Jul 02, 2004  |  By: CHRIS CRAIN  | COMMENTS     

to live their lives in the limelight ought to expect, at this point, to be asked “the question” and have ready an answer about whether they are gay or straight.

Asking the question does not by itself amount to outing. Neither does printing the response, whether it is the truth or a lie or a refusal to discuss the matter.

Outing someone involves going “behind the answer” and investigating a response (or non-response) and publishing the facts that suggest which side of the bread that someone in fact spreads their butter: gay, straight, bisexual or otherwise.

Looking into someone’s sexual orientation doesn’t necessarily mean monitoring their bedroom or invading their privacy. It could mean simply reporting that they have a same-sex love interest with whom they flit about town, or that they regularly show up at gay parties or bars.

The Blade reported in 2000 that John Paulk, the prominent “ex-gay” who had appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine with his wife, an “ex-lesbian,” was seen cavorting with gay guys in Mr. P’s.

The “activists” at the Human Rights Campaign apparently consider it their sworn duty to protect closeted Hill staffers who work for anti-gay members of Congress, but it is the antithesis of journalism to hide such hypocrisy when the facts can be clearly ascertained.

It is not the job of the Washington Blade — and ought not be the job of HRC — to protect the identity of semi-closeted congressional aides who have important questions to answer about why they have not acted to protect their fellow gay citizens.