TAG?ro;”You're Out

TWO MONTHS AGO I received a telephone call from a reporter at the New York Daily News asking me if I knew of a certain Republican political strategist's imminent outing in a gay magazine.

"We don't do that sort of thing ourselves-you know, out people," the reporter claimed, "but with this individual it would be an issue of major hypocrisy if it were true, so we'd probably run with it. Who could object?"

In other words, we have certain standards that we like to herald, but if we can get away with it, let the presses roll! (Nothing ever came of the story about an imminent outing of a Republican strategist, which seems to have been just a rumor.)

The editors and the gossip columnists at the Daily News and the New York Post, like newspaper editors everywhere, have said countless times they don't "out" people, even as their columns crackle with innuendo and outright exposés. It's the dirty word they don't like to be associated with, even as they practice it daily. In some editors' minds, outing is something activists engage in, while what they do is "reporting," even if the outcome is to discuss the person's sexual orientation (whether straight or gay) when the individual in question hasn't discussed it openly.

So there was Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon on the covers of both the Daily News and the New York Post on Friday, revealed as having a "secret lover" (the Post) and "trying a different kind of sex in the city" (the News), in stories based mostly on unnamed "sources."

The News tried to get around the problem by saying that Nixon told them "exclusively" that she has "nothing to hide" and was "happy" when they asked whether she was dating a woman, even though she told them her "private life is private" and did not say she is dating a woman, let alone use the 'L' word. Based on the non-denial from her, the News decided Nixon had joined the pantheon of Rosie O'Donnell and Gov. McGreevey because their unnamed "sources" and "friends" of Nixon's had confirmed it.

The Post's defense for engaging in outing while still not calling it that was even more laughable. The paper didn't get an interview with Nixon, and clearly rushed something into print because editors must have known the News had the exclusive non-denial from Nixon. So the Post just quoted an unnamed source, described as "someone in the know," saying, "you would not be outing her [by writing about this]. Cynthia is in a relationship with a woman." (All of this despite the fact that Nixon's rep would later neither "confirm nor deny" to the Associated Press that Nixon is involved in a relationship with a woman.) Oh, and in the same edition, the Post published yet more screeds against Dan Rather and his journalistic ethics, which made for high comedy.

Should anyone think this hypocrisy is limited to daily tabloids, let me draw your attention to the New York Times (using an Associated Press report) and the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. For all practical purposes, Congressman Ed Schrock was outed in both papers and throughout the media-even though the Times and the Post will tell you their papers don't "out" people. Gay activist Mike Rogers had put an audiotape on his web site, www.blogactive.com, which he claimed was a tape of Schrock leaving messages on a gay personals phone line. Within two weeks Schrock resigned, stating only that there were allegations that could affect his reelection campaign. He certainly didn't say what the allegations were, nor did his spokespeople acknowledge Rogers' site or say that Schrock was gay. Nonetheless, the media discussed all the details, in essence drawing the conclusion that the allegations in question were those regarding Schrock's looking for gay sex on a phone personal line. In the past, they'd have simply reported whatever reasons Schrock had given and left it at that. But editors and tv news producers know that, today, with the Internet, they'd only look like they were censoring information. (More high comedy: The New York Post actually ran a gossip item critical of the Times for "outing" Schrock.)

All of this, as far as I'm concerned, is progress, uneven as it is. The romantic and sex lives of heterosexual public figures-including stars of hit tv series and members of Congress-are written about regularly, with or without the celebrities' permission. There's no reason why gay public figures should be treated differently, and it only serves to make homosexuality into a dirty little secret that is not reportable. So I have no problem at all with Cynthia Nixon or any other celebrity being reported on. I just wish that media organizations would stop the charades and the hypocrisy, claiming that they don't out people. I also wish they'd apply a standard evenly.

The simple standard should be that it is proper to discuss, report on and ask about the sexual orientation of public figures-and only public figures-when relevant to a larger story (and only when relevant). In that respect, Cynthia Nixon would actually not pass muster as much some antigay members of Congress do. Congressman David Dreier, for example, is someone reporters should now be scrutinizing heavily, asking the question every time he shows up in public, and reporting on the hypocrisy of his life. Dreier, as I wrote in this column two weeks ago, is the California Republican and major George W. Bush booster (throughout the convention the Bush campaign put him on tv as much as it could) who has voted against gay rights for years-from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to the Marriage Protection Act just two months ago. There have been rumors about the unmarried 50-something congressman for years, and yet when I asked him about his sexual orientation at the Republican National Convention, he gave me the Cynthia Nixon response, refusing to deny that he was gay but refusing to confirm it.

That response, however, didn't land him on the front pages of the papers in his district the way Nixon was splashed across the front page of the New York Post. In fact, last week, Mark Cromer, features editor at Hustler magazine, which reportedly plans a sexual expose of Dreier for November, charged that the press in Dreier's San Gabriel Valley district is protecting the congressman. Cromer, a former reporter for a string of conservative newspapers in the Valley, told Doug Ireland in the LA Weekly that the papers have covered up the details of a relationship that Dreier has had with his chief of staff, Brad Smith. The CEO of the company that owns the papers, Dean Singleton, is a major contributor to the Republican Party.

Now, don't you think if we can hear about the lesbian love life of Miranda from Sex and the City, we should also know all about the true identities of the hypocrites on Capitol Hill? o