to out or not to out?

Marc Fisher at the Washington Post wrote a story called,
Who Among Us Would Cast the First Stone? This
Guy
” last week on September 6th.

It all got me thinking… it is right or okay to out people like
Senator Craig or Anderson Cooper or Jodie Foster? Fisher
specifically talks about blogger Michael Rogers and his blog that has
been used to out anti-gay politicians who are alleged to be gay
themselves and if he is really liberating anyone or any lie. In
fact Fisher wonders if they only outcome of Rogers’ outings is
that legislators lock themselves tighter into the closet. Rogers
claims he outs hypocritical politicians that have or have to the
potential to pass laws that are hateful or hurtful toward glbt
individuals and families, but are secretly glbt themselves (mostly
“g”, let’s be real here) and his outing is a bit of a public
service.

Okay, up until now, I understand that rationale and I agreed.
Anti-glbt legislators or public figures (Ted Haggart) who have the
power to hurt us and/or our families deserve to be out-ed.

But Fisher’s point forced me to think about Senator Craig
specifically and his point about pushing him further into the
closet. The whole thing is sad really. Will this latest controversy
convince Craig to just come out already? My guess, probably not.
Will he become rabidly homophobic now just to prove he isn’t gay?
I don’t know.

Bottom line, I just don’t think it is as clear cut as Rogers
claims it is and that it something we can all think critically
about before we take pleasure in someone else’s truth being told.
AND understand outing a powerful person could lead to more attacks
on us and our families simply to prove a point.