A Position on the Senator's Staff?

Julian Sanchez | July 19, 2004

The Washington Post and a few other beltway pubs are covering Michael Rogers' campaign to out gay staffers working for legislators who supported the Federal Marriage Amendment. I suppose I see the logic, but at the end of the day, this seems pretty vile. If it were the legislator himself, I'd say fair game. But I don't think signing on as a staffer in some troglodyte's office should make it open season on your sex life; as Washingtonienne taught us, staffers who want to broadcast their sexual proclivities can always start a blog. Worse, it seems like a violation of people's privacy without any real purpose. The FMA has already gone down in flames, and even if it were to resurface, does anyone believe that this kind of tactic would do anything to change policy outcomes? It sure sounds vindictive and pointless. I'm betting at least some of the people now doing the outing found it difficult coming out to family and friends and are glad nobody pushed them into it before they were ready. (Hat tip: GrammarPolice)

Comments

|7.19.04 @ 3:19AM|#

I have nothing to say about the content of the post, but I love the title!

|7.19.04 @ 5:27AM|#

Great heading, Julian!

"That is a personal decision," says Armstrong, 32, sitting in the office with Fox News playing in the background. A native of Fort Sumner, N.M., now living in the District and co-chairing the nonpartisan Senate Staff Caucus, he declines to comment on whether he supports the marriage amendment. His boss voted for it. "I have to keep in mind that the senator has nothing personal against me or the gay community. He is having to do what he is elected to do -- represent his constituents. And New Mexicans, if you look at the polls, are overwhelmingly supportive of the amendment."

Even though this should be left to the states to decide, there you have it. You can out everyone and their mom, but a politician is still held accountable to his constituency. Sometimes I have to wonder about some of those politicians, but its still worth noting that the pol must represent their community or get outted themselves!

|7.19.04 @ 6:33AM|#

Mean people suck.

|7.20.04 @ 12:12PM|#

the pol must represent their community or get outted themselves!

Not to the left. To the left, politicians must represent the Correctly Progressive Way, which has nothing to do with what the voter desires and everything to do with their latest social engineering efforts. Foolish, unless there's some alternate definition of "representation" not listed in the dictionary.

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