more christianity into government....then he's outed as a Muslim.

It's not the fact that these people are gay, it's the fact that they are hypocrites.

How is it libel if he can find a source to go on record about personal relationships? It becomes a he said/he said thing.

Seaver, which gay Republicans are you talking about? The only one that's been in office recently villified himself.

The reasoning behind that is because those very gay Republicans are the ones espousing the worst anti-gay rhetoric and gay marriage bans, etc. So the hypocrisy is what's awful about them. No one I know cares that they're gay, it's that they're hypocrites affecting policy.

Like I said in the general discussion thread, outing people due to their politics is petty, vindictive, and useless at best.

Maher's scum.

...and turning your own self loathing due to your inability to come to terms with your homosexuality into anti-gay legislation is a sign of severe depression disorder, and anyone in that state of melancholia has no business in any office, let alone poltiical office. Maher is doing us all a big favor by pointing out who, in political office, has an emotional disorder.

aren't ALL politicians hypocrites affecting policy?

Assuming that they haven't "come to terms" with their homosexuality privately.

Assuming that a lack of "coming to terms" could only lead to depression.

Assuming that their homosexuality and their politics couldn't possibly be reconciled.

Assuming that a depressed politician can't function well enough to fulfill the duties and wishes of his constituents.

Whole lotta not necessarily warranted assumptions here.

I'm not assuming anything. It's the truth. They haven't come to terms with their sexuality if they can't stand up for themselves. Not coming to terms with, and more importantly striking out at other because you haven't come to terms with latent homosexuality is a textbook sign of severe depression disorder. Clinical diagnosis is basically the "if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck," with the DSM. It's pretty obvious most of them suffer from severe depression disorder, and someone with that disorder can be dangerous is a position where they can take out their rage and depression on a lot of other people.

Assuming that they aren't standing up for themselves.

Assuming (again) that they haven't come to terms with it.

Assuming that there's any rage in what they do.

You're assuming nearly everything.

That's the difference between trained psychologists and laymen. I have all the information I need. Give me a few 1 hour sessions with these men, and I can prove it.

You don't have sufficient information about these men to diagnose them. You say as much in the post above. Yet, in earlier posts, you claim that it is a textbook example of severe depression disorder. FoolThemAll is right. You are making assumptions even if you are a "trained psychologist". Even if you had a PhD in clinical psychology, which I doubt, I would question your conclusions. With the present information we don't have enough information to demonstrate that the people meet DSM criteria for a depressive disorder.

Generally, psychologists carefully observe the subject before making any claims about them. But hey, you're innovative or something. You just make up characteristics and then make a diagnosis from those fantasy qualities.

Yeah, already covered in general in the other thread on Craig. If there is hard evidence, and if the public figures credibility is directly affected by the hypocritical details of their private life, I have no problem with it. You can't compartmentalize like that, then run on personal integrity. That's what all these guys do. "Biff Bifferson, he's a good old guy, just like you. He stands up for traditional marriage values, and fights the terrorists. Not like his opponent, who gay-fucks dead babies while wearing a turban..." if you run on heterosexual "traditional" family values and you don't live by them, you can pretty much expect that its going to come out.

do i suspect maher has ulterior motives? of course. but in this day and age, how stupid do you have to be to run on anti-homosexual legislation...if you're a closeted homosexual? they know if jennifer aniston and vince vaughn had a fight on friday because the toppings on their pizza were fucked up, and they're not going to find out you've been shaft deep in your raquetball partner's ass? i don't think so. where's all this personal accountability and standing up for what you think is right crap i keep hearing every politician talk about? you want a private life? good, don't run for national political offices if you live a seriously hypocritical lifestyle. the homosexuality thing is just the big one right now because its the huge social pariah issue going down right now, but it could be the same thing if strom thurmond had been busted back in the day for impregnating a black chick when he was running on segregation. you think that wouldn't have been useful information to his constiuency?

Yeah, it's a reasonable expectation. That's not exactly a justification of the outing, though.

Me too. But I also suspect that he has no decent, sensible motives.

