A Republican Comes Out of the Closet

A Republican Comes Out of the Closet
By TOBIN HARSHAW
copyright by The Associated Press
August 27, 2010, 8:27 PM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/a-republican-comes-out-of-the-closet/?ref=opinion


There’s an old, not terribly meaningful saying in the gay-rights movement that “no matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step.” Perhaps, but I propose that we back off and let Ken Mehlman think about his for a while.

Until this week, Mehlman was mostly known for being the wonkish young man who managed George W. Bush’s re-election campaign and then ran the Republican National Committee. Now, he’s mostly known for what he shared with The Atlantic’s Mark Aminder: “Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.”

On the right side of the blogosphere, sympathy for Ken Mehlman. On the left, not so much.
Well, it’d be tough enough for most of us to have that conversation with Mom and Dad — imagine it with Karl Rove. And Mehlman isn’t going to keep his private life totally private, he tells Ambinder: “he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”

Unsurprisingly, for many gay and liberal bloggers, that’s far too little far too late. “While it’s nice that Ken has finally come out of the closet as an advocate, it’s really hard to forgive him for the damage he did to the community by working actively against it for pay for years,” writes Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. “That he can coast on the gains for our community by supporting AFER’s stellar work on Prop 8 on the backs of many during his tenure at the RNC who bore the brunt of homophobia, those who died as a result of hate crimes, the activists who were assailed professionally is unbelievable. Yet here we are in 2010 watching it unfold. As a human being Mehlman owes the community a serious apology for fomenting homophobia for political gain.”

“I don’t feel angry as much as I feel pity,” adds Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. “I can’t imagine the self-loathing, the discomfort in one’s own skin, the profound disassociation of self that happens with the subjugation of authenticity behind thin façade, that exists within someone who had the professional life he did. I wish him contentment of the sort that means he will never betray himself, or any other members of his LGBTQI family, again.”

No pity at all from Joe. My. God.:

During Ken Mehlman’s reign as Dubya’s campaign manager and afterwards during his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee, 21 states passed laws that banned same-sex marriage. Some of these laws made same-sex marriage unconstitutional, some made both civil unions and same-sex marriages unconstitutional. All of these anti-gay referenda took place from 2004-2006 and all of them were pushed by the GOP under Ken Mehlman (and with Karl Rove’s strategic advice) as a ploy to ensure conservative turnout at the polls. If you live in any of the 21 states listed below, you can credit your second class citizenship, in part, to fellow homosexual Ken Mehlman. Are you feeling very forgiving right now? ARE YOU?

And indiemcemopants at FireDogLake thinks Mehlman will never be able to wash the blood off of his hands:

In spite of the terror his philosophies inflicted on LGBT citizens and in spite of the decades long scare-fest of anti-gay hatred, gay-baiting and discriminatory laws foisted on us, Ken Mehlman wants us to know that his coming out experience has been just peachy. No apology for all the suicides his party’s stances inevitably brought on. No apology for hate crimes. No apology for the election campaign involving some of the worst anti-gay hatred anyone has ever witnessed. No apology for the terror LGB military people have had to endure. No apology for the forced rapes female soldiers went through to “prove” they are straight.

He just wants us to know that he’s been through a whole, whole lot and that he’s a very happy and well-adjusted person.

Carl at the Reaction, however, thinks it was an act of courage: “Undoubtedly, Mehlman could have gone into retirement quietly. His legacy, re-electing the most unpopular President in history, would have been safe. He chose not to do that. Grudgingly, I tip my hat to him. It’s important to appreciate when someone does the right thing for the right reasons. Hell, from Republicans, I’d applaud doing the right thing for the wrong reasons! Half right from the right is alright by me.”

While some public figures on the right, like Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage, have been outraged by Mehlman’s announcement, there hasn’t been much backlash from right-wing bloggers. Here’s Peter Wehner at Commentary:

While it’s something that runs counter to the stereotype, most of the conservatives I know are largely to completely indifferent to a person’s sexual orientation. They are the kind of people who might even invite Elton John to perform at their weddings and not give a second thought to the fact that John is gay.

