Judge Vaughn Walker

On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the judge who will decide whether or not to uphold California’s Proposition 8 , which banned same-sex marriage, is gay. The article itself points out that the story is a little bit of a non-story and that everyone knew Judge Vaughn Walker is gay anyway.

The report paints it that he has never hidden his sexual orientation but has never broadcast it either. He was appointed to the bench by then President George H. W. Bush and is known for a conservative, libertarian stand on issues. He has even been accused of an anti-gay bias in the past because of a case he took when he was in private practice, against the Gay Olympics.

But will the supporters of Proposition 8 use his sexuality as a reason to dispute the ruling if it doesn’t go their way? My money’s on yes, even though they’re denying it now.

Why did the Chronicle out Judge Walker? Why do we out anyone?

Outing isn’t a new thing. It was often used as a rhetorical device, and a put-down by orators in ancient Greece. Modern outing is a different story.

The modern purposes of outing are:

• To increase lesbian and gay visibility
• To reveal hypocrisy
• Sensationalism (usually outside of the gay community, but not always)

One of the earliest modern outings was that of Ernst Röhm, one of Adolf Hitler’s prominent Nazi leaders. He was outed in 1930 by liberal journalists and ultimately killed on Hitler’s orders. Adolph Brand wrote about it:

when someone — as teacher, priest, representative, or statesman — would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control — in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter and forfeits every claim to remain protected hence-forward from public scrutiny and suspicious oversight.

Wladziu Valentino Liberace

Pianist and entertainer, Liberace successfully sued a UK newspaper in 1957 for this description of him:

…the summit of sex—the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she, and it can ever want… a deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love,

He was awarded £8,000 in damages on the basis that he sucessfully argued that he was not homosexual and that the expression “fruit-flavoured” was intended to imply that he was.

Chaz Bono was outed as a lesbian by Star magazine in 1990. He initially denied it, but came out publicly in an interview with The Advocate magazine five years later. He said that being outed:

Chaz Bono

… catapulted me into a political role that has transformed my life, providing me with affirmation as a lesbian, as a woman, and as an individual.

Here in Ireland, Stephen Gately came out in The Sun in 1999 when he learned that a security guard was going to out him to the press. He gave his story for free, not wanting anyone to benefit from what he believed should not have been an issue.

Proponents of outing believe in different acceptable circumstances, and some of the different schools of thought are that outing is:

• Always appropriate
• Only appropriate to out public figures
• Only appropriate to out public figures who use their influence in a way that hurts the gay community, or fails to use their influence to help.
• Only appropriate if the person in question is dead

Stephen Gately

There can be, of course, huge benefits to outing. The more people who are out, the easier it becomes to come out and be out. Studies show that people who know gay people are more likely to be in favour of gay rights legislation.

Outing also can serve as a deterrent. If closeted people who support measures that deny or limit the rights of gay people for their own political or material gain are being outed, theoretically fewer closeted people will go down that road for fear of having their sexual orientation revealed.

There have been movements to out political figures, celebrities and also religious figures.

Outing is queer self-defence. Lesbians and gay men have a right, and a duty, to expose hypocrites and homophobes. By not outing gay Bishops who support policies which harm homosexuals, we would be protecting those Bishops and thereby allowing them to continue to inflict suffering on members of our community. Collusion with hypocrisy and homophobia is not ethically defensible for Christians, or for anyone else.
- Peter Thatchell

Of course, there are certainly arguments against outing.

A lot of people would disagree with the most malicious kind of outing, like that which Chaz Bono and Stephen Gately faced. Chaz was outed to sell newspapers. He had never been an enemy to the gay community, nor had his mother Cher. He was not a politician or cleric, nor was he a public figure in his own right. The only reason the paper was interested in him is because he was from a famous family.

Stephen Gately had never said anything homophobic or invited that kind of scrutiny, but the lure of money from the tabloids had tempted one of his security staff to out him.

Others disagree with outing as they believe it makes homosexuality appear to be an insult and that the gay community can’t claim to want to be considered normal, while at the same time trying to bring down people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Some, of course, simply believe that it is a privacy issue.

What do you think? Should we be outing people, and if so, who?

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