To out or not to out: I don’t always agree with Ed Wasserman’s media analyses. Indeed, I often think the Miami Herald columnist has brown eyes for a very good reason not related to genetics. However, his take on the Mark Foley scandal adds a new dimension to what has gotten to be a very old story. Here’s an excerpt, but to grok the nugget, read the whole column here.
[S]hould Foley have been outed?
If so, the argument has to rest on more than a visceral sense that nobody can be both gay and a conservative Republican. Why not? We all decide on our political allegiances based on a near fit, not a perfect fit. A gay man may well decide that the GOP, even with its recurring homophobia, still is more broadly to his liking than the alternative.
Foley’s sexuality had become the central issue in his career.But the Foley problem was different, as I’ve been slow to recognize. Here, the issue wasn’t that his public performance wasn’t consistent with his private life. It’s that for years, his public performance made no sense unless you knew about what was happening behind the scenes. After his infuriating 1994 vote he dramatically softened his position on gay rights to deter further efforts to out him. In turn, he sought out off-the-wall issues — clamoring, for instance, for a state crackdown on a central Florida nudist colony — to appease his family values base. It’s almost certain he pulled the plug on his Senate run because his gayness would come up.
As [on-line Huffington Post columnist Eric] Boehlert correctly writes, ”Foley’s sexuality had become the central issue in his career.” And yet it was kept not secret, but in the shadows, known to those in the know, hidden from the main body of his constituents.
This wasn’t a matter of deferring to a legitimate area of privacy. Foley’s public actions were unintelligible unless you knew this backstory. And in failing to tell it, the media failed the public, and endorsed a principle of timidity that’s sure to fail the public in the future as well.
