Republican Congressman Aaron Schock gets ‘outed’ in a Facebook post

As you know, we usually don’t cover political stories unless they intersect some way with celebrities or pop culture. I think this story does, and many celebrity blogs seem to agree. Rep. Aaron Schock is a conservative Republican congressman from Illinois. He’s also become the target of persistent rumors regarding his sexuality. Up until the past few days, I believe those rumors swirled mostly because A) his fashion game is TIGHT – going way beyond “metrosexual” to “gurl, that turquoise belt is FABULOUS.” And B) because he’s a gym rat who takes care of his body to a crazy degree, and he’s even posed shirtless for a Men’s Health cover story. And that’s where we were up until a few days ago. So what happened?

Oddly enough, it seemed rather innocuous at first. Americablog.com ran a piece called “The 7 Gayest Aaron Schock Instagram posts of 2013.” Obviously, the blog took screencaps of some of Schock’s Instagrams with some minimal commentary. It was funny because Rep. Schock is all about promoting homophobic legislation – he doesn’t want the LGBT community to be protected in hate crimes legislation, he opposed the repeal of DADT, he opposed the repeal of DOMA and he’s for a Federal Marriage Amendment, which would constitutionally ban gay marriage. So, Americablog was just having some fun, I thought, especially when they pointed out that Schock was also following Tom Daley on Twitter (lol). But then Schock shut down his Instagram account and un-followed Daley and then one journalist, Itay Hod, “outed” Schock on Facebook. Here’s the post:

people always say, no one has the right to out anyone. that coming out is a private matter. i disagree. as you can imagine, not a very popular opinion. but bear with me.

here’s a hypothetical: what if you know a certain GOP congressman, let’s just say from Illinois, is gay… and you know this because one of your friends, a journalist for a reputable network, told you in no uncertain terms that he caught that GOP congressman and his male roommate in the shower… together. now they could have been good friends just trying to conserve water. but there’s more. what if this congressman has also been caught by tmz cameras trolling gay bars. now what if you know that this very same guy, the darling of the gop, has also voted against repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, opposed the repeal of doma, is against gay marriage; and for the federal marriage amendment, which would add language to the us constitution banning gay marriage and would likely strike down every gay rights law and ordinance in the country?

Are we still not allowed to out him?

let me ask another question… doesn’t the media have an OBLIGATION to expose his hypocrisy? if he had done something so hypocritical and he wasn’t gay, wouldn’t we demand journalists do their job? but they can’t… because we won’t let them. you’re not allowed to out ANYONE, we tell them.

we’ve created a situation where even though news organizations know this guy is gay, they can’t report it because he hasn’t said so on twitter.

if we keep saying that being gay is genetic; ergo, it’s no different than having blue eyes or blonde hair… than why are not allowed to mention it? why do we need anyone’s consent to talk about their sexuality? are we not allowed to say someone has blue eyes until they post a fb message telling us they are in fact blue?

we’ve been so effective at convincing everyone that outing people is a crime against humanity, that we’ve made it impossible for any network or news organization to talk about this “hypothetical” gay republican congressman and his hypocritical vote against gay rights. they won’t touch it for fear of retribution from GLAAD or HRC. (in fact when my friend’s network interviewed said hypothetical republican, he talked about wanting to find a nice woman to marry… and the network aired it… knowing it was a lie…

so, forgive me if I don’t subscribe to the notion that you’re not allowed to out anyone… in fact in some cases, i’d celebrate it.

[From Itay Hod’s Facebook]

So, is this all very, very wrong? Should we never “out” anyone before they’re ready? Or do we need a different set of rules when the person being outed against their will is a public figure, a public servant, who publicly champions anti-LGBT legislation? I tend to think this is all fair game of Schock, but I’m open to other arguments.