Outing hypocrites is justified

Last week a US magazine outed a number of well known people including an anchorman and an actress. H

By Peter Tatchell Published 23 April 2007

Remaining in the closet reinforces the idea that there is something shameful about being gay and that we are a tiny, insignificant minority who can be ignored and marginalised. Heterosexual people who don’t know and mix with out lesbians and gay men are much more likely to be bigoted and to oppose gay civil rights.

For these reasons, it is important that queers come out. But when and how people reveal their sexuality is up to them. It should be personal decision.

The only exception is closeted gay public figures who abuse their power to condemn and harm other gay people, such as MPs voting for homophobic laws or bishops denouncing queers from their pulpits.

In these limited circumstances, outing is ethically justifiable. Otherwise not. That's why I condemned the outing of singer George Michael. He was not harming the queer community.

But queer homophobes in positions of authority do cause pain and suffering. They are hypocrites and their hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. Why should anyone feel sympathy for those who publicly preach homophobia while privately practising homosexuality?

When closeted, powerful queers misuse their influence to harm other gay people, their duplicity and bigotry is a matter of legitimate public interest.

Outing is, of course, a measure of last resort, when all attempts at persuasion have failed. The aim of outing is to discredit the closeted perpetrators of discrimination in high places by unmasking them as hypocrites. Because outing can help destroy their power and credibility – and thereby stop them causing further damage - it is the morally right thing to do.

The alternative - not outing closeted homophobes – is tacit collusion with the oppressors of lesbians and gays. People who refuse to out influential homophobes are, in effect, allowing these bigots to continue to hurt us. Their silence and inaction makes them accomplices to homophobic prejudice and discrimination.

Outing is a form of queer self-defence against homophobia. Like every victimised minority, the gay community has a right to defend itself against those who cause it harm.

Most people agree that a person who is attacked in the street is entitled to fight back. The outing of homophobes is a similar response. We are defending our community against those who attack us. Do the critics of outing expect queers to let themselves be attacked with impunity by shameless hypocrites?

Outing is provocative, but it is, on balance, a measured response to the suffering caused by anti-gay prejudice. The real extremism is not outing, but the homophobia that makes outing necessary.

Homophobes have a choice. If they don't want to be outed, all they have to do is stop supporting homophobia, then no one will out them. The choice is theirs. If they choose to carry on bashing the gay community, they have wilfully put themselves in the firing line and have only themselves to blame if they get outed.

Critics condemn the outing of homophobes as an invasion of privacy. That's rich. These bigots invade the lives of gay people by supporting laws that rob queers of human rights. They and their apologists then have the gall to demand that we respect their right to privacy. Do these hypocrites think we are fools? There can be no tolerance of intolerance. When homophobes invade the privacy of others, they forfeit the right to have their own private lives respected.

Naming names gets results. In 1994, OutRage! famously urged 10 Anglican bishops to “Tell the Truth” about their sexuality. Since they preached that the rest of us should tell the truth, surely we had a right to ask them to practice what they preach?

This outing campaign had many positive effects. Within four weeks, Anglican leaders began their first serious dialogue with the gay community and the House of Bishops issued its strongest ever condemnation of homophobic discrimination. The dismissal of gay clergy fell sharply. Congregations all over the country discussed gay issues. According to the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, outing the bishops achieved more in three months than polite lobbying had achieved in 17 years.

More info on Peter Tatchell’s human rights campaigns can be found at www.petertatchell.net

Tags: Outing

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15 comments

Thu, 2007-05-03 21:55 — saxonwhittle

I think the study merely suggests that children benefit from a stable family home. Has it taken the factor of divorce into the situation? Has it taken stable homes into question? Does it consider the fact that children will benefit from a loving home in comparison to being in a care situation? Has it taken into consideration whether there is a difference between two males or two females raising a child?

What I have said does indeed follow. There is no proof to claim that gay men or women cannot raise a child to a standard comparable to a male-female couple. Why would you assume otherwise? It can only be the fact that you are assuming all gay men and women have a similar flaw in their lifestyle, mental faculties or responsibility. In other words, you have formed a stereotype of yourself if you are a gay man, which does invalidate your argument that gay people can have different opinions. We all form our opinions from the dynamics of our lives, our friends, various forms of the media and countless other influences. To say that gay men or women can do this, yet have some inherent flaw which prevents them from being successful parents is quite unfair.

Mon, 2007-04-23 23:15 — Todd74

The people of today need to understand that gay's are in every field and that we do all the same things as heteros do in the working world. We need these influential people to speak up for our community.