No, it's not actually useful.

that's incomprehensible to me. you don't care if the things your elected officials tell you about themselves are true or not? makes no difference? no trust issues for you in this thing?

In regards to their personal life? As long as it doesn't affect their political life?

No, I don't care.

yeah, but how do you think that's possible? you don't think it speaks to their judgement? their trustworthiness? you think i can be an "x" in my private life, and totally disassociate that with my public decisions? i can't, can you? i mean, that's why people try to tell the voters who they are, and what they stand for, etc.

I don't understand - what's stopping you or me or anyone else from acting differently in different contexts? Even inconsistently?

What are you channelling one of the other members here who makes similar claims?

What about religon? Religon is a personal thing. Do you think that effects political decisions? The thing is, it IS effecting their political decisions. Letent homosexuality leading to self loathing leading to decisions to punish other homosexuals is a prime example of letting somthing very personal become very political.

But not in any way that wasn't visible to the voters who elected them. You get what you vote for. The source of their aims isn't relevant.

Republicans aren't likely to vote for homosexuals. They hid the truth from their bigoted voters. How can one "get what you vote for", when the politician is blatently misrepresenting himself? You can't. Poltiicans should be heald accountable for misleading voters.

Holy shit.
I just changed my mind... I think.

These gay yet anti-gay platform guys are assholes, and hypocritical, and wrong. But they're just like the rest of the politicians. Why should they vote the way they believe... they should be voting the way their constituents believe (wrong to me or not). If I were a Representative, I'd be voting the way my constituents wanted me to for the most part. They are supporting a platform - you don't have to be straight to think gay marriage is wrong. Not that I think that's what they're doing so much as making sure they stay in power by any means necessary.

But in all honesty... there's nothing to say that a gay man has to love being gay and support all gay rights.

Are they wrong to lie? Absolutely. But it's not all that different from all the other lies. The only thing they really should be doing... is to vote and make policy in the way they promised during their campaign. And if they promised to vote against gay marriage etc, then they are upholding their word... as fucked up as that is.

I just don't want them to be right because I believe in equal rights for all (as equal as we can make 'em!).

While I'm glad this has sparked some discussion, I'd love to hear more about the newsmedia angle, which I thought was really the more interesting part of the story (as 'outings' in themselves are becoming a commonplace in our political landscape.)

I am disappointed by CNN's handling of the situation. I don't think the situation warranted censorship on the scale of rooting out copies of the video on the internet.

i can understand inconsistency. i can understand lying about your private life. but i think when you do it, you're basically opening yourself up to being called on it. of course we act differently in different situations; i curse to myself constantly at work. i don't curse to my boss, much. but this is a question of fundamental character misrepresentation. i don't think you can compartmentalize fundamental aspects of who you are, and then think it doesn't affect the decisions you make.

when you're acting differently in different situations...do you think your overall behavior, and your awareness of the way you act in different situations, affects the way you act in each specific one? do you over-compensate? do you keep quiet about things?

as far as the argument put forth by jess, i agree that once in office, their vote should be affected by their constituency, but it has to also be tempered by their character and what they know to be right. i think a part of that representative is to act as a filter of his constituency. there are obvious examples, which i won't go into because its almost like godwining a thread, where the desires of a constituency are far from correct.

that aside, this is also based on the image they projected when being elected, and that they continue to project in office. if some guy was gay, or muslim, or had a purple tail growing out of his taint, i wouldn't care if they voted "anti-gay", or "anti-muslim," or "anti-purple-taint-tail." what i do think is relevant is the misrepresentation. if the gay, muslim, purple taint tailed guy said, "i'm a gay muslim with a purple taint tail, but i promise to vote the will of my district," i wouldn't have as many problems with it. however, i also think we elect our representatives to be leaders, not just followers. no?

They are getting what they vote for, whether they see it that way or not.

Or is there a material difference between a heterosexual who supports anti-gay legislation and a closet case who does the same? Politically speaking?

I don't see one.

Thus, I don't see any value in the outing.

