Ohmigod, that’s so gay. (via Wonkette)
Just when you thought that every Republican politician and staffer, evangelist church pastor and Catholic priest is gay, comes more of the same. Ken Mehlman, Chair of the Republican National Committee is a forty-something clean-cut single white male with good skin. YouTube captures Bill Maher outing him on Larry King. Blogactive did a parody ad (based on the anti-Ford negative ad in Tennessee) that riffed on the “Mehlman is gay” story rumour.
Is outing anybody, even a public figure, ever fair-game? I would argue that coming out is a deeply personal thing and nobody else’s business, but when a politician or somebody else with the power to influence the lives of others demonstrates their own hypocrisy on the subject, they put themselves in jeopardy. The dirty non-secret is that the public service and policy wonks, writers and commentators and the diplomatic corps are full of gay folk. Politics and policy is, after all, creative work - just like home decor.
Beyond the principal of individual privacy, all gay people (and “men who sleep with men”) in public life must realize that in a world of ubiquitous camera-phones with video and YouTube, there is no hiding who you are. I would also argue that we are all public people to some degree - we are involved in our communities, we participate in the marketplace. Human beings are social animals. In a post Cluetrain social-media enabled world, having an honest and authentic identity is a critical part of citizenship. As Jon Stewart puts it, “you can’t run from gay”.
So, before any video appears on YouTube showing me dancing with my arms up high, let me pre-empt by saying that yes your Remarkk author is a gay man. Deal.
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