Are there any kinds of desperate circumstances under which “outing” people is fair? Can you envisage such a scenario?
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, the Velvet Mafia blackmailed closeted gays as a means of currying political favor from the conservative Establishment.
Taking a page from them, during the 80’s, openly gay activists exposed closeted gay celebrities/personalities who used their influence to work for anti-gay causes.
Taking it further, people like Matt Drudge tried to scandalize Kerry by blowing up a “fake” affair - a kind of “outing”. Similar motives can be seen in events surrounding Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Gary Hart and Monica Lewinsky.
and actually, I’m thinking now in terms of Berlin’s Magnus Hirschfeld during the end of the Weimar Republic. He was a famous German sex researcher and openly gay activist who implored gays to get involved in the political process in order to gain equal rights.
Educated opinion is that the Nazis torched his authoritative Institute for Sex Research and its archives, in party, because he had lots of information on people who were active in the Nazi Party, and they were trying to destroy damaging information.
Had Hirschfeld known what was to come (he died in 1935, IIRC, in France), would it have been fair to have outed some of those people who were behind the Holocaust/Hitler’s horrors?
I’d be interested in hearing if anyone can envisage any other types of scenarios where people like Fred Phelps are exposed as active homosexuals or whatever.
I’m n ot absolutely sure about this issue. Generally speaking, I think that people shouldn’t be “outed” (and more generally, that their private life shouldn’t be disclosed. Which fortunately is the practice usually followed in France : despite the president Mitterand staying 14 years in power, the general public wasn’t informed about him actually living with another woman than his wife, and having a teen-ager daughter until some he himself “allowed” the press to disclose the information some months before his death)
However, a specific incident had me wondering. When the law allowing civil unions for homosexuals was discussed/passed, there has been many protests in France, and some politicians opposed to the law took part in the protests. One of them, a member of the parliament, who was present during a protest where anti-gay slogans were widely used was “outed” by a gay activist movement.
Following this incident, I pondered again my position, and I’m not sure that “outing” should be morally condemned when it involves a policy-maker reaching such a level of hypocrisy.
I’m sorry I don’t have a useful opinion to add here, but I’m very interested in seeing what other Dopers have to say about this, especially the gay ones. You see, before I had kids, I had definite ideas about what was right and what was wrong as far as raising kids. Once I had kids, a lot of the things I had previously thought went out the window. So, I would think that, no matter what my viewpoint is, it might be different if I were gay. So I will defer to the opinions of others on this matter.
If it is a public official, business tycoon, or other high-profile or high-power individual who specifically supports or promulgates policies against a certain behavior and simultaneously indulgest in that behavior, then expose the hypocrite.
If outing somebody is the only way to stop them from doing harm to others (like those who actively work for anti-gay legislation), then I say go for it. In that case, it’s relevant. In almost every other case I can think of, it’s about as relevant as someone’s favorite Jello flavor, and I have about as much need to know. If it’s not strictly relevant, and people don’t really need to know, then disclosure should be at the discretion of the person in question.
I think outing is acceptable, or at least understandable, in cases of blatant hypocrisy (such as John Paulk) as they’re comments and actions are hurtful to gays of all ages and lifestyles. For lesser hypocrisies (e.g. Richard Chamberlain, who repeatedly denied gay rumors for decades before, surprise surprise, coming out in his autobiography, but who never publicly condemned gays either) I don’t think it’s acceptable but I have little if any sympathy for the outed. For those whose private lives aren’t addressed and aren’t an issue in their work or actions, it is precisely nobody else’s business who they convene sexual congress with.
I’m not sure that makes on a “hypocrite.” There are a couple things to consider. Is a public figure actually advocating making (or keeping) illegal the actions that public figure induldges in? For example, is a closeted gay politician advocating keeping anti-sodomy laws on the books? In that case, I think that this person is a hypocrite and should probably be exposed. However, it’s a different question if someone is opposing special priviliges for those who lead the lifestyle that politician leads. For example, if a closeted gay politician opposes gay marriage, I don’t think that makes him a hypocrite. One can be gay and still think that “marriage” is properly defined as a union between a man and a woman. Sure, it’s unlikely, but it’s possible to do this and be ideological consistent. The same goes for a closeted gay politician who opposes increases in AIDS funding, anti-discrimination laws, etc. You can be gay, opposed to those policies, and non-hypocritical all at the same time.
I agree with those who say we should out closeted gays who are working against the gay community. The same goes for anyone who is secretly a member of community X but works against the interests of community X.
That assumes that every member of community x agrees what the interest of that community are. Not everyone in any given community will agree on a course of action, and I don’t think that dissent should be punished. Take the black community, for instance. Sure, there is a general agreement that policies advocated by the NAACP or the Congressional Black Caucus are what that community needs, but there are also members of the black community who vehemently disagree. Are they working against the interests of the black community, or do they simply see another way for that community’s interests to be advanced? I suppose the answer depends on where you sit, but you have to at least acknowledge that there is a debate to be had. No interest group is monolithic, and diversity of opinion within that group should be respected.
I am not in favor of it, no matter how hypocritical a person may be about gay rights or whatever.
I think it is everyone’s right to be a hypocrite, as annoying as that may be. The bottom line for me is that hypocrites can be right.
But a deliberate measure to undermine their character, in my opinion, is foul play. It strikes me as a most invective form of an ad hominem argument: rather than knocking down bigoted and hateful arguments, which should be easy to do, mount an attack on the character of the person. It’s mean.
I also think its shameful and irresponsible to argue that a person of Group X must have the same views as a large number of Group X. I think most of the country has pretty much gotten over the idea that White men should “look out” for White men, or that African-Americans are obligated to “promote the interests” of all African-Americans, or that women who are not feminists are somehow traitors to their sex.
We should respect that some gay people hold different views than whatever is judged to be those of “mainstream” gay America, and not use one’s sexual preferences as a noose to hang them with. In the final analysis, I think that only perpetuates the idea that there are good reasons to hide one’s sexual preferences, as if they are shameful.
Before anyone gets riled up, I say this as one who is on board with pretty much all of the so-called gay agenda, including same sex marriages, employment non-discrimination, and most other things you can throw out there. I simply think that outing someone is an unprincipled act.
In some cases I see it as a public service with politically active hypocrites. In the case of John Paulk, for example, his organization (Exodus) encouraged Fundie families to send their gay teenaged sons for pseudoscientific reeducation and actively lobbied gay men who were troubled by their own sexual orientation to submit to years of “therapy” when it didn’t even work for Paulk, it’s head and poster-boy. I see his outing as the equivalent of exposing the snake heads and corn liquor in the barrel of tonic at a medicine show.
Someone on this board once argued a while back that outing could be justified because it helps suicidal gay teens to see they are not alone.
But now I wonder if it actually has the opposite result, because it further demonstrates that people still think homosexuality is something to be hidden.
Even when that dissent causes clear negative impact on the community in question? I don’t agree. When a closeted gay person supports reparative therapy or the marriage amendment or the Southern Baptist Convention they are doing violence to me and every respectable, out gay person in America, and they deserve to be outed, pilloried and punished for their evil.
Can you really argue with the re-outing of John Paulk?