Closet cases who make themselves public figures, hypocrites or not, open themselves up to outings. That doesn't justify it in either case. Pointing out hypocrisy is only useful when you're trying to coax the hypocrite into improving himself - and that's pretty clearly not the aim of people like Maher.

Fundamental how? What does this mean?

But it's not political misrepresentation. It's not relevant to his status as a politician.

Even if fundamentalist Christians are convinced it is.

He's still doing the job he was hired to do.

Politically speaking? If someone is a hypocrite, they are a hypocrite...politically speaking or otherwise. If you knew that your rep was willing to sell his or her soul, and your vote, at the drop of a hat, would you really vote for him/her? The bottom line is trustworthyness. The bottom line is a wolf wearing sheep's clothing is leading the heard. It's dangerous, and revealing the wolf is a good thing. Maher should be commended, not insulted.

Nah. If one's hypocrisy doesn't effect political promises made, then it's simply not political.

And as far as carrying out the wishes of their constituents, they appear to be completely trustworthy.

But not any more dangerous than an actual sheep, in this case. Or - to get out of that imagery of yours that I just screwed up - a closet anti-gay is no more dangerous than a hetero anti-gay.

No, it's pointless and petty. Like Maher. He accomplishes nothing positive with these outings. The wolf in sheep's clothing will just be replaced by another of his kind or by - gasp! - a straight homophobe.

foolthemall,

how do you feel about someone lying on their resume?

Set aside the whole "is it right or wrong" thing for a second. A closeted anti-gay politician is an easy target for a politically-motivated take-down, and it's just bad politics to be that vulnerable to attack. If your political tent is pitched on such shifty sand, I think you deserve what you have coming to you.

I feel the same way about politicians who are on the take, collecting lobbyist handouts or money from business or organized crime. In that case, it might actually be illegal, too, but my point is, it's just a bad idea to have a public and political life that's predicated on such a vulnerable position.

I watched Real Time Friday night, i guess he decided not to out the gay republicans.

Hmmm. If you can sue someone for saying you're gay, does that mean I can sue people for implying that I'm straight? I teach a class in GLBT lit; I might lose some of my street cred, so to speak.

It all goes back to this: liberals say that they believe that everyone has the right to live as they wish, but not when it comes to those who are not yet ready to out themselves, especially if they are republicans. Gay republicans are in jeopardy of being outted if they do not believe in the gay marriage agenda - and there are many.

Many gays do not support the whole "gay marriage" agenda - check out Tammy Bruce, for an example http://www.tammybruce.com/.

Liberals want to give people privacy, all right. Until it cuts across their own agenda....

What might be best for the country is not always what is best for the individual. Maybe these "hypocrites" are merely putting what they believe to be the country's best interests ahead of their own personal interests.

Imo, closeting yourself is not good. Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. If people make you feel that your homosexuality is wrong, then you should show them that it isn't....by being upfront, honest, and unapoligetic about it. In the end, honesty is the best policy.....not for furthering political/power mongering agendas perhaps....but for a healthy world.....yes.
I think Maher is all right. Hypocrites go home.

That'd be EXCELLENT. I'd love to see that happen!

Hey, at least that's not a broad generalization or anything. I mean, you realize that in light of the abortion debate, or, I don't know...ummm wiretapping without a warrant, etc - that one could also make an (in my opinion) rather asinine comment about the boogey-man "conservatives" that "want to give people privacy, all right. Until it cuts across their own agenda...." and it would have about as much merit.

Once again, its not about their position. Of course there are gay people who aren't in favor of gay marriage. This is about honest and hypocracy in terms of the position they adopt, and how they represent themselves. The "homosexual" aspect, in my opinion at least, isn't really *that* crucial. I'd have the same opinion if someone was a staunch supporter of the Drug War and MADD, and it turned out they were a heavy drug user who routinely drove drunk.

In fact, I find the sensationalist hype surrounding these disclosures to be an interesting reminder of how homophobic we are as a society. In the above example of the drugs / DUI - the reaction would be nowhere near this severe. Of course, the fact that you can successfully run for office on the "traditional marriage" slogan is a pretty strong indicator of our social homophobia in the first place.

