Jul 02, 2004  |  By: John Aravosis  | COMMENTS     

ONE YEAR AGO, I would have opposed “outing” gay congressional staffers who work for anti-gay members of Congress. After all, I was once one of those staffers, working for a Republican, no less. Today, while outing still gives me pause, I believe recent events have made it necessary.

When President Bush and anti-gay members of Congress teamed up with the radical right to push for passage of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, all the rules changed.

The FMA is the legislative equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Its passage will ban same-sex marriage from now till eternity, ripping apart thousands of already-married gay couples. Worse yet, the amendment is so broadly written that it could overturn every pro-gay federal, state and local law, and private industry policy in the country.

Facing such an unprecedented threat, it is time we considered an unprecedented response.

We once laughed off the gay staffers who worked for Jesse Helms or Pat Buchanan. We loathed their self-loathing, but figured that for the most part they were hurting themselves more than us.

In post-FMA America, we no longer have that luxury. President Bush and anti-gay members of Congress have declared war on gay people.

GAY STAFFERS WHO work for such politicians are hardly innocent bystanders simply exercising their right to free speech. They are hired guns defending policies intended to destroy our relationships. Such staffers are, at best, enemy combatants; and at worst, war criminals. Those who would choose to aid and abet our enemies deserve neither our pity nor our protection.

Some say that congressional staff members are hardly responsible for the anti-gay positions of their bosses. That is simply absurd. We’re not talking about young kids who simply walk the dog or stuff the mail.

There are gay men and lesbians serving anti-gay members in the most senior levels of Congress, from chiefs of staff to press secretaries to lawyers and other senior advisers. To suggest that their role in policy-making is negligible is naïve or disingenuous.

It’s high time we stopped treating grown men and women as children who simply need a hug. These people don’t need a hug; they need a swift kick in the ass. They are, for the most part, well-educated, highly paid adults who are perfectly aware of the harm they are causing.

Yet still they choose to perform their roles. To suggest that all, or even a majority, are closet cases living on the fringes of gay life, and thus deserving of our pity, is a fiction. They may work against our civil rights by day, but they surely enjoy its benefits by night.

BUT WHAT IF the marriage amendment is doomed, as some say, so no harm, no foul? That’s nice, but it’s hardly a defense to admit you tried to kill me, but failed.

And in any case, it’s not at all clear that the amendment is dead. Only a fool crows victory before the votes have been counted. It would hardly be unprecedented for our “allies” in Congress to cave when faced with a hard-to-oppose anti-gay vote.

And even if the amendment doesn’t pass this year, the gay marriage debate is hardly over. The debate has spurred the passage of dozens of new anti-gay laws across the country.

It’s only a matter of time before the Defense of Marriage Act is declared unconstitutional, and the issue is again ripe for future congressional consideration. When that day comes, who’s to say the House and Senate won’t be composed of a super-majority of anti-gay Democrats and Republicans — aided to victory by their LGBT staff — willing to endorse what now seems unthinkable?

What will outing really achieve? An outing campaign takes troops away from the enemy, teaches members of Congress and their staff that there is a price to be paid for legislating “family values,” and ultimately helps create an environment in which legislative gay-bashing and working for the enemy is less and less acceptable.

In the end, LGBT staffers working for anti-gay members of Congress ask of us what they are unwilling to give in return. They condemn the use of their sexual orientation as a weapon while brandishing our own against us.

They demand their private lives be protected and kept off limits while helping their bosses turn our private lives into criminal acts. And they ask us to ignore our own self-interest and defend them with our silence, while they refuse to consider anyone’s well being but their own.

These staffers are complicit in destroying the very people whose protection they now demand as a birthright. I, for one, have had enough.