Why I Outed Gay Republins - POLITICO Magaze

Contents:

• KARL ROVE AND HIS GAY DAD
• BH CAMPAIGN CHIEF AND FORMER RNC CHAIR KEN MEHLMAN: I’M GAY
• WHY I OUTED GAY REPUBLINS
• KARL ROVE'S FATHER AND MY GAY DILEMMA
• BILL MAHER SHOCKS ‘THE VIEW’ WH KARL ROVE GAY LOVER JOKE (VIO)
• KARL ROVE, LIFELONG GAY-BAER

KARL ROVE AND HIS GAY DAD

It's not exactly startlg to see that Karl Rove has nied he was aware his own father was gay, even as he guid the GOP to anti-gay wedge polics the last (the Christianists, he olly lculated, had potentially way more vot for the GOP than gays and their fai). But is important to note that is unte that he had no ia his dad was gay or that he was unaware was the reason for his parents' divorce.

But Rove's cynil attempts to wage culture war agast gay upl, servicemembers and our fai surely make this a legimate nnot try to stroy gay upl' marriag while claimg privacy as soon as you face your own divorce or are asked unfortable qutns about squarg your policy posns and your father's fact, Rove's experience is as good an argument as any for gettg over nial and for embracg marriage equaly as any.

His experience shows that supprsg, stigmatizg and preventg solid gay relatnships is anti-fay, not pro-fay.

BH CAMPAIGN CHIEF AND FORMER RNC CHAIR KEN MEHLMAN: I’M GAY

Bh's personal ease and faiary and empathy wh the actual gay and transgenr people he knew and worked people should not be monized. Clenn-Pool/GettyKen Mehlman, Print Bh’s mpaign manager 2004 and a former chairman of the Republin Natnal Commtee, has told fay and associat that he is gay. He agreed to answer a reporter’s qutns, he said, bee, now private life, he wants to bee an advote for gay marriage and anticipated that qutns would arise about his participatn a late-September fundraiser for the Amerin Foundatn for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot iative agast gay marriage, Proposn 8.

” Mehlman often wonred why gay voters never formed mon e wh Republin opponents of Islamic jihad, which he lled “the greatt anti-gay force the world right now.

”Mehlman’s learship posns the GOP me at a time when the party was steppg up s anti-gay activi—such as the 2006 distributn Wt Virgia of lerature lkg homosexualy to atheism, or the ls-than-subtle, d language the party’s platform (“Attempts to refe marriage a sgle state or cy uld have ser nsequenc throughout the untry … ”). He was aware that Karl Rove, Print Bh’s chief strategic adviser, had been workg wh Republins to make sure that anti-gay iativ and referenda would appear on November ballots 2004 and 2006 to help Republins.

WHY I OUTED GAY REPUBLINS

Mehlman acknowledg that if he had publicly clared his sexualy sooner, he might have played a role keepg the party om phg an anti-gay agenda.

”He said that he “really wished” he had e to terms wh his sexual orientatn earlier, “so I uld have worked agast [the Feral Marriage Amendment]” and “reached out to the gay muny the way I reached out to Ain Amerins. He and his iends say that he is aware that he will no longer ntrol the story about his inty—which will simultaneoly expose old wounds, ve schanue, and legimize anger among gay-rights activists both parti who did not hi their sexual orientatns. He was the subject of an outg mpaign by gay-rights activist Mike Rogers, startg when Mehlman was Bh’s mpaign manager.

Rogers’s csas agast closeted gay Republins spl the anized gay lobby Washgton but were undoubtedly effective: He drove several elected officials, cludg Virgia Reprentative Ed Shrock, om office, phed out a would-be printial mpaign manager for Gee Allen well before Allen was set to n, slung mors about Senator Larry Craig’s sexual orientatn well before Craig’s cint a Mneapolis airport bathroom, and even managed to make homosexualy a wedge issue wh the party’s activist 2006, Rogers ught up to Mehlman and asked him why he gave “so many nfg answers to social nservativ about your homosexualy, ” and followed up by askg whether Mehlman knew of a man who Rogers had claimed was Mehlman’s secret partner. Mehlman nied to Rogers that he had given nflictg answers and said that the man qutn was a law-school several discsns I’ve had wh Mehlman sce he stepped down om the Republin Natnal Commtee 2007, he never volunteered rmatn about his sexual orientatn, although charg that he helped pri over a rurgence anti-gay sentiment were clearly an ongog burn to disclosure at this stage of Mehlman’s life strik one close iend as beg like a cisn to jump off of a high divg board: Mehlman knows that there is plenty of water below, but is still ighteng to look down and make the leap. Bee his tenure as RNC chairman and his time at the center of the Bh polil mache cid wh the Republin Party’s attempts to explo anti-gay prejudic and cement the allegiance of social nservativ, his claratn to the world is at once a personal act and an act of polil speech.

