New Film Will Out Gay Republicans

If a straight conservative outed a group of gay liberal politicians for any reason at all, the outrage would be palpable.  And rightly so.

Funny how a different standard applies when straight liberal filmmaker Kirby Dick announces his intention to out gay Republican politicos.  His new documentary film is called Outrage, and its tagline is “A searing exposé of the secret lives of closeted gay politicians.”

From indieWIRE :

The new film examines the double lives of a number of current political figures, mostly Republican men, who have masked their homosexuality through marriage to women and by actively working against the gay community. It explores the stories of politicians who, through their policies and voting records, actively bash gay people in order to prove they themselves are not gay. And it details a media establishment that keeps their secrets. The lives of former elected officals (and even some mainstream media figures) are also examined as the film explores the dual lives of public people who have chosen to live in the closet.

Translation: gay politicians who don’t toe the Democratic Party line are fair game to be pilloried as self-loathing hypocrites by an attention whoring documentarian.

You know, there’s a reason some conservatives toss around words like “gaystapo.”

Dick, a self-anointed hunter-in-chief of gay conservatives, believes that exposing supposed hypocrisy gives him absolute moral authority to force gay Republicans out of the closet.   But he just calls it good old-fashioned reporting:

“I think that if someone is in the closet and voting against gay rights then that’s hypocrisy and that’s cause for outing,” Dick told indieWIRE, addressing the issue of responsibility and when it’s appropriate to out people. “You can call it ‘outing,’ but honestly, it’s just reporting… It’s the same as someone who’s had an abortion and then votes against abortion, it’s hypocritical.”

The pretense is that outing is the great equalizer.  It is held up as a bold and noble act in defense of gays and lesbians.  In reality, it is petty, vindictive, and yes, often catty.  Dick’s film is just the latest flagrant attempt to silence and disenfranchise gay Americans who don’t kowtow to a liberal agenda.

The mere suggestion that gays are not an ideological monolith is a threat to the liberal narrative.  Liberal gay activists would have you believe that political and sexual identity are inextricably linked, that physical attraction somehow dictates whether one believes in gay marriage or hate speech legislation.  Outing is the go-to punishment for betrayal of that narrative.

Publicly exposing the sexual orientation of gay Republican congressmen is, of course, a poor strategy for achieving pretty much anything other than schadenfreude.  Most conservatives are indifferent to what goes on in the private bedrooms of public officials so long as all participants are consenting adults.

A representative from Magnolia Pictures, the distributor for Outrage, told indieWIRE the film “could be a ‘game changer’ for same sex civil rights.”  They would be hard pressed to come up with a more shallow, tone deaf analysis than that.  Smugly celebrating the discomfort of newly outed Republicans won’t help same sex marriage advocates make friends and influence people.  At worst, Kirby Dick’s misguided crusade may actually strengthen the resolve of the conservatives who believe that the liberal gay agenda threatens their way of life.

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines

Update: Good timing: GayPatriot annouces the upcoming launch of GOProud, a gay conservative organization.  Unlike the Log Cabin Republicans, you can expect this new 527 to adequately address issues like the outing of gay Republicans.  Also just popping up in my feed reader, Dan Blatt takes on Kirby Dick’s use of hypocrisy to justify the outing of gay Republicans.

Another update: Predictably, the bashing of GOProud has begun, with pages ripped right from the usual liberal playbook.  Here’s what’s bouncing around Twitter right now:

GOProud Slogan: We’re like the Log Cabin Republicans — but with 100% MORE self-loathing!

Fifty bucks says the terms self-loathing or self-hating appear more than once in Kirby Dick’s film.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on April 10, 2009 at 8:08 pm

Filed Under Gay Issues, Liberal Absurdity

Comments

7 Responses to “New Film Will Out Gay Republicans”

  1. Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest) on April 10th, 2009 8:37 pm

    Jenn–maybe we could have a drinking game where we’d watch Dick’s film and drink every time we hear “self-hating” or “self-loathing.”

    We’d all be sloshed inside of 20 minutes. If that. Like Pavlov’s dog which salivated when it heard a dinner bell, these folks repeat “self-hating” (or “self-loathing”) when they hear “gay Republican” (or “gay conservative”).

    It’s almost amusing to see how narrow-minded these folks are.

    Thanks for the link!

  2. GayPatriot » Outing Republicans: Formula for Hollywood Success on April 10th, 2009 8:41 pm

    […] Jenn Q. Pulic offers: Publicly exposing the sexual orientation of gay Republican congressmen is, of course, a poor […]

  3. Jenn Q. Public on April 10th, 2009 9:07 pm

    Dan, it really does seem Pavlovian, doesn’t it?

    A few weeks ago I had a debate with a liberal who was trying to out one of the loonier anti-gay activists in the comment section of a blog. I’m fairly certain the term self-loathing was used more than once.

    I argued that trying to undermine even the most repugnant person by hinting at his same-sex preferences is really just appealing to the bigotry of the people who lend him credibility. There was no answer to that.

  4. Eclectic Radical on April 10th, 2009 11:46 pm

    I can /understand/, without condoning, the sort of urge that would make one feel satisfied to out a gay-basher as gay. It’s the kind of ‘gotcha’ journalism that has become vogue today… the clever game of catching someone in an inconsistency in order to look smart and tough instead of actually asking genuinely tough questions and demanding real answers. I can also understand, still without condoning, the kind of anger that would make many in GLBT community /want/ to out closeted gay-bashers. It’s one thing to support lower taxes and a strong national defense, but it’s something else to lead the charge against legal equality for a group to which you yourself belong a la Ted Haggard or Mark Foley. That really does require a certain level of self-image issues of some kind.

    However, the tactic of deliberately outing closeted homosexuals to milk the scandal is repugnant. There isn’t another word for it. It is deliberately and consciously exposing someone to bigotry and ridicule and that makes one no better than the bigots. Descending to the level of the National Enquirer does no one any good, especially when there is plenty of political room in which to fight the gay rights battle without descending into sleaze. One can’t make people act decently by acting indecently.

    I am pragmatic, I know that one cannot completely refrain from sinking to the other guy’s level in politics, but there should still be a line drawn somewhere and this is way past it.

  5. Afrocity on April 12th, 2009 11:00 am

    This is a great post Jenn. They do the same to Black Republicans as well.

    Do you mind if I cross post this on my blog.

  6. Rob Taylor on April 12th, 2009 12:48 pm

    I’ll bet being pro-2nd Amendment is also “hypocrisy” in this douche’s eyes.

  7. Because sexual orientation is NOT private — Cynthia Yockey on April 24th, 2009 5:14 pm

    […] do think Outrage should have outed Democrats, too. For example, in the early 1980’s when I was a reporter, […]

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