This blog has taken part in outing two gay celebrities. I was not the first, but the second person to out Fox News anchor Shepard Smith; shortly thereafter, Academy Award-nominated director Kirby Dick became the third. Dick’s explanation as to why he focused on Smith in his 2009 documentary Outrage! mirrors my own reasoning:
The film does report on one journalist, Shepard Smith, who was first reported on by Kevin Naff of the Washington Blade. Shepard Smith works for Fox News, which has been a major factor in the rise of anti-gay hysteria in this country over the past two decades. As one of the most prominent people in Fox News—according to the New York Times, Smith makes 7 to 8 million dollars per year—his complicity with the network’s homophobic agenda rises to a level of hypocrisy that I felt was worthy of reporting.
Although my stomach turns every time I see a FreeRepublic.com or eNationalist.com referral hit my Shepard Smith post, I still believe in the merits of outing him.
I know of many gay celebrities who are in the closet that I would not out because they are living their lives, harming nobody in the LGBT community. Longtime blog readers may remember that I had a chance to out Clay Aiken, but refused despite “Claymates” demanding I reveal the gender of a “friend” I mentioned who was dating him about a year ago.
The same can’t be said for Smith, or Florida Governor Charlie Crist.
Word to the conservative closeted gays who make decisions that work against their own people: the LGBT community has no more patience for Roy Cohns.
The problem with my Smith post is that I wrote it out of anger over Fox News and their destructive, debased “news” that seemingly intelligent people actually believe is fair and balanced. Writing in anger is cathartic, but it detracts from the message. I was in Tel Aviv photographing for the Creative Commons, and my hotel only carried Fox News (“We see them as the most pro-Israel,” my guide told me). Every day for a week I had to watch them to find out what was happening in the U.S.
Forced to watch Fox, outing Shep to the legions of fans of their slanted reporting was the only thing I could think to do. They are being fed their news by a gay guy. And there are a lot of gays who work at News Corp.
In October 2007, I interviewed one of the most impassioned defenders of outing celebrities, Michael Musto, who writes a popular column for the Village Voice. In the 1990′s, Musto outed two of the most famous openly-gay celebrities today: Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres. Here was our exchange over the subject:
DS: What stands out as a story that you did where you were bowled over by the reaction to it.
- MM: In the 1990s I was one of the few people outing celebrities—
DS: —You outed Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen Degeneres—
- MM: —I outed Rosie and Ellen, and it’s hard to even imagine now that they ever were in the closet. You have to educate the new people and say, ‘Guess what, they were in the closet at one point.’ It’s hard to believe that Rosie was doing this delicate dance on her talk show where she was the ‘Queen of Nice’ and the single mother who had a crush on Tom Cruise and I was pointing out the absurdity of it. I was even more angry at the media than people like Rosie, because the media would play along with it. They would do huge profiles of her without even addressing the fact that she was obviously a lesbian. I just spoke at Yale a couple of weeks ago and talked about outing, and nobody argued. I was like, ‘Come on! Somebody argue!’ I used to get so many arguments over this that I used to have a list printed out with an answer to each argument.
DS: Do you have a theory or philosophy you follow about outing?
- MM: My theory is just that public figures sign an implicit deal with the media that their private lives are to be covered, and to leave out gayness because it is distasteful or there might be homophobes out there is homophobic in itself. It’s hypocritical and it makes ‘gay’ the last taboo. But I don’t get arguments anymore. I’m like, ‘Come on people! Yell at me!’
DS: What about the argument that it is more appropriate for people who are working against the gay community, a Larry Craig, if you will?
- MM: People like Michaelangelo Signorile started by outing Malcolm Forbes, not anybody anti-gay. He was just saying ‘He’s dead, he’s gay, let’s say so in the obituary.’ I don’t believe in outing only the hypocrites and anti-gay people because then the only people the public is going to know are gay are horrible, hateful people.
DS: There are a lot of gay people who aren’t talked about in Hollywood now. Merv Griffin was an example. Do you not feel the need to spell it out for some people who lead very openly gay lives but that nobody talks about?
- MM: Yeah, that was a big uproar after Merv died. Merv almost came out himself; was it Vanity Fair where he said ‘I’m quarter sexual, I’ll sleep with anybody for a quarter?’ or something? 99% of the obits didn’t even address it the fact that even Merv had almost coyly come out. So yeah, I wrote something to try and rectify that.
DS: But why not write something before he died?
- MM: Please! I totally did. In the 90′s there was a group that put up those ‘Absolutely Queer: Jodi Foster’ and Merv Griffin posters? I ran the Jodi and Merv posters in my column. It was huge. I was really going places nobody was going; nobody was running pictures of those posters because everybody was so terrified of lawsuits.
DS: Did you ever come under editorial pressure over those?
