Closets

The most relevant aspect of the Foley cover-up is what it says about closets. (Oldie but a goodie.)

There are numerous press reports today, at ABC, The New York Times and at the National Journal, about conservative activists wanting to “out” gay staffers and officials in order to “purify” the party following the coming debacle.

This effort will fail. It will fail because it is counterproductive.  It will fail because it can't possibly go deep enough.

It's counterproductive because the problem here is not that Foley was gay. The problem is that Foley was closeted. He hid himself from the world and went about the process of finding sexual solace in a secretive way.  The same was true of the Gerry Studds and Barney Frank scandals, which today's inquisitors like to cite as excuses for laying this off on gays. In 1983 Gerry Studds was closeted. In 1986 Franks was publicly closeted .

Both “came out,” and voters eventually recognized the difference. An honest gay is no danger to your son or daughter. Unless they are also a pedophile. And pedophiles swing both ways.

More important is that this effort can never go as deep as conservatives seem to want. Because we're all in the closet over something.

Is it possible to be a raving anti-gay lunatic by day and a loving straight father secure in your own sexuality by night? I don't think so. What we have in people like Louis Shelton are barely-closeted sadists, not people with a healthy sexuality, secure in themselves. And a barely-closeted lust of power for its own sake, as James Dobson exhibits,  is not much better.

It would be nice if we could all be honest about ourselves with the whole world, but that's not going to happen so long as darker secrets like sadism, lust for power, and hatred of the other exist. If we're going to throw open closet doors on gays, let's throw them all open. Let's see into the hearts of the truly sick bastards of our society. Let's have an honest debate. And then let's make choices based on total knowledge.

I don't think the so-called “Christian” right really wants that. Do we dare call the Inquisitor with his whip what he really is?