A Washington Blade editorial by executive editor Chris Crain offers a take on disgraced Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who recently agreed to resign his seat in Congress after pleading to the crimes of accepting $2.4 million in bribes and income tax evasion.
Crain describes the two double lives Cunningham led, including that as a closeted, anti-gay conservative. Crain writes, “The sad story of Cunningham’s double lives was destined to come to an ugly end, just as it did for Ed Schrock, another anti-gay Congressman who was outed, if not so inadvertently. Caught last year leaving explicit voice messages on a gay phone hookup line, the married Virginia Republican abruptly announced he would not seek re-election.”
Crain also makes the case that the voluntary outing of at least two other Republican congressmen, including former Rep. Steve Gunderson (WI) and Jim Kolbe (AZ), turned out much more favorably, as did the involuntary outing of Republican Mark Foley (FL). Foley, Gunderson or Kolbe “had [not] been particularly friendly to gay rights while still in the closet . . .Once they no longer were living in their own double-life lies, their voting records followed suit.” Crain observes that the recently outed Republican leader David Dreier’s voting record looks “like that of his pre-outed colleagues.”
The editorial gives something for Indianapolis’ GLBT community to ponder, knowing that our own community has several anti-gay, closeted public officials, who enjoy the company of men in private while condemning gays in speeches and in their recorded votes.
2 comments:
WHO? Dish, please! I've heard this from several people, but I've never heard the names, and I want to know. e-mail me and tell me!!
Steph,
Advance Indiana has a very high threshold for outing anyone. At a minimum, a person with first hand knowledge must be prepared to offer a sworn affidavit. There's a lot of talk about these individuals and circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction, but we require more than that.
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