If you're intrigued, or perhaps even outraged, by closeted lawmakers who oppose gay rights, you may want to be around a TV at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight, when HBO will premiere OUTRAGE, a film about the very topic. It delves into the scandals of former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, as well as gay activist Michael Rogers, who founded a website dedicated to outing such allegedly hypocritical public figures. Rep. Barney Frank tells the filmmakers, "There is a right to privacy, but not a right to hypocrisy. It is very important that the people who make the law be subject to the law." From HBO's synopsis:
An official selection of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, OUTRAGE investigates the hidden lives of some of the country's most powerful policymakers - from now-retired Idaho Senator Larry Craig, to former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy - and examines how these and other politicians have inflicted damage on millions of Americans by opposing gay rights. Equally disturbing, the film explores the mainstream media's complicity in keeping those secrets, despite the growing efforts to "out" them by gay rights organizations and bloggers.
Maybe their followup will be on tax-writing legislators that don't pay their taxes.
Leaving aside the idea that what they refer to as "rights" might be something else entirely, isn't the behavior of the "out-ers" a bit fascistic? Isn't an argument based on someone being hypocritical little more than an ad hom? And, does Frank have evidence that lawmakers are engaging in illegal acts behind closed doors, or is he confused? I suspect the latter. If someone promotes one thing and does another that doesn't necessarily mean what they're promoting is invalid.
On a lighter note, here's a picture of Dina Matos McGreevey jumping rope.
Which laws, precisely, is Frank alleging that these legislators are violating? Last I checked, the major gay rights issues currently in discussion are gay marriage followed by hate crime protections and AIDS funding (and previous descriptions of the movie's also suggest that it focuses on those three issues). Are they supposed to be engaging in secret marriages to people of the same sex? To be obtaining heightened sentences for people who have engaged in hate crimes against them?
(Regarding the last issue, as a gay man, I can't think of many things more offensive than the idea that my sexual orientation obliges me to have a particular position on AIDS funding, though that's really a separate complaint.)