Glass Closet... On Capitol Hill

Peoria closet case Rep. Aaron Schock, hiding in plain sight

When Michael Musto did his seminal cover story for Out, The Glass Closet-- Why The Stars Won't Come Out And Play, he mostly discussed celebrities from Hollywood and New York, not the political celebrities. But this week in revisiting the glass closet, he ignored the political closet altogether. Back in 2009-- just three years afer Mark Foley was spectacularly outed and two years after Larry Craig was caught trying to blow a young policeman in a public toilet-- there was at least a paragraph acknowledging Republican closet cases in Washington:

Surprisingly enough, the concept of being semi-sort-of-out has even infiltrated the ranks of the Republicans. Pioneer outing journalist Michelangelo Signorile feels that 'in the Republican Party now, the glass closet is OK. It's like 'just don't talk about it or announce it.' It's progress, but it also still makes being gay something you really shouldn't talk about.' But things got extra sticky when people started asking questions about then Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's sexuality. At first, Mehlman refused to answer any questions, which only fueled the discussion, until he flatly told a New York Daily News reporter, 'I'm not gay.' The fact that he parried the question for so long, wrote Washington blogger John Aravosis, was in itself unusual. 'I can't recall many, if any, straight men who refuse to acknowledge that they're straight 'if anything, most are a bit too obvious about it and that ultimately leads to speculation, caused by Mehlman's own failure to respond to a direct question posed by a reporter.'

But this week, it was all about non-political celebrities. Musto asks the age-old question, "We all know which stars are inside the glass closet. So why won’t they come out?" But no more Republicans?

Five years is an eternity in “closet” years. Things have changed dramatically since my May 2007 Out cover story about the glass closet, the phenomenon where public figures, like Jodie Foster and Anderson Cooper, live gay lives but stop short at actually coming out on the record. To recap my thesis: The “g.c.” crowd avoids being defined as gay, though at least they don’t deny their sexuality, and never come up with fake opposite-sex love interests for the media. This seemed like an advance from the traditional deep-closet, but I still urged those stars to join Neil Patrick Harris and Lance Bass in breaking glass, promising they’d still be fabulous while leaving coyness behind in favor of total honesty and freedom.

Well, they didn’t heed my advice at all, but other notable figures did so in droves. Since the article, Invisible singer Clay Aiken came out as a gay father in a 2008 People interview. Comic Wanda Sykes became out and political the same year. Adam Lambert did a 2009 Rolling Stone interview where he put it on the record. And in 2010, country star Chely Wright had a People cover; Will & Grace’s Sean Hayes told the Advocate, “I am who I am”; and Ricky Martin went from closet to glass to out by revealing, “I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man.”

Still, no Jodie or Anderson, but CNN’s Don Lemon did come out in 2011, wanting to be forthright as an anchor and urging other people to do the same. Actor Zachary Quinto joined him in the open space. And this year, White Collar’s Matt Bomer went public with his family, which is good because he’s costarring in The Normal Heart, a movie about how silence equals death.

That’s a lot of broken glass-- an almost deafening amount of see-through-camouflage shattering. Clearly, the showbiz mood has become more accepting, the out and proud club way less lonely an organization to hook up with. Being half-out is no longer the popular way to go; it’s all or nothing these days.

But did I mention that Jodie and Anderson are still glassy? Seven months after the piece, Jodie did thank “my beautiful Cydney” at an event, but she didn’t elaborate and went right back into the glass closet (sans Cydney). And while Anderson is rumored to be coming out every few months, he never does, staying ambiguous as the ladies continue to fantasize about him, while the gays convince themselves he is out. With a syndicated day-time show on his plate, it seems like he-- and the boyfriend-- will stay casually off-the-record for some time.

He’s joined in glass by Queen Latifah, Ellen Page, and Jim Parsons (who’s also in The Normal Heart), but they’re a shrinking group as busting out becomes the honorable-- and sensible-- thing to do. So, five closet years after my cover, I’m still urging: Don’t be glassy, be classy! But thankfully, it doesn’t warrant such screaming anymore.

