EDITORIAL

Duke’s House
of cards
The resignation and guilty plea of Duke Cunningham is the latest morality tale played out among closeted congressional Republicans, with a familiar moral.

CHRIS CRAIN
Friday, December 02, 2005

THE THING ABOUT LYING, your mother probably told you, is that the more lying you do, the deeper the hole you dig. That familiar lesson was apparently lost on good ol’ Duke Cunningham.

The grizzled Vietnam War veteran turned right-wing Republican resigned his seat in Congress this week after he pled guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. Over the years, Cunningham accepted a staggering list of gifts and sweetheart deals in exchange for his vote and influence.

What you won’t read about in these mainstream press accounts is the other double life led by the closet case, Duke, the anti-gay conservative.

Cunningham, who is married with grown children, has admitted to romantic, loving relationships with men, both during his Vietnam military service and as a civilian. That was the remarkable story that this publication reported two years ago, when Elizabeth Birch, the former Human Rights Campaign leader, inadvertently outed Cunningham at a gay rights forum.

Birch never mentioned Cunningham’s name, but she talked about a rabidly anti-gay congressman who asked to meet privately with her in the midst of a controversy over his use in a speech on the floor of the House the term “homos” to describe gays who have served in the military.

Alone with Birch and an HRC staffer, the unnamed congressman shared that he had loved men during his life. In telling the story, Birch offered up a few too many details about the closeted congressman.

A few Google searches later, the Blade reported that it had to be Cunningham, whose career was pockmarked with bizarre gay pronouncements, including a reference to the rectal treatment he received for prostate cancer, something he told an audience “was just not natural, unless maybe you’re Barney Frank.”

There’s every reason to believe Birch’s inadvertent outing, even as Cunningham denied it through a spokesperson.

This is, after all, a man without principles, who could “love men” in private, all the while condemning gays in speeches and in congressional votes. Little surprise that he could live a second double life, in which he sold those unprincipled votes to the highest bidder.

THE SAD STORY of Cunningham’s double lives was destined to come to an ugly end, just as it did for Ed Schrock, another anti-gay Congressman who was outed, if not so inadvertently. Caught last year leaving explicit voice messages on a gay phone hookup line, the married Virginia Republican abruptly announced he would not seek re-election.

Things went differently for two gay Republicans in Congress who showed the courage to come out, albeit under pressure. Jim Kolbe, who announced his retirement this week, and Steve Gunderson, who quit in 1996, both came out because they believed they were about to be outed involuntarily.

Neither had been particularly friendly to gay rights while still in the closet. Kolbe had scored a 43 and a 67 on HRC’s report card, while Gunderson managed a mediocre 57. Once they no longer were living their own double-life lies, their voting records followed suit. They both scored a perfect 100 in the term after they came out, and Kolbe went on to score perfect or near-perfect scores every term since.

The same could be said for Mark Foley, a Florida Republican who traveled openly within gay circles with his long-term partner until he went back into the closet for a U.S. Senate run in 2004.

Like the others, the closeted Foley scored a dismal 44 on HRC’s scorecard, but during his 1996 re-election bid he was outed by local activists in his South Florida district. Since then, he’s scored in the 80s or higher on HRC’s report card and played an active role on several important pieces of gay rights legislation.

WITH THE RETIREMENT of Gunderson and now Kolbe, and the forced departures of Cunningham and Schrock, Foley is one of just two closeted Republicans left in Congress. And “closeted” is the only fair term because Foley has not denied being gay, he has simply refused to answer the question.

David Dreier, a member of the GOP House leadership, is also openly closeted, refusing to deny long-standing rumors that he is gay. The rumors only came to a head in the last year, and their only visible impact so far was to take Dreier out of the running for House majority leader after Tom DeLay was forced to resign.

But Dreier’s voting record looks very much like that of his pre-outed colleagues, ranging between 0 and 25 in the last decade.

In each case, the closer a closeted member of Congress comes to grips with being gay, with or without a nudge, the better their voting record on gay rights issues. The deeper the hole they dig with their lives, the more their voting records reflect their own self-loathing, and the sadder the end they come to.

DESPITE THE ETHICAL dangers in outing politicians or threatening to do so — and the Blade’s policy has been the subject of some commentary — there’s little question of its effectiveness, whether or not the ends justify the means.

Until now, every major gay rights group has flatly rejected outing and resisted putting public pressure on closeted members who vote against the interest of their own people. Their “good cop” approach hasn’t borne much fruit so far.

No one has emerged to take the place of Gunderson and Kolbe, and Foley still hasn’t come out, even after his political career “topped out” when he dropped his Senate bid over the outing flap.

Until something changes that dynamic, a chill wind will continue to blow in our nation’s capital.

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