"The lady doth protest too much"—at least that seems to be the case with many outspoken anti-gay rights politicians. A new website, GayHomophobe.com, takes aim at these very people in positions of power who spout an anti-gay agenda only to be outed later. It also tracks how many days it's been in between each outing and provides a link to information on the circumstances of the allegations.
The website, which launched last September, started as a humorous way to make a statement about what Sai [no last name] told Windy City Times he keeps seeing play out in the national media, people in positions of power who are voraciously touting anti-gay platforms only to be living closeted gay lives themselves.
He started the site a few days after the outing of Puerto Rican Sen. Roberto Arango. Arango denied posting semi-nude photos of himself on the gay app Grindr, but quickly resigned from his position.
"Of course I do have very serious perspectives on gay rights and so forth. ... That's part of the conversation that is already going on in public, and this is a humorous take on it," said Sai. "It's meant to be very funny."
Sai, who is queer and a former Chicago resident, does not consider himself to be an activist, but he does believe that GayHomophobe.com can add something to the conversation through its humorous perspective. He compares the humor of the site and what it is trying to express to that of Ruben Bolling's 2007 "Tom the Dancing Bug" comic announcing the new gay stereotype.
Although the site is meant to make people laugh, Sai said he does hope that it will contribute to the larger picture and make it more difficult for people in a position of power to have a platform of homophobia because it will help add to the increased political and cultural pressure on them.
GayHomophobe.com is not just a site for shaming politicians and others in positions of power who turn out to be gay. Sai uses a star system to indicate a person's actions following his outing. Several people included on the website have actually ended up coming out and speaking in favor of gay rights.
Sai gave the example of John Smid, former leader of ex-gay organization Love in Action; Ken Mehlman, who served as campaign manager for George W. Bush's re-election campaign; and former California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, all of whom are listed on the website with rainbow-colored stars next to their entry to indicate that they have since completely flipped on the issue of gay rights and become LGBT-rights advocates.
"It's important to show that people can change. That getting outted is not the horrific end that many of these people perceive and you can be a conservative, like Roy Ashburn is, he's still a Republican, you can be a conservative and you can be out, be who you are, and not have to be a closet case."
Still, for all the listings of individuals who have come out proudly and changed their stance on gay rights, there are many more who haven't.
There are also several people who are not on the list that people might expect to see there. Sai points to his criteria. First, the person has to be in some position of power, politically or socially. Second, they have to be using that power to promote or support an anti-gay agenda. And, third, they have to turn out to be closeted. All three criteria have to be met to be included on the list.
As he'd hoped, the site is gaining a nice momentum online, being mentioned often on Twitter as well as garnering almost 400,000 unique page visits and 600,000 page hits. It has also added two theme songs: Katie Goodman's "Probably Gay" and Jonathan Mann's "Gay Homophobe."
Sai is not profiting from the website. Instead, he said that 100 percent of the net proceeds from advertising are donated to Truth Wins Out, "an organization fighting the ex-gay bullshit espoused by so many homophobic closet cases in power." The last donation totaled $1,520 and he is expecting the next donation to be nearly $400.
