Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
i'm very curious as to what FYM -- the vast majority of whom are happy heteros -- thinks about this highly contraversial political tactic.
thoughts?
Gay Community Still Divided Over 'Outing'
By DAVID CRARY, AP
National Writer
Tue Oct 4, 2:53 PM ET
NEW YORK - Though decried by many gay-rights leaders, "outing" — the practice of exposing secretly gay public figures — is expanding into new terrain as Internet bloggers target congressional staffers, political strategists, even black clergy whose sermons and speeches contain anti-gay rhetoric.
Few issues are as divisive within the gay community. Numerous gay organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Log Cabin Republicans, staunchly oppose outing, yet many other activists support it when the targets are public figures — or their aides — who work against gay rights or condemn homosexuality.
"It's not the gay thing that's the problem — it's the hypocrisy," said Michael Rogers, creator of a Web log that has been at the fore of several recent outing campaigns. "I'm going to be calling out the politicians who vote against us and work against the interests of the very community they come from."
Christopher Barron, political director of the Log Cabin Republicans, said he understands the anger that activists such as Rogers feel but believes they are wasting their energy.
"Outing is not an effective tool," Barron said. "I don't know a single vote on gay-rights issues that was changed because of outing. ... Folks should be focusing on the hard work that needs to be done and not get bogged down in personal attacks."
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said outing can backfire by distracting attention from more substantive political issues or by prompting conservative politicians to harden their anti-gay views after aides and associates are outed.
Two black gay-rights activists are now taking aim at prominent black pastors who — in the activists' view — have gone too far in assailing homosexuality from their pulpits. In a campaign begun on their Web sites last week, activists Jasmyne Cannick and Keith Boykin are soliciting information about the pastors' private lives — including whether some might be gay.
So far, the pair has collected only uncorroborated "tips," not any solid information that any of the pastors is gay, but Cannick defended the campaign. "We know there are people who preach one thing and do another," he said. "There's nothing wrong with investigating."
Many other recent outing targets have been Republican politicians and operatives. Among the cases:
_A GOP congressman from Virginia, Edward Schrock, dropped out of his re-election race last year shortly after allegations were published on Michael Rogers' Web log that he solicited sex with another man on a gay phone dating service. Schrock, a married ex-Navy captain, was an outspoken foe of gays in the military and supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages. He did not comment specifically on the allegations.
_In 2003, U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record), a Florida Republican, called a news conference to denounce a report in an alternative newspaper that he is gay. Foley declined to answer questions about the subject, saying his sexual orientation was irrelevant to his political duties. He contended the story was circulated to derail his U.S. Senate campaign, which he abandoned four months later.
_The GOP mayor of Spokane, Wash., James West, faces a recall election prompted by newspaper articles accusing him of offering City Hall jobs, sports tickets and cash to young men he met in an online gay chat room. West, who as a state legislator often opposed gay-rights bills, acknowledged poor judgment but denies doing anything illegal.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20051004/ap_on_re_us/the_outing_debate_1
thoughts?