Outrage, the documentary about gay politicians in Washington D.C is creating some controversy over the "outing" of certain D.C players.
To discuss the merits of outing hypocritical politicians who vote against gay rights, CNN spoke to the director of the film, Kirby Dick. There is also a spirited debate between Michael Signorile and Log Cabin Spokesman Charles Moran.
So is the outing of hypocrisy in D.C appropriate or should we respect the right to privacy? Watch the clip and let me know where you stand.
– Andy
For a trailer of the documentary, follow the JUMP:
Understandably, there is some hypocrisy. However, has someone lost sight of the fact that a representative is responsible to the constituency? The vote is based on the desires and needs of the constituency. How they got elected, if they were dishonest regarding their orientation is separate from an effective Representative or Senator following the opinions of the district they are responsible to. Directly equating voting against particular measures to being hypocritical is inaccurate because it says that a representative should vote based on who they are and not who they represent.
Hard call here, although I have to agree- it makes me angry WHEN GAY POLITICIANS WHO ARE CLOSETED VOTE AGAINST THE VERY THINGS THEY SHOULD BE CAMPAIGNING STRONGLY FOR. The whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military stems back to a strong belief by chiefs of staff that if enemy agents find out that a certain military person is gay, they can use that for blackmail and espionage purposes. While this is no longer widely accepted as believable, these closeted politicians are reigniting that myth.
Outing of anyone is inherently wrong- except when that person is damaging a large part of society by voting against the laws that would protect their counterparts in society, specifically to keep their own personal connection to those laws secret.
I agree that the reporters are doing what they are supposed to be doing- uncovering and bringing to light the hypocrisy of these individuals who are gay, but living in the closet because they are unwilling or unable to live authentically, and they are perpetuating their personal myth by voting against same sex marriage, AIDS funding, and other bills they should be supporting and trying to get passed. I know that here in Massachusetts, as well as in the other states that legalized same sex marriage, there are a large group of gays that say that “gay is just something I am in the bedroom, and has nothing to do with how I live my life”. That is so damaging and demoralizing to those of us who went for years without being able to be ourselves in public without being harangued and harassed.
A little off the subject here I guess, but I recently read a poll that says that hate crimes legislation is unconstitutional because it singles out a specific segment of the population and gives them more protection than the rest. That is unfortunately a misstatement- it strives to make sure that the segment of the population it is targeting has the same guarantees and protection as the rest of society, just as the civil rights legislation back in the 60’s did for African-Americans. The sad part is that those folks seem to be the very folks who are claiming that the LGBT rights issue is NOT a civil rights issue- and they are WRONG. If someone is keeping me from being able to date, marry, and make a life JUST LIKE HETEROSEXUALS with the person that I love, simply because he happens to be the same sex as me, then I do NOT have the same rights as everyone else, and it IS a civil rights issue.
Hypocrites are fools if they think they can keep a secret in this day and age. The responsible thing to do is be true to ourselves. The damage that occurs when we fail to do be true to self is incredible to ourselves and tends to erupt in destructive ways that can and does create damage to othere. Living in fear is a horrid place to be so it would be most optimal if everyone comes out and lives their lives truthfully and thus create wonderful role models especially for our youth.
I respect the right to privacy, but when you live a public life, as in politics, you have a responsibility to let your constituents know things that may affect your bias, even if it opens you up to their own prejudice. And when you have power, you have a responsibility to use it to do the right thing. And certainly when you are married your spouse has the right to know your sexual orientation, and while your friends don’t necessarily have an absolute right to know, being a good friend means representing yourself truthfully.
So, as long as we are not doing bedroom exposés, I support the outing of gay and bisexual politicians, especially those who hypocritically vote to marginalize their own rights and the rights of the rest of our community.
Why does anyone assume that being gay, by default, would equate to all gay men voting the same way? These men and women who are in the closet have chosen so for their own personal and professional reasons. Yet these guerilla Perez Hilton-style tactics are supposed to do our community a favor? Hardly. What happened to the “stay out of my bedroom” cries that our supposed voice in the community screams to the government? Shameful.
navymscle, how does does “stay out of my bedroom” preclude examination of whether someone is gay or bi? Unless you were implying that being gay/bi is all about sex and not at all about friendship, romance, or community? Despite your gruff manner and fairly conservative stance I thought you were rather more intelligent than that.
And I will agree that we should not expect being openly gay to mean that they will all vote the same way on these issues all the time, but personal conscience, in a social democracy like ours, SHOULD inform critical decisions like these.
