Heard on Ed's show last week that Republican representative David Drier is a closeted gay, also rumors of Heather Wilson as well. Who else? It's OK to be gay. The only path is tolerance. The Foley mess shows that Republican gaybashing is reprehensible and comes back to bite them.

Will pass on discussion based on rumors and irrelevent as a whole.

I'd agree, who really cares unless they're doing the "family values" gaybashing stuff. Then it would be important solely for the hypocritical stances. However, let's see the proof of orientation.

Rep. David Dreier is so far in the closet that he's next to your mom's old Jackie Kennedy pill box hat. He constantly votes to deny rights to homosexuals. While I belive that coming out is a personal decision and no one has the right to "out" anybody, I make an exception in the case of those gays who actively work against their gay brothers and sisters. Drag him out and expose him. Not for the purpose of exposing his homosexuality, but to expose him as the hypocrite that he is.

Motion seconded..... do we have quorum?

Yep, agreeing with IVEATCH and Scouster - when you come "out" is a personal decision. If and when he or they do, then we can address what hypocrites he or they might or might not be.

'Tis rare that I disagree with Ms. Jones, and often that I disagree with Scoutster and IVEATCH. This is one of those occasions when Ms. Jones and I disagree. I agree with her in principle, but for those queers who with their hypocricy harm our community---all gloves are off. They have no right to use the closet to protect themselves as they throw the rest of us under the bus.

I've been a constituent of both at one time or another. I never met Wilson, but I did meet Drier once. I was an intern on a local community newspaper (the Claremont Courier) when he came by for a visit with the editor. I got to sit in. He seemed a little bit swishy then, not a flamer, just slightly off the res for a straight guy. We didn't have the word for it then (1988), but he was just a a little bit on the "metro" side, over groomed and slightly fey in his mannerisms. I didn't think much of it at the time because it was more of just a vibe then anything in particular, and anyway, what a person does in their private sex life has never been something I though important to the quality of their public service.

What I DO think is important though, is that our public office holders should not have a partitioned dual and secret life, especially when that secret life is in conflict with their public life. It is the closet not the homosexuality that is the problem because a person with a secret life is invariably going to subordinate the public good beneith the need to maintain their secret. His/her first loyalty will always be to the inner circle who are in on the secret because they have the power to expose. Everything else, the Constitution, the welfare of the nation, and all else that he/she may hold sacred takes a back seat to the imperitive of maintaining the secret.

With the child preditors, there is the added evil of the harm that is done to the kids. But as with closeted gays (mostly on the right it seems), the greatest danger to the general public interest comes from the secrecy which masks the personal shame of someone who is charged with and empowered to look after the public's business. Someone who is out of the closet (like Barney Franks) is not a problem. But those who hide their secret lives from the light of public scruteny are a serious threat to the wellbeing of our country and should be outed.

DB