....so, you think that you can just slip back in here....after 9 months' absence and start posting again?

Welcome back, alansmithee !

I don't think that you are correct... in simply dismissing this "self loathing" phenomena as altruistic. It has much to do with religiously influenced, dysfunction driven delusion, or possibly vice versa. More and more, I am struck by my observation that, with all of their talk of "discernment"....Ted Haggard's flock of faithful, and indeed, the larger collective of evangelicists have an unimpressive "track record" when it comes to picking spiritual and political leaders, dontcha think? Could one reason be that it is so difficult to distinguish their spiritual leaders from their political leaders?

Bad. Bad bad bad. But you typically don't put irrelevancies like orientation on your resume. Or, for that matter, irrelevancies like "I've been faithful to my wife" or "I go to church every Sunday".

Tammy Bruce= fringe and flawed.......

Last night, my wife and I watched this:
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/lastlettershome/

Two of the fathers of dead US soldiers were so shattered that they did not speak in front of the camera....they left it to their wives to try to put their loss into words. One mother said that she knew her son's (killed in Iraq) saliva was on the lip of the envelope flap of his "last letter home", and knowing that gave her a feeling of contact with him.

Several "next of kin" said that, when the military chaplain and two soldiers in dressed in "class "A"s, appeared at their door to "inform them", they reasoned that, if they did not let them in the house, their soldier would not be dead.
My wife has not heard anything from her deployed son in the last 14 days.

Watching "Last Letters Home", last night, I tried to imagine how we would cope with "a knock on the door".....it something that I hadn't thought of, before. None of the dozen changing, "reasons" that president Bush has "communicated", to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq, or continued US and NATO "presence", in Afghanistan, is IMO, worth one drop of blood of any American soldier, nor one tear of a grieving loved one.

If Tammy Bruce is "so sure", she should enlist in the military herself, and spare another soldier, a fourth "rotation" into "service" in Iraq. I find her role as propagandist chearleader for a war criminal POTUS, an affront to what most of us now know.
<b>Just read my "sig" at the bottom of this post.....</b>

www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
PRESIDENT BUSH – Overall Job Rating in recent national polls
...........................................Approve....Disapprove

Newsweek 11/9-10/06 31%.......63%

Bad politics, yes. A justification for outers, no. Expected != justified. You've got a leap here to explain.

Nope, not good. Also not your business, nor Maher's.

You've got to have a good reason to invade one's privacy and divulge the details to the world. There is simply no good reason here.

Why? It wouldn't change the fact that they're doing good - or bad - politically.

'Course, drunk driving is a danger to other people. 'Course, if you believe in the drug laws (I don't), there's another good reason to 'out' him. And if you want to get him into rehab, that might maybe be a a third good reason to threaten him with a very public outing. Though I don't know how effective that'd be and a private discussion might be just as or more fruitful. Your comparison breaks down on at least two of these points.

Sure, about as good a motive as I've ever heard, too. Which is to say, a pretty poor motive. A man's privacy gets violated and no good actually comes of it. Only the shallowest of the fence-sitters are actually going to think, "Hm... one of those traditional marriage advocates is a hypocrite... this proves that the cause is bunk!" People like Haggard simply get like-minded replacements. There's no real progress made.

Tammy Bruce is a neo-con apologist.

As far as homosexuals being against gay-marriage legislation, I can understand that position completely. It is not necessarily hypocrisy. The solution to dealing with same-sex marriage is not to add yet another law, but to change or remove current law which restricts and defines marriage -- a social institution. If the word "marriage" is so precious that it couldn't possibly be associated with filthy filthy homosexuals, take it away from everyone and replace it with "civil union." Straight, gay, and other couples could then all get the same "civil union license/registration" and then perform whatever religious, spiritual, or personal ceremonies they'd like on their own to complete their "marriage."

This thread got interesting when Jess added that last bit. However, I have to step in and say one thing.