KARL ROVE'S FATHER AND MY GAY DILEMMA

He adms to havg misled several people who asked him about his sexualy said that he plans to be an advote for gay rights wh the GOP, that he remas proud to be a Republin, and that his polil inty is not fed by any one issue. ”Ed Gillpie, a former RNC chairman and long-time iend of Mehlman, said that “ is signifint that a former chairman of the Republin Natnal Commtee is openly gay and that he is supportive of gay marriage.

” Although Gillpie himself oppos gay marriage, he poted to party stalwarts like former Vice Print Dick Cheney and strategist Mary Matal as open advot for gay rights who had not been dmmed out of the party.

He acknowledged “big generatnal differenc perceptn when to gay marriage and gay rights as an agenda, and I thk that is te on the Republin si. “There are a lot of Republins who are gay, there are a lot of Republins who support ernment sanctn of gay marriage, a lot of Republins who support abortn on mand, a lot of Republins who support p-and-tra provisns. ” Gillpie acknowledged that the party had been hospable to gay people the past, and said that he hop Mehlman’s cisn to e out leads the party to be “more rpectful and civil our disurse” when to the gay muny.

BILL MAHER SHOCKS ‘THE VIEW’ WH KARL ROVE GAY LOVER JOKE (VIO)

In July of 2004, as 11 anti-gay marriage ballot mpaigns peted for nservative attentn at the polls, I started BlogActive, a se dited to exposg anti-gay policians who were themselv havg secret sexual enunters wh other men. For years, I had known of proment gay policians who were the closet but worked for homophobic the tert, seemed to me, of their polil reers. And 10 years later, after my reports on dozens of policians and staffers, I believe we’re better off for , wh a more open discsn of anti-gay policians who lead double liv.

It was the year after Massachetts had bee the first state to legalize gay marriage, activists were celebratg the streets and muny lears were takg well-served victory laps. I was among them; I had worked at Harvey Milk High School New York, where I learned about abed LGBT youth, and at the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force Washgton, D. Mehlman himself was gay—the man atop the entire 2004 GOP operatn that was phg for those anti-gay marriage ballot measur, and who would bee chairman of the Republin Natnal Commtee the next year.

(Two years later, Inhofe would clare on the Senate floor that he was “really proud to say that the rerd history of our fay, we’ve never had a divorce or any kd of homosexual relatnship. ” I found hard to take the man’s prottatns serly when he had appeared as a ver mol for a gay Washgton, D. “People have the right to privacy, ” Barney Frank, the retired gay ngrsman om Massachetts said Outrage, the 2009 documentary that was spired by my work.

KARL ROVE, LIFELONG GAY-BAER

” Part of the problem at the time was the media, which was culpable of a kd of journalistic homophobia that I wanted to rrect. If journalists really wanted to treat gay and straight subjects equally, I reasoned, they should report on them wh equal scty too. I told him about my work, and he told me about his upbrgg a relig Catholic fay and how shaped his nservative views, cludg on gay marriage, which he officially opposed at the time.

I had several more nversatns wh him after that, and each time he shared more about his experienc as a closeted gay polician. ” Cg my work, Koerg shortly thereafter voted agast his entire uc the state senate (cludg Michele Bachmann) on the nstutnal amendment banng gay marriage, before walkg out of the chamber to the Mneapolis pol rotunda and g out as gay to the Mneapolis Star-Tribune.

Mehlman, for his part, later beme an advote for marriage equaly, cludg publicly supportg the group behd one of last year’s gay rights s the Supreme Court.