Also, there is a concern that some of these anti-gay votes are made specifically to help the closeted person’s ‘cover story’, as it were, or advance their career at the expense of our liberty.
ITS “OUTAGES” TO OUT PEOPLE! THE “OUTING GAYS” IN THIS VIDEO SHOULD BE BEAT, SHOOT & HANGED!!
If a person whats to come out, they will in their own time, these “FAGGOTS” in this video that out people ARE THE ONES WHO SHOULD BE A SHAME OF THEMSELFS!!
Outages… outrageous?
Learn English JB. And then shut up and actually view/read the discussion of why politicians ought to be held to different standards if they put themselves in the public eye and seek public approval.
stay out of my bedroom …REPUBLICANS & RADICAL GAYS!!!
It’s not about a job its about a lifestyle, these “radical gays” are just like the “abortion radical”…trying to hurt people lives anyway they can…shame shame shame!!
If I what someone to know I’m gay I will tell them I don’t need ANYONE telling others about what I do in private!
JB, pete, jeff, are you elected officials? Do you represent the interest of hundreds, thousands, millions of citizens? If not, then your situations are not even vaguely comparable to the issue at hand.
“E-man” ….you proves my point…if I don’t agree with your “opinion” you tell me to “shut up”…I will not..YOU RADICAL GAY!!
I have the right to say anything you have the right to say…and that includes me telling you to FUCK OFF ASSHOLE!!
I didn’t tell you to shut up because you disagree with me. I told you to shut up because you are making an ass out of yourself and shouting your own opinion at random instead of making reasoned arguments in response the the comments of others discussing the issue.
And yes, you have the right to say that. My “shut up”( which I have the right to say) was the expression of a personal wish and a bit of advice. It would be foolish to misconstrue it as any sort of order or edict from a position of power I do not hold.
My only authority here is intellectual, which we all know counts for squat in America, and in which there are other commenters on these blogs who best me as well.
“E-man… you prove my point”…and its a play on words with the use of “outages” in my other post..I’m typing from a blk berry with no spell check …so spelling and grammer errors happen!! GET OVER IT!!
Explain the play on words. Apparently you are smarter than you act and have made a joke that goes right over my head.
And I don’t want to drag this too far off topic, but you shouldn’t NEED spell check. Tools like that are meant as a safety net for typos and small gaps in our knowledge, they are not meant to REPLACE knowledge.
E-man…u little bitch boi…”apparently” U R mistaking me for someone who gives a shit about what U think!! U R the one who made a comment about my post…I said nothing about you..at first…I was just stating my opinion!!.. so let me be “clear” about what U should do now..FUCK OFF ASSHOLE JERK!!
is that clear enough 4 U now?
If the “outing gays” are not careful they will set back the gay movement and hurt the gays that are out!
e-man no I’m not a elected official, but that does not mean I don’t have a opinion…just like you.
I wholeheartedly support the outing of any politician that actively threatens gay rights, and here is exactly why: it is a matter of exposing political corruption. These politicians have misrepresented themselves and their values to their constituency, and their primary concern is, clearly, power for power’s sake. That is the very nature of corruption, and this is a beautiful way of fighting it. I hope the outed politicians are voted out of office by their constituency, even if they are gay.
A person is not “gay” until that person tells you he or she is “gay”…even if the guy has a dick in his mouth at the time…If I or any other person wants to tell someone they are gay more power to us…but don’t “out” a person just because you think or you heard it from the grapevine that they have same-sex relationships, and then use it to blackmail a person…Gays are becomming just like the ones we hate?
Just of bunch of tattle tails!!
JB: Just like you don’t HAVE to shut up, I don’t HAVE to fuck off. Isn’t freedom great? 🙂 You didn’t say anything to me directly, but you said( albeit idiosyncratically) that people should be beaten, shot, and hanged. A strong attack like that should anticipate a strong response.
Also note that I gave the reasoning behind my opinions, you have not, at least not to the point of rebutting my reasons – and the filmmakers’. While you are not required to be able to justify an opinion in order to hold it, it certainly carries more weight with thinking peers if you can.
dave, yes, there is some danger of that – but the gays this film is outing are already holding back gay rights and hurting the rest of us.
jeff: Yes, you absolutely have a right you your opinion. Your original post said “If I[ jeff] what someone to know I[ jeff]’m gay I[ jeff] will tell them I[ jeff] don’t need ANYONE telling others about what I[ jeff] do in private!”. That is absolutely true and valid, jeff, but it only applies to you, jeff, and me, and other private citizens. It does not apply to the public figures, the elected officials, that this film deals with, because their prominence and responsibilities are SO DIFFERENT from our as to be incomparable in this instance.
