Gay MP blackmailed
February 23rd 2009 00:56
We’ve heard a lot recently about elderly same-sex couples and the fears that some of them will be outed by Centrelink against their will.
No doubt there are a few who have been hiding so long they haven’t come out even to themselves, let alone to the neighbours. Like the Derek Faye character created by Catherine Tate, they say, “Who, dear? Me, dear? Gay, dear? No, dear!”. We should show them some compassion.
There are others who, while uncomfortable about their imminent exposure, are prepared to wear it as the price of equality. Given the price many of them have already paid for their sexuality, we should be hailing them as heroes and doing our best to support them.
My personal conviction is that gays and lesbians will never achieve equality while we seek it from a position of invisibility. If people don’t know who we are, they are free to imagine all kinds of nonsense.
On the other hand, we have to respect the privacy of people who think that their sexuality is no-one’s business but their own.
But I have no patience with those who say that public individuals have a right to the same consideration, especially politicians who conceal their sexuality to sell themselves to their electorates as straight and/or married. As Derek Faye might say, “How very dare they?”
This past weekend the story emerged of a married MP who has allegedly been blackmailed by his gay lover. This situation could not have arisen in the first place if the MP had been honest.
We’re not allowed to know who this man is. The courts have suppressed his name, at least for now. We know a great deal about the alleged blackmailer, but nothing of his victim.
Ordinarily this is as it should be. The victim has committed no crime, and should not therefore be punished. But in the case of a politician, it’s not so simple.
When you stand for public office you offer yourself for public scrutiny. Your beliefs, your character and your behaviour become the perfectly proper subject for public debate.
A politician who has presented himself for election as married and therefore by implication straight, has deceived the public, and has done so for personal gain.
No-one could favour the forcible outing of elderly pensioners who’ve been persecuted by the state simply for being gay for much of their lives. They would undoubtedly view it as a public shaming, and we have no right to even ask that of them, let alone impose it.
But when a man has built a career, for which he has been well paid out of public funds, on the basis of a lie, I find myself feeling a good deal less compassionate. When he has chosen to misrepresent himself as a happily married man, when he could have been a role model for the gay community, when he has taken the easy road, instead of the hard road we are enforcing on many of our elderly against their will, I see nothing wrong, and much that would be right, in making his identity known.
He has made his bed, and should lie in it.
| 59 |
| Vote |
Comments (2)
Add Comments
Read More