If you want to run for office, run under your own values. If all you are is some puppet, bending your own values to meet the expectations of your constituents, then you are.. well.. nothing special. What is the definition of a politician? Someone who presents themselves to be society's most obediant bitch?

If I am voting someone ahead of myself (which means, to me, giving someone OTHER THAN MYSELF a vote of confidence to do the right thing) then I am voting for them based on what their decisions WOULD BE if they had to wing it. Now, who do you want for a leader; someone who is not true to themselves, or someone with a real drive and passion for the policies they enforce?

This is what is ridiculous about politics. There are no leaders, only slimy businessmen sucking on the teat of public opinion.

I'm confilcted on this one.

On one hand, I don't think it should be neccesary for a politician's sexual orientation to be public information. Much in the same way I wouldn't want any of their sexual habits to be made public. They're American citizens with a right to privacy.

But if current politics demand that homosexuality be a political issue, then this information is relevant. So... not sure.

But, while we're at it, can we out congresspeople who are closet agnostics/atheists? I'm sick of politicians claiming they love the Jesus, when you know they're lying through their teeth to get the votes. I mean, why not?

But who's to say that the people in question aren't doing this? Perhaps their true values include a negative view of homosexual activity and it's their personal life, not their political life, in which they are failing to live up to those values?

Not to mention, there's also seretogis' scenario as a possibility. And really, I'm thinking there's quite a few possibilities besides these two.

And at any rate, even if there is hypocrisy, what is the practical difference to a voter in getting a straight anti-gay rep versus getting a closeted anti-gay rep? Besides the opportunity for petty humiliation of the closeted one, I mean.

I want politicians to be honest. Just as atheists should not have to make apologies for their beliefs, neither should gays. Honesty is the first quality I am looking for in a political representative. I would not vote for a hypocrite. The closet is a place to hide.....I want my politicians to be strong enough to not hide.

In this case, I guess the bottom line is that I don't see your desire for this particular kind of honesty as being valuable enough to outweigh the hurt/damage caused by a public outing.

Unless you can show me how you're concretely harmed by a politician keeping their orientation private.

Yes! :thumbsup: I am sick of people being ashamed to admit they actually don't believe in heaven and hell etc.:| Great idea! I'm tired of the song and dance on these issues. Bah! ;) Down with cultural bullyism.

I think we're skirting the issue here, though. Whether this information about a politician personally sways YOU, or should sway any one particular voter is one thing. But whether it should be available information that can sway voters, in general, is another. I think it's the latter idea that deserves the most discussion...

I guess I want to get to the place where outing does not cause hurt or damage. It will take time....but it needs to be done. The era of J Edgar Hoover is over! Homosexuals have been around forever, and always will be. We need to get over it, accept it, and get on with other issues. I don't think it should be such a big deal.....if people quit hiding in closets, it probably wouldn't be. :love:

Yeah, that's the question. And my answer is that the costs outweigh the benefits - because I don't see any benefits, even for those who would be swayed. There's nothing concrete in the alleged benefits.

This would be a great place to be. Unfortunately, as you acknowledge, we aren't there yet.

The benefit would be knowing that the person you are voting for is not a political hypocrite....that they have the basic character to stand by their own personal convictions/actions, and not just say whatever they think it will take to get "their side" to win, and in power. Imo...our political landscape is too much about spin and power, and not enough about real debate on the important issues.

We will never get there by hiding in a closet though. :| So...it appears Maher has the right idea, to me.

But two things about that:

1. How does this knowledge benefit you?

2. How does this knowledge tell you that their political choices are wholly motivated by an unprincipled thirst for power? And like I asked before, how do you know that their personal life - as opposed to their political life - isn't the part of their life that contrasts with their principles?

I'm not seeing how involuntary outing helps the process of getting to that place... and I am seeing how it could hurt the outed. Lose-lose, as I see it.

That knowlege benefits me by helping me decide who is the best person to hold an office. I need truth to make good decisions. I would not want to vote for someone who is living a lie....This issue of accepting homosexuality as ahealthy and normal variation in our society is important and needs to be taken seriously. Double talk is not helpful.

