There seems to be a debate about whether or not it is okay to reveal that someone is gay if that person hasn’t admitted to being gay. Some people say it is never okay to “out” someone against their wishes, while others say that it is permissible if the person is a politician who votes against the interests of the gay community.
I suppose there could be circumstances where the latter logic applies to someone who isn’t a politician. Perhaps, if someone was prone to making anti-gay comments and harassing gay people, it would be allowable to expose their hypocrisy.
I don’t know.
I think hypocrisy is a very significant character flaw, and I think Jesus of Nazareth agreed with me, since the word “hypocrite” appears 25 times in the New Testament.
I am just going to quote from Romans, Chapter 1 and 2.
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking[a] and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans isn’t remotely similar to the Gospels, and Jesus may not have agreed with St. Paul about a lot of things. But, what Jesus definitely did agree with St. Paul about is that people should be reticent to judge others lest they also be judged, and that there is a particularly hot place in hell for people who stand in judgment over people who are no more guilty than they are themselves.
“Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?”
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
So, a religious man, an upright Christian, cannot hide behind doctrine. They can’t, on the one hand, quote Romans to condemn homosexual acts, and on the other hand, ignore Romans when it comes to not judging others and not engaging in hypocrisy.
But does any of this answer the question here?
Is it moral to “out” someone as gay if, and only if, they are a hypocrite?
Are we allowed to “judge” someone for their hypocrisy?
I don’t really use the Bible as a guidepost to my moral decision-making, but I am ambivalent about “outing” people. I don’t think less of people who do it, but I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable doing it myself.
I think St. Paul would have enjoyed “Duck Dynasty”.
I find at least two corollaries.
Corollary #1 has to do with the actions of a meta-actor, whom we will label Nameless Republican Pol, or NRP for short. (He has no name for two reasons: first because he is a fictional composite, and second because having labelled him as we have done, we have completely characterized him.)
NRP attacks the members of an out group, individually or collectively. In so doing, he is pandering; it cannot be determined, and does not matter, whether NRP has any individual views on the distinguishing characteristics of the out group; attacking them yields benefits for him, in terms of his tenure of office, and that is both necessary and sufficient.
NRP’s attack on the members of the out group consists of attempts to degrade them, specifically by compromising their privacy. So the point of departure is our statement that NRP’s actions are wrong, because degradation is wrong and conmpromise of privacy is degradation.
Corollary #2: at what point do the wrong actions of a wrong actor become so intolerable that it is justified to deploy (the same (or different)) wrong actions in the effort to stop them? Can there even, definitionally, be such a point?
…and that leads us to Corollary #3: Is there, in effect, a Gresham’s Law of political tactics, whereby worse tactics always win — or, perhaps better said, more ethical tactics always lose?
Or we could just adopt the policy of “what consenting adults do in their bedrooms is none of our frickin’ business”, and refuse to engage in putting others in any kind of peril simply because we think they’re hypocrites. There are still consequences to coming out in this country. Someone being a politician doesn’t single them out for special treatment.
Highly recommend the NRSV translation – gender inclusive language for one, updated phrasing etc, hopefully less tendentious
http://bible.oremus.org/
here’s NRSV of Romans 1,2
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die–yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them.
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, `We know that God’s judgement on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.’ Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgement of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.
Love that “unnatural” intercourse. Quotes on the “unnatural” because you can see it throughout nature, particularly among primates.
ahah! so you think you know what Paul meant by “unnatural”? and you know this, how? [of course this is a trick question; much ink spilled over what he meant there. don’t fall into the trap of thinking Mr. Duck Dynasty is a Pauline scholar. I assume he doesn’t even know Greek]
I am assuming, and you are right that it is an assumption, that the reference is to oral and anal sex, regularly referred to in US Law as “unnatural acts”.
If oral sex is “unnatural” why the obsession with (getting) it by most American GI’s?
I’ll brave the trick question. 😉
Back in my Bible studying days, I found it interesting that Paul spells out the men exchanging natural intercourse with women for men. But he doesn’t do the same for the phrase beforehand. The common way to explain what these evil women are doing is that they are becoming lesbians, apropos the “likewise” in the next verse. But I don’t think so. I think Paul specifically says that the men are exchanging women for men. (I’m not close to my Greek NT right now.) So the women are merely exchanging a natural act for an unnatural one, and not necessarily something they are doing with women.
