The progressive blogosphere has been all a buzz over the past few days over the potential "outing" of a Conservative Republican Congressman as Gay. The Young Turks give us the details...
The Congressman in question is Aaaron Schock of Illinois, who has faced questions about his sexuality in the past. The initial posting by Journalist Itay Hod, and the subsequent coverage over on
Americablog, has once again put the issue of "outing" on the front page of the LGBT blogs. A number of people have asked me what I thought about all this. It's a complex question.
outing -ˈaʊtɪŋ noun
1.
the practice of revealing the homosexuality of a prominent person.
"the outing of gays by the press" -
There are two schools of thought here, which can simplistically be described at the Privacy Argument and the Hypocrisy Argument. The first is pretty simple to understand. I don't know anyone who has come through the process of Coming Out, who couldn't tell you in vivid detail of the terror, and yes that is the word for it; The terror they felt at one time or another that they might be outed to friends, family, employers or anyone else for that matter, before they were ready to Come Out.
It is a fear that drives many LGBT people to suicide. The tragic case of 18 year old Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after being outed by his roommate, is one of countless cases where the result of either being outed, or the fear of being outed has been a direct factor in the tragic death of someone who was Gay.
Consequently, Outing is seen by many as a grotesque invasion of privacy, and something that can never be justified. I can appreciate that argument. After all, having faced that terror for years, growing up, it is something I would never want to intentionally inflict on anyone, even my worst enemy. Which interestingly enough leads right into the counter argument for Outing.
It is the argument that outing people who are Gay, but who actively work against LGBT rights, is justified. people who live a double life of attacking LGBT people by day, and sleeping with them by night. People like
George Rekers . The prominent anti gay activist and proponent of the discredited practice of "Reparative Therapy". (The idea you can change Sexual Orientation through religion-based counseling.) A practice that has been directly responsible for the deaths of uncounted Gay and Lesbian youth, who in despair over being unable to change who there are, took their own lives.
Rekers was outed by a reporter when he returned from a European Vacation with a young gay male escort he had hired and taken with him on the trip. So the argument goes that the Outing of people like Rekers, and Congressman Schock, is a justified response to their own hypocrisy, and the damage their actions have done to other LGBT people.
Yet interestingly enough, the basic issue still remains the same. Fear. It is a fear of being outed that drives homophobia in many people. Causing some closeted LGBT people to act out in ways that they feel will help convince others (and themselves), that they are really straight. They see their actions as the way to fight the feelings they are struggling with. Feelings they desperately want to see as just some sort of temporary anomaly. Research has shown that many of the people who demonstrate the most pronounced discomfort with Homosexuality are if fact
reacting to what they fear most in themselves.
There are many who argue that Congressman Schock's 100% record of voting against LGBT rights, and his public pronouncements against equal rights for LGBT Americans stands in such stark contrast to his personal conduct behind closed doors, that it warrants public exposure. I myself
blogged extensively about the Rekers scandal, and at the time basically said that any public humiliation and harm that George Rekers suffered as a result of being outed, was not only justified but far was probably far less than what he deserved.
So why I am feeling squeamish about the outing of Aaron Schock?
I don't really know exactly. Part of me feels that Schock is not "important enough", to warrant being outed. One could argue that Schock has never been the deciding vote on any of the major issues we are talking about here. His anti-gay actions, whatever the motivation, have not prevented Illinois from becoming a state where Marriage Equality is the law of the land.
Yet, at the same time I can understand why many people are opposed to giving Congressman Schock a pass, if he IS gay. As his actions in Congress certainly reek of hypocrisy. I have known other Republican politicians who are Gay , or who I certainly believed were Gay, and often wondered how they reconciled their public actions with who they truly are. It must be said, Coming Out is not easy. It is a tumultuous and at times terrifying process of self acceptance and discovery.
Looking back on my own journey, I can in partially empathize with people like Congressman Aaron Schock. I was a College Republican until I finally left the GOP in 1992. When the anti-gay rhetoric and policies became more than I could in my own deep dark closet, ignore. Yet up to that point, I had campaigned and voted for Ronald Reagan, and George HW Bush. So you could say, in my own small way, I helped enable the massage damage both those Presidencies wreaked upon the LGBT community. Yet as with most things in life, the issues we face, and choices we make when living in that state of constant fear, otherwise known as, "the closet", are never as black and white as many would like to claim.
If Aaron Schock is Gay, I can only hope he realizes what people like former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, and other people who once were driven by their own internalized homophobia to work against the rights of people just like them, have discovered. Coming Out is not only liberating, but you find a community that is first and foremost, accepting and yes... forgiving.
After all, most of us have been there too, and can honestly say that life truly is better on the other side of that closet door.
