I don't suppose it's any surprise that, in a large city such as Washtington, DC, there's a very active gay and lesbian community. I think we can further stipulate it's no surprise that many folks in this community would work either on Capitol Hill or at the White House. And even further, simple math tells you that some percentage of the gay and lesbian community work the Republican side of the aisle.
Dearmary.com (a gay / lesbian advocacy website based in Washington) has been at the forefront of squelching the proposed constitutional amendment defining the term "marriage". So, they've recently published an ad in various print publications inside the beltway. The ad implicitly talks about taking the fight to the next level - exposing the hypocrisy in the halls of congress:
To all the Mary Cheneys in Washington, DC and beyond, both in the closet and out; to all those who claim to support our community but devote their careers to politicians who attack and demonize us; and to all those who are self-loathing or self-serving, we say this: FOR YEARS OUR SILENCE HAS PROTECTED YOU. TODAY THAT PROTECTION ENDS.I'm not quite sure what dearmary.com has in mind - but my batsense tells me that should the amendment pass (which it won't, anyway), there will be some kind of "mass outing". And I think what they're really trying to do is move the conversation forward by implied threat.
But I'm not so sure that such a mass outing would have the desired impact. In fact, it could have the opposite effect. And in my own opinion (admittedly coming from the straight viewpoint), though I support the cause (for different reasons than the gay / lesbian community), potentially ruining the lives of people in a public forum could hurt the overarching cause of running the hypocrites out of town.
I just have to think that there's more viable "backchannel" paths that would accomplish the same goal. But I haven't been directly involved in the fight. So I respectfully reserve the right to be wrong.
