This is just so wrong

In response to the attempt to pass the Gay Marriage Amendment, a Washington Blogger has been outing the gay staffers of Republican legislators. A typical letter reads as follows:

How can you Gay Person serve as an assistant to Conservative Legislator when you are yourself an openly gay man?

It's an interesting twist on the usual "outing" scenario, because it's taking persons who are already out, and trying to publicize their sexual identity to the widest audience possible. According to this article in Salon, the blogger claims "we don't want to get anyone fired." His only goal is to destroy their credibility (and thereby careers) within the Conservative movement - in one case by exposing an old photo spread done by one of the staffers.

Even if Rogers were right, and he's doing no harm to the careers of those he is exposing, the very question is despicable. People of conscience have to make their own decisions about their choices, methods, and priorities. I am a gay man, and you wouldn't catch me dead crusading for the social conservatives of the Republican Party. But this man's campaign represents the very worst of identity politics. Taken to this extreme, it proudly asserts that the interests of an identity group, transcend the private decisions of conscience.

When one white calls another a "race traitor" for holding the common good above the interests of "the white race," we see him exposed as a racist. When one gay calls another a "gay traitor" for following his consience against the interests of his identity group, it is the same.

These people never took a pledge to support Michael Rogers' politics or to advance Michael Rogers' interests. The man has no moral grounds for undermining their careers.

"Gay" is an adjective, and it is accidental. Some of us realize that gays are united by common challenges and faced with common injustices, and work to advance our common interests. But that is an election - a choice to be made, a calling to be answered. It does not fall upon the Michael Rogers' of this world to punish for their failures those who are unable or unwilling to make those choices and face those challenges.