So now that I’m a great big gay atheist, I’ve taken my suspicion to its natural conclusion: Paul is saying that women turn men gay by giving them anal sex. Everyone is responsible for the things they do: it’s not quite Paul blaming women for EVERYTHING. But that’s what I see him saying here. This is, of course, complete and utter balderdash, but I’m confident that Paul feels safe saying such a thing, considering his audience.
I do like that you have gone on to quote the next chapter in which Paul, having laid down his nice little rhetorical trap, springs it on the judgers. And I think there may actually be a little glimmer of how Paul really felt tucked away later in Romans. In the verse about the women exchanging the “natural” for the “unnatural,” that word for “unnatural” is used once more in the letter. It’s an unusual word in Koine Greek, too. As I recall, this is the first extant witness to the word, the adjective “unnatural” turned into a noun.
It’s used again in Paul’s analogy of the olive tree. The “natural” olive tree doesn’t like it when the “unnatural” wild branches are grafted in. Or maybe it’s the tame branches rebelling against the “unnatural” act of the wild branches being grafted in. But that’s the gardener’s business, isn’t it? Again, you have the theme of something against nature and judgment. It may very well be that the author of “no Jew or Gentile, no male or female, no slave or free, but you are all one in Christ Jesus” has quite a different opinion of homosexuality than the one he’s allowed to say in public.
very very interesting, very solid reading. great that you read this next to the Olive tree! my longer reply just disappeared into cyberspace. more later.
Very, very interesting analysis.
I’m with the school of thought that we can’t know to what he refers re: the women, but the categorization in that those days, in that cultural context was not male and female biologically, but in terms of roles [active, passive], so could be women being sexually aggressive but their “object” would be some humans that Paul doesn’t specify (it’s not important to his argument).
Excellent, your citation of Galatians 3:28, “neither male nor female” is key and you note the Olive tree; whether or not he’s sympathetic, it can be argued that he rejects one basis on which same sex relationships are condemned (men giving up their active role) because he moves beyond the previous distinctions of male/ active and female/ passive. Non-procreative sex, because it involves passion, was not something for Paul, the stoic (but you know the 1 Corinthians passage, “not all can live as I live”). I like your analysis a lot, you’ve given me a lot to think about.
If you get interested in this again sometime you might look at A Feminist Companion to Paul, edited by Amy Jill Levine.
has good notes that show the discussion http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feminist-companion-to-paul-amy-j-levine/1006207497?ean=9780829816082
pondering your question
Think of it as a public service. The constituants of such politicians are usually anti-gay. Thus, you are merely revealing the truth to the constituants.
It’s simply a public service for the repuke side.
I have no problem with revealing that an anti-gay politician takes a rent boy on vacation, or that a politician who has made his particular policy anti-drug is a coke/meth user. It’s simply justice.
I don’t think the point here is the ‘outing’ of the person’s sexuality. That’s the instrument for outing the person’s con game on his constituents.
The con game of course is the fact that he pretends to be against the very things he is practicing.
Then the constituents can make their own determination of what to do after that.
The immediate examples are that David Brooks and Ruth Marcus ‘outed’ themselves on drug laws. If someone else had published that information about Books/Marcus in their own column and said their support for the WOSPWUSD was ridiculous not to mention evil, I would have no problem with it.
You could make a good case that Dan Quayle’s career was irretrievably damaged when he ‘outed’ himself on abortion – he shared that he would disapprove but support his daughter if she had an abortion, but no one else should have access.
Liars doing evil don’t have the right to have accomplices (even passive) in their perfidy.
I really don’t know if I see any moral dilemma with “outing” someone, if they are a hypocrite in the manner you describe.
Exposing their hypocrisy is not the same as judging them. They are implying, by their own hypocritical judgment of the gay person, that they possess some higher moral ground. And I just don’t see that as a credible claim on their part.
Jesus seemed to say, in Matthew 7, that hypocrisy is the basically the father of judgment.
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
No one should ever be outed. There is no appropriate justification.
Two words: Roy Cohn
I don’t think the bible is necessary here. In every case that comes to my mind it is not just a hypocrite but a hypocrite that wields power and is using his hypocrisy to maintain or increase his power.