For my part, I knew Ken in the Bush White House and after that, when he was the campaign manager of the re-election campaign and RNC chairman. I’ve always liked him and found his counsel to be wise. He’s a person with very impressive political gifts and talents. Yet by his own account, the personal road he’s traveled has not been an easy one; rather than activists and commentators directing wrath and ridicule at him, I hope some measure of grace and understanding are accorded to him. I realize these qualities aren’t in oversupply in politics, but they should be more common than they are.

“There is nothing new under the sun, you see,” adds Robert Stacy McCain. “There were gay people working for Republicans in 1967 and there are gay people working for Republicans today. What has changed is that gay-rights activists have turned sexuality into an identity-politics racket, so that any gay person who doesn’t share their agenda is made to feel inauthentic, a traitor to The Cause.”

B. Daniel Blatt at GayPatriot is more worried about the personal toll of a public coming out.

My greatest fear for Mehlman is that he has to go through the often tortuous process of coming out in public. All too many on the left, the gay left most of all, will give him no quarter. They’ll lambaste him as a self-hating hypocrite, may even try to follow him around, possibly even accosting him in public. They will not give him the space to deal with this in private and in his own way. That said, I bet there will be a handful of voices on the left, asking their ideological confrères to leave him alone, knowing how trying the coming out process can be. There are decent gay lefties out there and some may let their fellow feeling trump their ideological conviction. While I hope that they dominate the debate, I doubt that they will.

One reason I oppose “outing” is that I know from experience — and not just my own — that when coming to terms with this part of ourselves, we need to do it in at our pace and in private.

Sister Toldjah thinks this is only big news when filtered through a liberal lens:

This is a big deal, of course, because in the left’s minds, as well as the MSM’s (I know – same thing), Republicans “hate” gay people so it’s a “shocking development” to find out such a formerly high ranking GOPer would say “I’m gay.” Not only that, but this is a big deal more so to the left than the right because we all know how the far left, in particular, gleefully treats gay conservatives – very much like they treat black conservatives. That is, with the same contempt and bigotry that they accuse US of.

The little secret that is not really a secret except in the closed-minded world of the left is that most conservatives don’t “hate” gay people. Apparently, because most conservatives don’t support gay marriage and don’t support gays openly serving in the military, they “hate” them. This is “hate” – in spite of the fact that most conservatives also do not support polygamy nor any other type of “alternative” marriage, nor do they support women serving on the front lines in war. It’s an issue of not wanting to tamper with the existing social structure of the two parent man/woman family, and not wanting to create an atmosphere of great uncomfortableness in the military between those who are openly gay and those who aren’t. We’ve seen the disastrous results of the left’s tampering in the social arena for decades now, and we’re opposed to signing onto anything else they have to offer on that front.

To be honest, this whole thing didn’t exactly come out of the blue. Bill Maher had been insisting for years the Mehlman was gay, as has Mike Rogers, the activist whose made a crusade of outing gay politicians. And then there was this smoking gun.

In any case, Mehlman seems to have been prepared for the inevitable, and justified, tough questioning. In an interview with the Advocate, Mehlman was posed this question: “People are very aware that the Republican Party has skewed pretty conservative on gay issues in the past. Do you think that this could help win over some hearts and minds, that you could have conversations that you didn’t have in the past?” His answer:

Well, a couple thoughts. One is, Republicans have lots of different views on this issue. I would argue – and I’m arguing it now, I didn’t argue it before and I should have – that in fact if you are a believer in individual freedom and leaving people alone and you’re a believer in strengthening families that, in fact, supporting issues like the right to marry would be consistent with that. I think those are conservative positions.

But again, I’m not in politics anymore. I think it would presumptuous for me to speculate on what my impact might be but I certainly look forward to having conversations with people who I hope even if they don’t agree with me will respect me and give me a fair hearing and, ya know, we’ll see what happens.

But Ambinder insists that this isn’t the first time Mehlman has looked for the “fair hearing”:

Privately, in off-the-record conversations with this reporter over the years, Mehlman voiced support for civil unions and told of how, in private discussions with senior Republican officials, he beat back efforts to attack same-sex marriage. He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now” …

Mehlman acknowledges that if he had publicly declared his sexuality sooner, he might have played a role in keeping the party from pushing an anti-gay agenda.

“It’s a legitimate question and one I understand,” Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.”

Given the commentary of the last two days, that doesn’t seem to likely.