Over the years I have changed my views on outing and still find it difficult to decide where to draw the line. I find the concept basically offensive.

I know that my views are colored by not having come out myself until I was 34. I was born in New York City, lived most of my life in Manhattan, and worked for Congressperson Bella Abzug, who introduced the first Gay rights bill in the Congress. I still found it a difficult process.

Most of us come out in stages. If we are old enough when we come out, we often open up first to a stranger in a bar or club, and then to a roommate or a few trusted friends. We then move on to tell a sibling or parent. But often the most difficult place to come out of the closet is work. Let’s remember before we cavalierly out our brethren, there is still no protection in employment for the GLBT community in most states and discrimination is often insidious in how it occurs. I have lost a number of jobs because I am gay. Recently it was a job where all they had to do was "Google" me to see all the writing I have done on GLBT issues. They didn’t have to tell me why I didn’t get an interview, I understood.

I have always felt that elected officials who are gay, but speak out against the rights of GLBT individuals, should be outed. I believe that if you go to the public and ask for their vote, you can be required to state a set of principles by which you live your life. If you are then shown to be a hypocrite you deserve to be outed and your hypocrisy exposed. That goes for the gay man who votes against gay rights or the straight politician who speaks about family values and the sanctity of marriage, without letting people know he is divorced three times and owes child support payments. We can and should hold our elected politicians to higher standards.

The question now is, does that apply to staff, and how do we determine a standard? Does it apply to the staffer who is out among his or her friends, and in private conversations tries to convince his/her boss to vote more tolerantly on a host of issues. Does it include the staffer who may be out to the community but is closeted at work and really has no impact on his or her boss’s decisions with regard to social issues? Will it change the elected official to force the person out of the closet, or only hurt the person being outed? Do we become the McCarthy’s of the 21st century and try to out every gay and lesbian in government? I will fight in private with all my Republican and Democratic closeted friends and tell them how liberating it is to be out and open. But confronting my closeted friends in private, or calling their bosses and putting their names in the paper, are two very separate things.

I have one friend who stated that he does not have active political Republicans as friends because they all contribute to raising money that puts the GLBT community in jeopardy. When I questioned this attitude, he reminded me that, as a Democrat, I should be opposed to Connie Morella and Al D’Amato, because no matter what they said or how they voted, their first votes each year were always for the right wing leadership that hurts us the most. I countered that, as elected officials, they were able to show their support in other ways. I did, however, stop giving to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee when they supported Sam Nunn.

But staff is still different in my mind. Staffers that don’t speak out publicly against GLBT issues, who privately try to convince their members, even without coming out, or are just silent on issues, don’t deserve to be outed. If they speak publicly, or even privately, in meetings that are documented, and sway a members vote against our community, then I would immediately out them. But just working for a member who is against our community is not enough reason.

I believe before we go about outing people we have much more to do in the community of those already out. If we could get everyone who is now out to vote and speak to their friends, family and community, we wouldn’t have to worry about those that are still closeted.

We also have to look at how we as a community deal with those we out. What do we do to help them get new jobs or transition? Maybe we need a chapter of PFLAG on the hill to help Senators and Congresspersons with outed staff deal with this phenomenon. On the other hand I have always been amazed at how we make some closeted members of our community heroes when we, or others, do force them out of the closet. We have a former Congressman who was outed that now sits on the Board of one of our key organizations. He may be out, but appears to still shrink from criticizing those who would do us the most harm. We make heroes of some elected politicians who have worked actively for candidates who fought us for years, when they have an epiphany or are caught in hypocrisy, and we give them more press time and honors than we give to those who have fought our valiant cause for years. We continue to fund and endorse individuals like Morella and D’Amato, even when they have voted to put into leadership those that would do us the most harm.

We also need to take into consideration what those of us in politics know as the pink network, sometimes called the velvet network. The wide range of government, non-profit and business leaders who are gay and still closeted at work, but who help each other in so many ways. Then there is the tradition of journalists not outing gay government officials who they may socialize with in the bars, at private parties, or during the summer in Rehoboth or Provincetown. Do we jettison all that civility to each other, in favor of a McCarthy type outing binge? Does that help us in the long run?

Before we go ahead with massive outings let’s be sure that the people we hurt the most aren’t our brothers and sisters. Let’s be assured that we gain enough from their outing for potentially destroying their careers and lives.