Snitsky wrote:
> Had the guy just tried to live his
> life,
> quietly gay, no biggie. But the active attempt to undermine gay
> struggles...
>
> well, what stops me is this: i suspect a person like that has
> serious
> mental health problems more than anything else.
Heh, based on that suspicion, there are a lot of people with serious mental health problems.
I have mixed feelings about outing an actor/actress who may not get romantic leads in future films after an unauthorized outing. It's their livelihood, and what they choose to live doesn't put food on my table or a roof over my head. But I have no qualms about outing law makers, policy wonks or media pundits who have the power to directly affect the private and public lives of scores of individuals, familys and society at large. Their decisions affect me and my family. And if they are openly anti-gay and openly support anti-gay initiatives or policies, well, I believe that they are the ones that have brought the "gay issue" into play, thereby opening the door for inspection.
I often wonder how many lives would have been spared ruin if Roy Cohn had been outed a la our current batch of nasties.
Mental mindfucks aside, deeply closeted individuals in powerful positions are also vunerable to blackmail threats or related nefarious arrangements, regardless of the issue they are hiding. A staunch anti-choice advocate who lives in fear that someone may find out they had an abortion in their past, a law maker on the dole from pharmaceuticals who secretly sends his mother to Canada for her meds...all become vunerable because of the gap between their actions and their words. Some confront that vunerability and close the gap; others live in fear of it.
Many closeted gltb pols fear that their benefactors and target groups will reject them; however, some benefactors do not care if their candidate screws a sheep as long as that candidate knows to do exactly what the benefactor wants.
We've had this situation in Houston with the last two mayoral elections. The GOP backed candidate, also personally endorsed by the Bushes (all of them), known in inner circles to be gay and in a long term relationship with the same man for years, was also a local mouthpiece for anti-gay legislation and derision. When the City of Houston considered domestic partner benefits for city employees, this candidate, then a councilman, announced that gay employees filing claims would have to be audited, because everyone knew that "there is a greater incidence of fraud among homosexuals!" This candidate was also an immigrant, and in keeping with his pattern of hypocracy, was a staunch supporter of many anti-immigrant initiatives.
Attempts at outing him were squashed, and he didn't win anyway. The Democrats didn't out him for fear of alienating gays, fearful that they would be accused of identifying homosexuality as something horribly wrong. The Republican challengers were sent a very direct message from Mr. Rove that if they outed their own GOP member, they'd never win dog catcher in Texas, much less anything else, because they had a candidate that they could control and manipulate.
If a pol is going to talk the talk, we expect them to walk the walk, especially on issues that affect our lives. If they don't, we need to know.
- Deborah R.
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" How come people always flip and think they're Jesus? Why not Buddha? Particularly in America, where more people resemble Buddha than Jesus. 'Ah'm BUDDHA!' 'You're Bubba!' 'Ah'm Buddha now..All I gotta do is change 3 letters on ma belt...' " - Bill Hicks