It isn't a shrinking group in Congress, at least not on the Republican side of the aisle. Although there was one Blue Dog and a current Senator locked firmly in the closet-- and Blue Dogs really are just Republicans disguised as Democrats-- all the congressional gay Democrats are "out" and proud and all the congressional gay Republicans are huddled in fear, denial and self-loathing in their dark, little closets. Note: no one bothered the closeted Blue Dog because he voted for LGBT equality every time-- as does the closeted Democratic senator. The problems with the closeted Republicans-- whether deeply closeted like Adrian Smith (R-NE), Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Miss McConnell (R-KY) or prancing around in the glass closet like David Dreier (R-CA), Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Aaron Schock (R-IL)... or sort of in between like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who acquired an official beard last year-- is that they're all shameless hypocrites voting against equality for the LGBT community.

So why bring this up again? The fact that Mitt Romney felt he had no choice but to bow to pressure from the dominant far right wing of the Republican Party and dump his openly gay-- though not as "gay-acting" as Miss McConnell, David Dreier or Lindsey Graham-- foreign policy spokesperson, Richard Grenell shows how deeply virulent homophobia is embedded in even the "mainstream" wing of the Republican Party. Watch this dark celebration on the far right:



Almost makes you understand the fear that motivates the GOP closet cases to keep that door bolted shut-- even mocking marriage with phony marriages like McHenry's and Miss McConnell's. And, by the way, Blue America has a page devoted to combating conservative homophobia-- from both political parties.


UPDATE: A Republican Legislator Came Out Of The Closet

I still remember when Tucson Congressman Jim Kolbe called a press conference late in the summer of 1996 and outed himself. He had just voted for the viciously anti-LGBT Defense of Marriage Act and The Advocate was about the publish a story on what a hypocrite he is and kick in his closet door. He beat them to the punch. This morning I was on the phone with another ex-Congressman, a good friend of Kolbe's, who was also forced out of Congress after he was outed. I told him about Zach Wyatt, the Missouri Republican state Rep who voluntarily came out yesterday-- the country's only openly gay legislator. (No, Aaron Schock belt and blouse do not count as being openly gay.) My gay ex-congressman friend drolly stated that Wyatt was probably about to be outed the way Kolbe was. But he was wrong.

For Wyatt it was just a moment of peace. "I feel a lot better."

He has come to regret positions he took during that stretch, particularly his opposition to anti-bullying and anti-discrimination bills, both of which would have included protections for homosexuals along with other groups.

“I didn’t lead on those issues,” Wyatt said. “But after that I knew I had to be a leader and come to terms with [being gay].”

Wyatt’s self-realization came in early January, when he had some time alone in his rural Missouri home following the bedlam of the holiday season. The solitude proved fruitful. He emerged from his temporary seclusion with a renewed desire to earn a bachelor’s degree, as well as total acceptance of his identity as a gay man.

“I live out in the country and I Iike being able to get away and be by myself with my thoughts,” Wyatt said. “I was able to do that, which helped me regain control over everything. It was a pretty big breakthrough.”

Wyatt admits that he had an inkling of his sexual orientation for quite some time and that others had perceived him to be gay prior to this week’s public revelation. “It was one of those things where I probably knew, but I didn’t want to know,” Wyatt said. “I just never thought of myself as gay. I was lying to myself.”

His announcement at the state capitol on Wednesday came amid calls to withdraw the so-called “don’t say gay” bill-- known officially as HB 2051-- from the legislative docket. Wyatt said he used the occasion to come out in the hopes that it might help his Republican colleagues better understand the effect such legislation has on people they know.

“I’m going to try to educate my party on these issues and let them know that there are gay members of our party,” Wyatt said. “If I can get them to understand that putting forth legislation might be harmful to even members of their own party, they might think twice.”

Wyatt will leave the general assembly at the end of the current session to pursue a degree in marine biology at the University of Hawaii, but he insists that he would have come out even if he were seeking re-election this year. “I really would have,” he said.

To that end, Wyatt still envisions playing a role in politics and hopes that he can use his newfound stature to bridge the gap between the Republican Party and the gay and lesbian community. He said the early returns from his fellow legislators and constituents have been overwhelmingly positive.

“People realize that I am the same person when I woke up yesterday and I’m going to be the same person until the day I die,” Wyatt said. “This didn’t change me. Now they just know a little bit more about me.”