Hiding and lying makes this issue seem less real/important than it truely is....imo.

We're talking about typically anti-gay closet cases here, so they're not going to help the idea of homosexuality as a healthy, normal thing either way, whether hetero or closeted.

How does knowing about a particular case of living a lie actually improve the quality of your decision? How is straight/anti-gay better than double-life/anti-gay, given equal political stances and actions?

Reading your efforts here, I wonder if even you know, how much of your opinion is shaped by the financing of Richard Mellon Scaife, via AIM, continued today by
L. Brent Bozell III, protege of Reed Irvine?

You're probably talking to the wrong people here, FTA. The real people that you should be having this conversation with are the constituents these congressmen represent. They're probably for gay marriage amendments, being Republican. How do you predict they will react to learning their representatives are gay? My guess is that the congressmen's popularity would take a hit. Assuming that were to happen, that would show the information is, definitively, relevant.

Most of the left you're talking to here would probably *gain* respect for congressmen that come out of the closet. So maybe our perspectives don't reflect the real issue here....

Anti-gay marriage constituents considering homosexuality relevant doesn't make it relevant. Perhaps you're right about me asking the wrong people, but I wouldn't merely ask anti-gay marriage constituents whether they considered it relevant. I would ask them why it's relevant. I would ask them to justify their interest in exposing this particular aspect of a politician's private life.

Host, I don't understand your aim in posting those articles. What's your point?

Everyone has things about themselves that they don't advertise and would rathen not be made public. Some of them are trivial, some are important, and each of us would probably differ as to which is which. But in the final analysis, each person gets to define what makes him/herself be who s/he is, and how important to his/her self-definition any single particular aspect is.

To put it another way: we each choose the face we present to the world. For example, I'm not naturally charming and not naturally extroverted. But to be successful in my line of work I have to learn to be charming and somewhat extroverted. it's not really me; I'm much more of a bookish and cerebral type than a glad-hander. My wife knows this, and some of my close friends, but I have no particular desire or need to have these aspects of my personality become common knowledge.

I mention this not because I think that sexual preference is on a par with personality type - clearly it's a different kind of personal characteristic - but rather to make the point that each of us chooses how s/he presents him/herself to the world. And the choice of how to do that is uniquely each of ours; it's as much a part of who we are as the choice of clothing or the part of our hair.

If I like to look at porn, I don't tell that to my business colleagues. If I wipe my ass with my left hand instead of my right, I don't mention it in polite company. If I prefer having sex with my wife doggie style, I don't need other people to know about it.

What's more, I might even think (to take a hypothetical example) that it's not a good thing that I like to look at porn. I might have any number of negative characteristics that I am not proud of and prefer to suppress. That doesn't mean anyone has the right to go tell everyone else that I like to look at porn, or that I bite my nails in private, or that I like to scratch my ass. Even if I do those things, I don't have to be proud of them and - this is crucial - I may still think they are wrong. maybe I'd advocate restricting access to porn in order to help me save myself from urges to look at it. Or, even if they are not wrong, they are none of anyone's business. (no, I don't urge restrictions of this type - I'm libertarian through and through - but I'm giving these examples for purpose of argument).

Sexual activity of all kinds, including sexual preferences, are precisely like any other kind of activity or trait. It's up to the owner to decide what becomes public and what does not. No one else has the right to interfere with anyone's life or personality or self-definition that way. It's a very intrusive, very personal violation. And for what? To demonstrate that someone is a "hypocrite?" Actually, no - because it takes a few assumptions to get to the conclusion that the person is a hypocrite. Yes, <i>you</i> might think the person is a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean s/he is - it could simply mean that s/he is wrestling with something, or indulged a curiosity, or what have you. You simply don't know how the behavior you happen to focus on fits into that person's life. It could be that the person "knows" what s/he is doing is wrong, and wants outside restrictions in order to help him/her stay away from it, and to remove temptations.

