Outing

Outing is the practice of deliberately making public another person's concealed or barely-concealed sexual identity or orientation, without that person's consent. The people outed are most often public figures such as politicians or celebrities.

History

Germany

Magnus Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee debated outing in 1902 and decided against it. However, when Adolf Brand, founder of Der Eigene, contributed to the Harden-Eulenburg Affair by outing "hypocrites" such as Chaplan Dasbach, leader of the antireform Center party, and Prince von Bülow, Hirschfeld testified in favor of the outers. This damaged the support, funding, and membership of his Committee. Brand was convicted of libel against von Bulow and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment and concluded that, "decent society cannot stand the truth." In the early 1930s Ernst Röhm was outed by the leftist press, causing Brand to write reconclude that, "in the moment, however, when someone--as teacher, priest, representative, or statesman--would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control--in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter and forfeits every claim to remain protected hence-forward from public scrutiny and suspicious oversight." (ibid 85)

Related Topics:
Magnus Hirschfeld - Scientific Humanitarian Committee - Adolf Brand - Der Eigene - Harden-Eulenburg Affair - Chaplan Dasbach - Prince von Bülow - Ernst Röhm

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Schrock

A recent example of political punishment was the 2004 outing of Edward Schrock, a Republican Congressman from Virginia, by gay rights activist Michael Rogers. Rogers posted a story on his website revealing that Schrock used an interactive phone sex service to meet other men for sex. Schrock did not deny the claim and announced on August 30, 2004 that he would not seek re-election.

Related Topics:
Edward Schrock - Republican - Congressman - Virginia - Gay rights - Michael Rogers

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Rogers said that he was outing Schrock to punish him for his hypocrisy: Schrock voted for the Marriage Protection Act and also signed on as a co-sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment. "The time has come for these gay homophobes to step up or be outed," Rogers said. "Schrock is the first: more will follow."

Related Topics:
Marriage Protection Act - Federal Marriage Amendment

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