- MM: No, and the Voice staff at the time was very anti-outing, but nobody told me not to go there, and I’ve never been sued in my life and I’ve been here for 22 years.
Wikipedia photos to be deleted
NYC Wedding March – September 26, 2010
Joaquin Phoenix is a poser
Flushing Meadow Corona Park skate park
East Village Park and Williamsburg Bridge photos
100 People I Photographed for the Creative Commons
Pakistan flood devastation statistics
Cordoba House / Ground Zero mosque protest photos
The void in my blogging (and some photos)
Rihanna video with Eminem about Chris Brown?
My problem with outing Shepard Smith is that he shouldn’t be blamed for everything that goes on at Fox. Yes, he is a big name there and makes a lot of money but he himself has never said anything anti-gay on air. If he had then I would have less of a problem with your outing of him (I also wouldn’t be a fan of him but I digress.) If it had been someone like Hannity or Limbaugh who was gay but spouting homophobia, I’d be cheering for you outing them but Shepard has never done that. He’s already hated by the right wing for being the non crazy at the network, Fox needs him so they don’t totally descend into fuckery (I’d love him to go to a different network where I’d feel less guilty about watching him but I don’t think that’s going to happen.) It’s not Shep’s job to speak out about gay rights – he’s a newsreader, not a commentator.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
So because he is an Auntie Tom he gets a pass?
We can lap up endlessly the details of celebrity births, puberty, dates, weddings, money, religion, children, marriages, affairs, divorces, surgeries, second families, substance abuse, disease and death, but this is the line?
Karl Frish points out the absurdity in the New York Daily News:
I watch Fox all the time. Watching Fox doesn’t affect how I fell about gay persons. I happen to be straight but have many gay freinds that I dearly love. I don’t hear gay bashing on Fox. Who cares if Shep’s gay? The people at Fox probably knew it long before you did. They don’t treat him any better or worse than anyone else and that’s the way it should be.
What a bunch of Yenta’s !!!!! This is the kind of crap that can turn people against you. It has nothing to do with your sexual orientation, it has all to do with you.
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
If this is the kind of stuff that turns people against an entire group of people, then their prejudice and hatred was only looking for an excuse to get out. I’m sorry to hear you actually turn to Fox (or any cable ‘news’ channel) for anything. You should find better sources of information instead of filling your head with propaganda and infotainment.
And as someone privy to my blog stats and the search terms that land people here, I can tell you a *lot* of people care about who is gay, including, apparently, yourself.
Why dont you out Janet Napolitano or Hillary Clinton?
Why do you feel the need to respond to every comment? Just because you don’t like Fox News doesn’t give you the right to condemm others who watch it. That is intolerance and prejudice of the highest order, ideals to which you oppose in others but is perfectly fine to engage in yourself apparently. Another point, Judge Bork was denied a seat on the Supreme Court in part because he found no “right to privacy” in the Constitution. Yet, in matters of wishing to keep one’s sexual orientation private, no such right exists with leftish gay dudes with a computer who have a passion for tattling on political opponents private lives. The prevailing rationale for outing is “hyprocrisy” – yet, the outers are more hypocritical than those they out. See above comment about filling one’s head with propaganda and infotainment (watching Fox News) as an example of political intolerance for opposing views. Does a gay person have to be a left wing Democrat only to be in good standing? Or, is it possible to be gay and Republican? I think it is, despite intolerant gay leftists beliefs to the contrary. And, indeed, why not out those on the left? I’m not comfortable with the whole outing thing, as a gay man, and to use politics as an excuse to do so is simple wrong in my view.
As I read your post Brent, all I can wonder is why are you so angry. We have conversations here and express points of view. We don’t spew vitriol, which seems to be what you are doing, IMO.
I have mixed views on ‘outing’, but then again I am from a different generation — college freshman — then some other people who seem to be very pro or anti about it.
I dont think that being gay or bisexual means that you have to belong to a particular church or political party or take your social or moral cues from some gay or bisexual person you barely know.
I dont think that outing people simply because you dislike or disagree with them is a good idea. Their has got to be some other reason involved in why its our business; i.e. hypocriscy.
I figured he was a flamer. At least he doesn’t get married multiple times as a cover, like Cruise.
“Shepard Smith works for Fox News, which has been a major factor in the rise of anti-gay hysteria in this country over the past two decades.”
Your agreeing with this is what motivated you? Give me a break.
The notion that Fox News is in any way responsible for a rise in “anti-gay hysteria” over the last 20 years is utterly absurd. First, Fox News is not in the least anti-gay, and second, there has been no rising anti-gay hysteria in this country during the last 20 years!
Grow up and get over you anti-conservative hysteria.
I think you hate conservatives and would do anything to discredit them……it seems “you are not saavy, on who is really gay, and who has great power” because you have not reported on the “gay fossils”
Karen