September 5th, 2007
Gay blogger has a little list - and Larry Craig's not the only one on it
In Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” the Lord High Executioner had a little list of people who should be done away with. Among the offenders:
The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who “doesn’t think she dances, but would rather like to try”;
And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist -
I don’t think she’d be missed — I’m sure she’d not he missed!
Well, gay blogger Mike Rogers has a little list, too. Those on it aren’t headed for the executioner’s block, but for something nearly as bad. Rogers’ singular mission is to “out” gay politicians who come out against gay rights, reports The Washington Post.
Larry Craig — the disgraced Idaho senator who was caught soliciting gay sex in a public bathroom — was on Rogers’ list. So was Mark Foley and Ed Schrock, a Virginia Republican with anti-gay public record.
Larry Craig wasn’t “the first on my list,” the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, “won’t be the last.”
The Post says Rogers is “a feared one-man machine” who has outed 33 senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and Congress members on his blog. The URL, by the way, which the Post didn’t print is blogactive.com.
On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers — “Are you gay?” he’d ask — is “a call from Satan himself,” says a former high-ranking congressional staffer whose name is on the list.
A key aspect of the story is the impact Rogers’ work has had on the mainstream media. On his blog, Rogers says that his work prodded the Idaho Statesman to investigate Craig. According to Kelly McBride, who teaches about ethics at the Poynter Institute:
In the past, when the mainstream media were the gatekeepers of information, you could scream all of you want — ‘A conservative senator from Idaho is gay!’ — and nobody would hear you. But now people can hear anyone, and that’s changed how mainstream media makes decisions about what to publish.”
The Post article includes a dynamic debate among those who have been outed — they generally find him “despicable,” gay activists — many are against outing of anyone, and Rogers, who says that gay sex offenders get a much harsher treatment than heteros.