In my moral judgement,
Fuck Him.
Absolutely
I can easily forgive humans for most short comings. I have a very hard time forgiving hypocrisy especially if it is used to gain or preserve power or to promote a religious morality. I personally don’t care what other people do in their bedrooms wether they be Rep or Dem. From this perspective Carlos Danger is OK with me, Newt Gingrich is not.
Though I would disagree with a Congressperson who voted against SNAP and unemployment because of their beliefs, Congresspeople who take farm subsidies whilst voting against SNAP and unemployment extensions are not OK with me.
Hypocrisy is almost unforgivable in my book. In order to forgive I would have to see a meaningful or extensive penance.
It’s not just that they use hypocrisy to gain and maintain power; then, they use that power to actively imprison, oppress and cause pain to others. That increases the offense of the hypocrisy by great magnitudes.
I don’t see what the Bible has to do with it.
Was it okay to out John Edwards for infidelity while his wife was dying from cancer, knowing she would be hurt and their children, too? Sure, it was. The public had a right to know he was a lying cheating cad.
Is it okay to report that a politician or public official has a problem with drugs? Or sends dick pix? Or visits prostitutes? Sure, it is. It comes down to accountability and reliability in public service, to being trust-worthy or not.
Why does a politician being in the closet buy him a get out of the consequences card? Why the double-standard? Yeah, yeah, persecution. But this is not a high school teacher or a choir director leading a quiet well-meaning life who will be ruined if the truth comes out. Nor is he an actor asking for his personal privacy to be respected because his future roles might be affected.
This is someone in POWER who lies and denies being gay while voting against gay rights. It goes beyond hypocrisy into malevolent pure evil to deny rights to others while freely pursuing your pleasure and the protection of the unwritten Do Not Out EVAH Rule.
Gays deserve to be treated as equal citizens. And gay liars in public office should be exposed just like hetero liars are. His constituents deserve to be told the truth since their gaydar is obviously broken.
I’m not naming him because I personally have no proof or direct knowledge to verify his actual lifestyle as opposed to his possibly suppressed inclinations. But, good grief, have you seen what he wore to a White House picnic?
Not once in all the years that I worked with men and women that for personal and/or professional reasons chose to keep their personal sexual preference hidden would it have occurred to me even to discuss the subject with others much less reveal anything the individual chose not to be public about. (Okay — maybe once or twice I dodged a question with “thought he has a girlfriend.) With “G” those that had no problem with LGBT knew and those that would be troubled by it chose not to know.
But have any of the gay people you’ve known ever been in a position of power and railed against the rights of gay people while simultaneously declaring that they are gay? That’s the real question.
I totally understand if you think it’s wrong to out people under all circumstances. I’m just saying your personal experience isn’t quite applicable here.
Oops — neglected to include that I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to expose a powerful hypocrite. However, such people tend to avoid me; so, I’d never be privy to whatever they keep hidden.
I’d like to be called out on my hypocrisy so I can root it out. So in this case, please judge me by the hypocrisy standard.
If someone is hurting innocent people, and you have a legitimate way to stop him, I believe you are required to act. Telling the truth about him, whether he likes it or not, is a legitimate way.
Might it be dangerous to out someone? Sure. But it wouldn’t be if bastards like this weren’t making it so. To me, that is instant karma.
I think it’s the hypocrisy that is the key.
it’s like when it was found out that Strom Thurman, unrepentant racist and bigot had in fact had fathered a child with a Black woman, it was technically a private matter, but the basic hypocrisy and gall and history the Strom Thurmond had on race and policies geared towards racial fairness, that made the story bigger.
This is similar to the support of the death penalty by fundamentalist Christians. They apparently think God’s intentions for them when murderers meet their maker is not enough, and have to play God themselves with their lives…
It’s not only hypocrisy, it’s blasphemy.
I think we are at a dangerous time in America. The radical GOP is a threat not just to gay people, but to all Americans. Gay republicans and conservative gay christians (whether they are out like Andrew Sullivan and Eve Tushnet or still in the closet) are dangerous people. They are undermining civil society and the drive for tolerance by their enabling of this most despicable radical GOP ideology.
So while I opposed outing for many years, recent events have left me grasping for any weapon at our disposal.
And I’m not interested in hearing what the bible says about anything.