> There is no such thing as privacy about anyone’s sexual orientation.
Sorry, I’m just not buying it. I understand your argument, but my problem lies in the definition of “engaging in anti-gay activism” and who gets to define it.
To your Mikulski example, that bill passed the Senate on an 85-14 vote. I’m not convinced that merely voting on a bill on the Senate floor rises to the level of “engaging in anti-gay activism,” and therefore making someone’s private life fair game. (And as an aside, Mikulski’s re-election campaign against Chavez was a foregone conclusion. Chavez was a place-holder candidate and Mikulski won with 61 percent of the vote.)
I object to a strict doctrine that declares someone’s private life to be fair game just because they merely oppose something that a consensus of the gay community wants to have. It’s the worst sort of ad hominem attack, really. You want to skip over any substantive objections that person might have and go right into calling them a hypocrite and a liar. You want to use the threat of “outing” as a bludgeon to suppress dissent. And worst of all, this “it’s OK to out someone who is engaging in anti-gay activism” doctrine is an attempt to carve out a special place in public discourse that only applies to gays and lesbians. It says to me: “Some people’s personal lives are fair game for public destruction — but only when we say so.”