In short, you have no way to know what the person's motivation is, and no real basis for painting them as hypocrites - all you know is that s/he prefers to keep some aspect of life private. Be very careful about this sort of "outing" - there may one day be something <i>you</i> prefer to keep private, that someone else might think has to be exposed, for reasons of their own that you might not share - it might not even be sexual in nature. What goes around comes around.

Finally, there is apparently an assumption among the supporters of "outing" that all Republicans or republican supporters or voters hate gays or advocate restrictions on gays. To begin with, simply as an empirical matter, I doubt most people especially care about what other people do; they simply want to be left alone. You can't simply assume that a Republican voter hates gays. I have voted Republican at times in the past, and I would venture to say I have more gay people in my home on a regular basis than most; my occasional choice of a Republican candidate had zero to do with gays - what it had to do with is regulation, taxes and national security. That's what happens in a two party system: yo'ure left with the choice of which party's candidates match more of the preferences you have at a particular moment than the other party's. There is no such thing as a candidate who matches me in all opinions, which means I'm always compromising. I would guess most gay Republicans do too. To suggest, as the "outers" do, that a free-market libertarian who happens to be gay should have to vote for a welfare state democrat in order to be able to maintain his privacy is totalitarianism - i.e., you have to do things the way the "outer" thinks you should do them, or else suffer the consequences. Bah.

In the final analysis, people are entitled to respect. ALL people.

Well....I could repeat myself, again, about how it is important to me that "public people" asking other people to vote for them.... to represent them when making laws that affect us all be honest about who they are and what they do....but I won't bore you all again. ;) :cool:

loquitur...

Thanks for stating so eloquently in a single post what I was aiming to say in 20 or 30 clumsy smaller posts. :)

My point is that I suspect that you, and certainly closeted gay republicans who
attain high profile, elected office, or, as in Ken Mehlman's case, prominent republican party office, are influenced by the 35 years campaign against the news media (AKA "working press") that features, as a cornerstone, the demonization of homosexuals. The Scaife financed apparatus cited in my last post, spearheaded first, by the late Reed Irvine, founder of AIM, and then by his protege, www.mrc.org 's Bozell, has had a great deal of influence over the media's coverage of homosexuals and gay rights issues.

The purpose is to mobilize the christian right to support an ultra-conservative agenda, and to tar the major press outlets, and their reporting, as tainted by liberal bias to the point that the information that they distribute is wholly unreliable....hence the "need" for alternative "news"....that has pushed out, for many conservatives, the "news" that the rest of us, receive, digest, and arm ourselves with as one of several components of information that helps us navigate in the "reality based" environment that we function in.

The vacuum created after the news gathering apparatus is pushed aside, is filled by approved aim.org , and mrc.org "organs"....Limbaugh, Drudge, townhall.com, NRO, powerline blog, and to an extent, by foxnews and washington times ....of course, Scaife's Pittsburgh "newspaper" is there to provide "approved" news, too.

This movement created distortion....consider Rep. David Dreier, and his life mate and house mate, and chief of staff, Brad W. Smith....this is the legislative work these two have supported:
....and here is Bozell, in 1992:

FoolThemAll, <b>I deliberately take the opposite POV of Richard Mellon Scaife and his late puppet Reed Irvine, and his living puppet, L. Brent Bozell III, nephew of William F. Buckley. It is the only way that I can keep their disinformation from infecting my POV. I think that their 35 year old "psy-op" is clouding your thinking, just as I think it has kept republican gays closeted.</b> I think it is a pox on the land. It's influence is everywhere, and it is the antithesis of what I believe, free thinking people in a republic where the press is challenged to act as the "fourth estate", should be exposing themselves to.

I think that you are not keeping away from this narrowcasting, and a symptom of the effect of it's influence on you, is the basis for your posts on this thread. <b>I know that my opinion has not been salted by the influence of Scaife's money and ideology.</b> I would learn to enjoy gay sex if it was a way to keep Scaife's psy-ops out of my brain!

Host...

This is the first I've heard of the name Scaife, though I've heard of similar views before.