Guys, pay attention to what Randy, Tyler and I are actually saying, we have REASONS to support this behavior in THESE cases, we are not talking about outing every closeted gay everywhere just for kicks.
gwmonly, respectfully disagree. Someone who has sexual attraction to someone else of the same sex is a homosexual( or bisexual). By definition. Someone with romantic but not sexual attraction( which is rare for men) while maybe not “homosexual” is certainly not straight.
This film does not out gay pols just for the hell of it, it does so to expose hypocrisy, and garner proper scrutiny from both the gay community and those pols’ conservative constituents.
And I think you misunderstand what blackmail is. Exposing hypocrisy is not blackmail. Blackmail is KEEPING a secret and threatening to tell it if the person does not do what you want.
E-man…I have not seen the film, so you maybe right, maybe it has more in it than the video bit shown here on the manhunt..but it sound like “blackmail” to me if a person (and in this case they think the persons are gay) uses a person privately held position of “being gay” as a way of publicly chasing that person because you feel that they should agree or vote the way you want.
In this case it happens to be politics, just because they are public figures, does not mean they don’t have private lives and family as well, what group or person is next…its a slippy slope when we start dwelling into people private lives? I agree with “blue415” that these people are working for the desire of their constituency, NOT for the gay community. Like it or not 90% of the country is straight, so I’m sure they need to pick their fights. If gays keep this up no gay or straights will run for office if they think their “private life” will be exposed.
BTW what really is “hypocrisy” gay men with hiv here on manhunt saying they are neg to get a hookup, or closed “gay” men telling their straight constituency that they will vote on bills that the people who voted them into office want to see happen, so guys get off the HIGH HORSE about the hypocrisy crap…There enough of that to go around for us all.
It may be a behavior you disagree with, but I still don’t think it fits fully into the technical definition of blackmail. I am feeling too lazy to consult the dictionary though. :-p
Public figures have a right to a private life, yes… but I think of necessity, there is less privacy in public life than for a private citizen. They are PUBLIC figures, working for us and to some degree living for us, and as constituents, we have a vested interests in knowing THEIR interests. It’s just that being gay is less obvious than what race they are, or membership in an organization like, say, the NRA or PETA, so someone like these filmmakers has to tell the public if the politicians themselves won’t.
Politicians DO have to represent their constituents, but as people in power they also have an obligation to act in accordance with their conscience. If they always acted as the voting majority demands, we might as well just have true democracy with referenda on everything – and we would probably NEVER have any progress on civil rights or any major societal change that didn’t come from the courts. When you elect someone, you are saying you trust in the person’s judgment.
Men with HIV saying they are negative is deception( and despicable), but I am not sure if it qualifies as “hypocrisy” in and of itself. Hypocrisy is doing one thing and saying the opposite, so those guys would have to be, like, HIV Risk Prevention Counselors or something in order for their bad behavior to qualify as hypocritical.
I say that if a closeted gay politician lashes out at the gay community for any reason, then the most effective countermeasure is exposure. He forfeits his privacy the moment he disrespects his fellow man, so I say we SHOULD out them. I ordinarily would be opposed, but it’s not just about their hypocrisy. Their pathological self-hatred and political power allow them to potentially cause some serious damage, and they damn well better be held accountable for it all, especially their voting records.
jb & Jeff- did you never learn the difference between “what” and “want”?go study your old high school English books (since hopefully now you can read them) before you make any more posts- you are an embarrassment to this blog.
E-man- thanks for getting to the heart of things with your very clear and well-reasoned posts. Your responses to gwmonly and the others are quite well thought out and show that there is, indeed, a glimmer of intelligence among those who are “on the HUNT”.
and for those of you who think that a blog is not a place where anyone should have to worry about their spelling, grammar, or syntax (oh I bet I got some guys screwing up their faces and grunting on that one)- this is a public forum, and whether or not you know it, impressions do matter. The impression you give when you don’t bother to differentiate between “what” and “want”, and leave out or badly place words, certainly doesn’t add any credibility to what you are trying to say. If folks can’t understand what you type, then how can you make a point??
I know that most folks who visit this site have at least a good high school education, and a lot have finished college with a Masters or even a Doctorate. that you do so badly in trying to type your message is an insult to you and to those trying to read it.
Of course, those guys like JB, Jeff, et al also probably think that it is OK to sit in a fine dining establishment (no I don’t mean Burger King or Pizza Hut) and chatter away at the top of their voices on cell phones or sit there during the appetizer course and text awa to their BFFs!
awa, Randy? :-p
And, you’re welcome.