aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Closets

Mehlman’s on The Daily Show. A repeat.

But it reminds me. John’s Radar piece (”I’m particularly happy with this one”) is on closet heterosexuals:

This week President Bush’s second Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, joined the swelling ranks of high-powered Republicans with, um-how to put it?-ambiguous sexual orientations. The club of what we’ll call “closet heterosexuals” also includes such luminaries as the very single Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, California congressman David Dreier, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Miers, 61, has never been married, has no kids, doesn’t appear to have any serious love interests, and has a special place in her heart for softball. Does that make her a lesbian? Of course not. But is it kosher to pose the question or just to report on the fact that others are asking it? According the mainstream media, no.

With Mehlman, Dreier, and Rice the mainstream press has simply refused to report on long-standing rumors about each of them. A reporter for a major newspaper told me that his paper had asked Mehlman about the rumors last year, but when Mehlman refused to affirm on the record that he was straight, the editors killed the article. Why? The fact that the incoming head of the Republican Party-which, after all, put the subject of sexual orientation front and center in the cultural wars-won’t publicly commit to liking women is about as legitimate a story as I can think of.

I don’t get it; the slightest excuse and nothing, nothing at all, is private. But up to that moment there’s some rule of etiquette that says don’t ask, don’t tell?