Tue, 2007-04-24 04:26 — Georgefan

I've always felt "OUTING" to be a necessity for the benefit of everyone......looking at the BIG PICTURE. It's important to out people to make homosexuality reveal its true self and its true scope. I think staying in the closet is a very selfish self-centered thing to do but so hard to get everybody to agree on. MY feelings since coming out at 21 in 1986 have always been: "the more people out....the better it will be". Hypocrisy and staying in....only appears to helps people short term and it's so freakin' dishonest. I couldn't live a lie...and live with....myself.

Tue, 2007-04-24 05:58 — kid1958

I would take outing a step further. I always believe being out is the best thing for the community as a whole. The more people who know us , the less homophobia. I beleive everybody shoulkd be outed. friend or foe. Any less would be blackmai, something I dont want to get involved with. Anyway, there is nothing wrong with being gay. Being out has much more advantages then to being in the closet despite the dangers. People who are in the closet , friend or foe can do nothing to advance GLBT causes, so we should not tolerate the closet or anyone in it.

Wed, 2007-04-25 12:32 — sapiens42

As a straight father of teenage children I am less concerned about outing homosexual men in parliament etc than I am about those who are pedarists and paedophiles. There was a scandal some years ago about orgies in Brussels involving VIPs and young children but no names were printed nor any legal action taken as I recall - why not. I would also like to understand more about the nature of gay relationships. As I understand it gay couples may be together for many years but might still visit say Thailand to share some younger company. Being against pedarists or paedophiles is not homophobic.

Wed, 2007-04-25 15:50 — Peter Tatchell1

Peter responds...
Heterosexuality and homosexuality are different from pedarasty and paedophilia. All child sex abuse is wrong. It should be exposed and prosecuted. But most sexual assaults on children are perpetrated by heterosexual men within families.

Wed, 2007-04-25 13:41 — Electric Angel

I agree with Peter, we should out hypocrites and show them for what they really are, essentially its quite harsh as I'd usually be of the opinion that someone's sex life is nobody else's business, however if that person is, for example, preaching that homosexuality is a moral sin whilst enlisting the services of a male prostitute, I think they should be revealed to be a hypocrite; if that means they are, in the process, revealed to be gay, so be it.

However I don't think that everybody and anybody should be outed, homosexuality can be a quite private matter, and some people would rather keep it to themselves, others should respect that decision.

Wed, 2007-04-25 16:13 — Tony Grew

The issue of outing people and "revealing" they are gay is a minefield. I believe that how a person defines their sexuality is a matter for each individual to decide. So is whether or not to disclose their sexuality. That being said, no heterosexual person ever has to declare they are straight. In the current nosy climate, avoiding answering questions about who you sleep with is almost impossible.

I think that people should be encouraged as much as possible to come out. The more out gay people there are, the easier it is for everyone else to be judged less on their sexuality and more on who they are. Everytime someone comes out it makes it easier for the next person to do so. At the moment we are not exactly short of openly gay entertainers, but not one footballer appears to be a homosexual.

However, when it comes to outing people, I follow the Frank rule, named after the first out gay Congressman, Barney Frank. Only those who use their position to attack or harm gay people or gay rights are fair game.

It is easier for a politician to be honest about their sexuality now, but the few who are out and proud tire of constantly being referred to as a "gay MP" or a "gay Lib Dem." We only have one lesbian in Parliament - wouldn't you get a bit annoyed if that was all people idenitified you with?

A gay magazine in America, called Out funnily enough, decided this month to name Jodie Foster as a lesbian. Is that their right, or hers? Are they just stating the obvious, or taking away her right to choose how to publicly define herself?

Hopefully one day we will live in a world where the fact that someone is gay will not be treated like a revelation. Perhaps all of us, gay, straight or in-between, are just too interested in the sex lives of others.

Tony Grew
Editor, The Pink News

Wed, 2007-04-25 23:14 — saxonwhittle

I can't understand the relevance of sapiens42's comment with the article. Firstly, it diverges from the hypothesis of outing hypocrites as an ethical means to evict 'repressed' homophobes from positions of power, where they can do the most damage. Secondly, whether the 'sexual offenses' committed in Brussels were conducted by gay men, the fact they are gay has no relevance to the argument. Sex with anyone under the age of legal consent, or exploitation of children for sexual gratification is wrong, regardless of whether or not the sexual acts are conducted between males or females. Again, the example of 'Gay couples visiting Thailand' is an example of exploitation, but this is by no means even a small percentage of gay relationships. This is the point, queer men or women may also commit the same sexual offenses as straight men or women, the fact they chose to commit those with members of the same sex is no the burning issue. Gay relationships are just as dynamic, diverse and conventional as traditional straight relationships, or even 'marriages'. The fact that many gay men and women are not entitled to the legal recognition of their relationships in many Western nations (and the remainder of the world) perhaps explains why the 'myths and legends' surrounding them still survive into the 21st century. Outing the very people who would oppose this right to a long suffering minority only serves to finally close the book of 'gay relationship fairytales' once and for all.