Posted on 06/04/2007 11:59:06 AM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
Mike Rogers has outed so many closeted gay politicos, he's starting to make Capitol Hill look like Brokeback Mountain. "For me what it's really about is if congressman X thinks that gay people shouldn't have equal rights but goes home and is having sex with men, and not disclosing that, then we have a problem." — Mike Rogers
WASHINGTON - Members of the 110th Congress consider yourselves warned: Mike Rogers is making his list.
Rogers is a muckraking gay blogger who uses his insider's knowledge of Washington politics and broad blanket of contacts to "out" gay politicos — but only, he says, if they are undermining gay rights. Critics call his tactics divisive and politically motivated.
Mike Rogers says his blog exposes hypocrisy in government.
Rogers, a longtime gay activist, started blogactive.com in 2004, using it to yank out of the closet at least two dozen high-ranking political figures, including senators, congressmen and Bush administration officials.
He's outed so many closeted gay politicos, he's starting to make Capitol Hill look like Brokeback Mountain. All of them, he says, use their positions to actively oppose the equal rights of gay citizens while at the same time, secretly live a gay life.
If you are a gay politico with something to hide, the left hand column of Roger's Web site is exactly where you don't want to see your name. He calls it "the list."
Former Rep. Mark Foley is on the list. Rogers wrote about him in March 2005, almost two years before the scandal that forced him to resign. "I reported on him hitting on younger men, said he was a danger to the community," he says.
Evidence emerged later that the conservative Florida Republican was sending sexually explicit emails to former young male congressional pages. Two claimed to have also had sex with Foley after they had left their jobs as pages.
"For me," Rogers says, "what it's really about is if congressman X thinks that gay people shouldn't have equal rights but goes home and is having sex with men, and not disclosing that, then we have a problem."
Rogers also blogged about Dan Gurley, the former national field director of the Republican National Committee — and a rising G.O.P. star.
Rogers says he targeted Gurley because of a divisive RNC flyer with a photo showing one man on bended knee, proposing to another — an attempt to use gay marriage as a wedge issue in conservative states.
Rogers says the flyers sowed hate — and Gurley, a gay man, approved it. Gurley denies he was responsible for the flyer or its distribution.
"I was aware of the flyer and I raised objections to it," he says. "I actually pointed it out to several individuals, [saying] that I thought it crossed a line, that I was uncomfortable with it."
But Rogers kept the heat on Gurley, linking to a profile Gurley kept on gay.com.
Dan Gurley has left politics but still calls himself a Republican. “He was using the Internet to seek multiple partners for unprotected sex,” says Rogers.
Gurley says he had been in line for a job with the Bush Administration, but after Roger's posting, he was told to look elsewhere.
"Who did you blame," I ask him, "Rogers or the administration?"
"I think there is probably blame to go around, including myself," he says.
Gurley says the episode shook him up to the point of re-examining his beliefs, but in the end, he says he's still a Republican.
People have called Rogers a gay terrorist, but he says, "The only people who say things like that are people who have a vested interest in protecting the closet."
"I feel more sad for [the people I out] than anger," Rogers says. "... That they are in this position, that they are self-loathing, willing to wake up everyday and go to work against the very community they are a member of is quite shocking."
Many gay organizations are troubled by outing but stop short of condemning it. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation "doesn't encourage outing, period," says GLAAD's Rashad Robinson. "But there is an argument that can be made — and many make it — for holding closeted political figures who attack and exploit gay people and our families for political gain accountable for their actions."
However, the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay Republican group, disagree. "Log Cabin is strongly against outing," says its president, Patrick Sammon. "It is unproductive and motivated by vengeance. It does nothing to further the cause of equality for gay and lesbian Americans."
In front of the Capitol building, Rogers says, "I think there need to be folks like me standing out here, pointing their fingers and saying, 'Clean up your act.'"
He adds that members of the 110th Congress should keep an eye out for his list.
Or maybe congressman X just doens’t think it’s anyone’s business who he has sex with and he doesn’t think laws should be changed based on his own sex life? Frankly that’s the way I wish all gay people would leave it. I really don’t want to know or care who they have sex with so please don’t have a parade down main street to tell me about it and I won’t ask.
This sounds like a good thing.
How about a list of congresscritters who vote against the RKBA but have their own guns already? Di Fi comes to mind.
Please note: In this guy's opinion, Foley was not a danger to the community because he was hitting on younger men. He was a danger to the community because he was a conservative republican.
Methinks this guy is trying to get $1 million from Larry Flynt.
So was Gurley linked to Ken Mehlman?
Why is it that those against gay marriage are supposedly using it as a wedge issue while those in favor of gay marriage are not? If the homosexuals would stop suing and stop demanding gay marriage, then it wouldn’t be a wedge issue. You can’t call the defenders of the from-the-begninning-of-time postion (normal marriage) guilty of pushing a wedge issue. They are not pushing but defending. Clearly the guilt of pushing a wedge issue lies with those arguing for and suing for homosexual marriage.
For the same reason that Republicans who are pro-Life are evil “single issue” voters with a “limus test”, but Democrats who are fanatically pro-abortion do not have a litmus test and are not so narrow-minded as to care only about one issue (yeah, right!).
He outed Lindsey Graham?
Hillary Clinton has also opposed same-sex marriage. Does the same standard apply to HER private life?
Lindsey Graham is just... so gay.
I’ve known him since 1984. He’s definitely got helium in his loafers. To my knowledge though, he’s still in the closet.
Nope, more like they oppose making the choice to be an active homosexual equal or greater in stature to being a heterosexual. Most Republican members of Congress probably don't care a hoot in hell about who someone else has sex with, they just don't want 98% of the population pushed around by the 2% who choose to have sex with folks like themselves.
These 'outings' are strictly political.
*cough* Lindsey Graham *cough*
I went to the gay outers website and they are also outing Senator Larry Craig.
The gays in the Republican Party will do about as much good as gays in the Catholic Church or gays in the boy scouts have.
I do care what they do. Over time all the homos in the republican’s party will do more harm than good.
Let the Democratic Party be the party of sin. I want no part of it and will not vote for homos.
When has Hillary EVER opposed homosexual marriages?
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The author starts with a bit of dishonesty. Gay people do have equal rights. They often say that they are being denied the right to marry, but gay men (for example) do have the right to marry women (and often do) just like straight men.
It is already possible for two gay people to bind themselves together, legally, through voluntary contracts that mimic the legal effects of marriage. Redefining the meaning of the word "marriage", to accomplish this, is disingenuous.
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