I don't agree with his demonizations of homosexuals, and I don't see what it has to do with my views on this topic. You're going to have to be more clear in the link between the two.

loquitur: thanks for your post. I'm still not sure I agree with you 100% (in particular, I think that personal responsibility changes when you have a public public life) but I can certainly see the reason and logic--and especially the compassion--on that side of the fence now. That's the sort of post we need more of in Tilted Politics. Great work.

Maher is on to something here and should probably expand his research into polititians sexual lives. He should interview ex-spouses and lovers and get all the sordid details to publish. You know, stuff like, "he says he's for family values but wanted me to perform perferted acts in bed".

Them Maher can list these sexual preferences for us to pass judgement on. We must find out as much as possible about these people we entrust our votes to. If nothing else it should make for more entertaining negative ads the next election cycle.:)

See posts of FoolThemAll and flstf ......their posts do not reflect the opposite POV of L Brent Bozell III and Richard Mellon Scaife.

Read recent Bozell column, appearing in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper and website, both owned by Scaife. Bozell's www.mrc.org receives much of it's funding from Scaife controlled trusts. Bozell was protege of Scaife funded homophobe, the late Reed Irvine, founder of <a href="http://www.aim.org/static/20_0_7_0_C">AIM</a>:
<b>see host's posts.....host endeavors to post the opposite POV of whatever Scaife and Bozell are marketing. host is certain that Scaife funded propaganda and psy-ops are persuading him of the opposite of whatever Scaife and Bozell want host to think "he knows". host wants Scaife's efforts to influence his opinion to be more than a waste of money, and host wants to alert people who may not have noticed, to consider what Scaife and Bozell are doing to them.</b>

Good idea! :p Maybe we will get (a little) less manipulative bullshit and more substance from the politicians....start calling them out when they are full of crap. I'm tired of having so much time and money wasted by lies and decption. Put em on notice Maher......:thumbsup: ;)

I take it that, somewhere in those articles you posted, these people had something to say on the topic of outing closeted homosexuals. Perhaps their opinion coincided with mine.

Uh... so?

Is it your contention that, because Bozell and Scaife are wrong in their demonization of homosexuals, they couldn't be right about anything else?

I'm still struggling to figure out what the hell your point is, host. Could you please be more clear in showing the relevance of your posts to the topic at hand?

thanks, Ratbastid. In my dotage I have learned that most people are flawed and that each person is unique and worthy of respect on his/her own terms, rather than trying to impose my terms on them.

I'm glad some people found my words persuasive. For those who didn't, well, we'll just agree to disagree.

After reading all the posts and trying my best to think through all the issues, I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask:

1. Is it absolutely essential that the voters know all about the candidates they are faced with at the polls?

2. If an elected official proves to have values or habits different from what they claimed in their campaign, should they be ousted? (or even outted?)

These are a couple of things I've been wondering in reading all of your very deep thoughts, and I was just wondering.....

so just who did Bill Maher out that friday night? or was it just more Geraldo's Vaults of Al Capone?

Nobody.

The topic seems to have been intentionally avoided, as the discussion veered elsewhere. But, after his comments on Larry King were edited out in other time zones, Maher made no mention of the promise on his show Friday. I did not see it myself, but here's an article:

http://www.gaywired.com/article.cfm?section=66&id=11516
no, i don't read gaywired.com. i got it off of google. i swear.

Strange, indeed.

I see... all talk and no cock... what little respect i had for him has totally evaporated. He now falls into the pot of "shit stirrer" or as we like to call on internet forums, trolls.

Bummer...I wanted some outings.....;) Maybe he couldn't find any!? :p

I don't know... Bill Maher *is* a shit stirrer, and it would have stirred more shit if he were to out some congressmen on air. He might even know he's wrong, and I bet he'd still do it. So why didn't he?

They're described, right here:
http://www.proudofwhoweare.org/
go figure....who-da thunk it?

Gave up on the thread jack, host?

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.

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...

http://wikiality.com/images/thumb/20...39;s_Scorn.JPG

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?

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?

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

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.

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.

Pigglet! :love: 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. :thumbsup:

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>

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.