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A Closeted North Dakota Republican Had His Grindr Messages Leaked After He Voted Against an Anti-Discrimination Bill

 
 
 
The issue of outing another person is always thorny. If Boehning had brought his personal life into and flaunted fraudulent 'family values', I'd say he invited scrutiny and criticism into his personal life. If he didn't do that, I'd be against outing him whether he voted responsibly or not.

That's more of an "ends justify the means" way of doing things, which I won't say is right or wrong; I just don't think I'd have gone there myself. If it's wrong to vote the way he did, it is wrong regardless of Boehning's personal life or perceived hypocrisy.
 
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Boehning, who clarified to the paper he's also attracted to women, added that he voted against the bill because that's what his constituents wanted. "You don't tell everyone you're going to vote one way and then switch your vote another way—you don't have any credibility that way," he said.
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That's a curious view. He didn't say he thought the legislation was a bad idea, just that his constituents thought it would be.

How much credibility does he think he has by hiding one of the most central aspects of his life from the public?
 
krypton iodine sulfur said:
The issue of outing another person is always thorny. If Boehning had brought his personal life into and flaunted fraudulent 'family values', I'd say he invited scrutiny and criticism into his personal life. If he didn't do that, I'd be against outing him whether he voted responsibly or not.

That's more of an "ends justify the means" way of doing things, which I won't say is right or wrong; I just don't think I'd have gone there myself. If it's wrong to vote the way he did, it is wrong regardless of Boehning's personal life or perceived hypocrisy.
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If a person qualifies to be a candidate for Congress, under the GOP label, he doesn't need to flaunt family values. It's assumed he supports the core beliefs of his party.


This is really no different than the standard "Is it cheating?" test.

Could he have been elected to this district's seat, if his constituents knew he was gay? If the broad minded people of North Dakota don't have a problem with it, that should be the end of it.

It's not so much that he was outed as a gay man, it's much worse that he outed himself as a hypocrite. He said he voted against the anti-discrimination bill because his constituents wanted him to. Does this mean he is willing to violate his personal conscience and obey orders?

A Congressman is not obligated to vote for whatever the majority of his district favors. If he was, why would we need a Congress? He is elected to exercise his best judgment. In this case, we have a man whose judgment leads him to believe he can meet for semi-anonymous sex with other men in a state with a population of a little over 700,000 people. The arithmetic and demographics estimate (deduct the under 18 and over 65, and women) there are probably only a few thousand men with similar inclinations in the entire state. How many who live within easy driving distance might be a couple dozen.

How could he imagine none of them would recognise him? That's pretty poor judgment.
 
Metaphor said:
Boehning, who clarified to the paper he's also attracted to women, added that he voted against the bill because that's what his constituents wanted. "You don't tell everyone you're going to vote one way and then switch your vote another way—you don't have any credibility that way," he said.
Click to expand...

That's a curious view. He didn't say he thought the legislation was a bad idea, just that his constituents thought it would be.

How much credibility does he think he has by hiding one of the most central aspects of his life from the public?
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Don't blame me, blame my constituents for making me look like a self-defeating idiot.
 
Bronzeage said:
It's not so much that he was outed as a gay man, it's much worse that he outed himself as a hypocrite.
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Being closeted often results in contradictory behaviour, but it doesn't inherently explain poor voting decisions. If he had voted in favour of measures preventing spousal abuse then went home and beat his spouse, he'd still be a hypocrite, but he may have voted the right way. The issue is not whether a politician is a good person or not, but rather do they vote responsibly. If not, we don't need to go as far as their grindr profile to figure that out. Being Republican may lump you in with certain viewpoints, but it doesn't automatically mean you've brought your personal life into your office.

A Congressman is not obligated to vote for whatever the majority of his district favors.
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The truth is going to end up somewhere in the middle, other wise there would be no need to campaign for the pubic's vote. On matters of human rights policies, pandering to the majority is a bad idea; however, he shouldn't have to be outed for this issue to be raised.

If he was, why would we need a Congress? He is elected to exercise his best judgment.
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Hypothetically, you'd need a representative to vote according to the needs of your constituents because direct democracy would be unwieldy and potentially impractical. I don't know if that's why your system ended up the way it did, but I would think voters would naturally seek to elect people whose judgment skews toward their own views. If that's not what the system was designed for, would there not be more suitable tests for public offices than having the public vote?

In this case, we have a man whose judgment leads him to believe he can meet for semi-anonymous sex with other men in a state with a population of a little over 700,000 people.
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I really don't think you are going to find many people on the face of the planet who exercise great judgment in all facets of their lives. Instead of digging into a person's personal life, it may be better to look at their political career which is probably a more direct indicator of how they will serve. If what you see is bad, you have enough evidence they are not suitable and do not need to go into their personal life. If what you see is good, perhaps their poor personal choices aren't hampering their ability to do their job.
 
Bronzeage said:
krypton iodine sulfur said:
The issue of outing another person is always thorny. If Boehning had brought his personal life into and flaunted fraudulent 'family values', I'd say he invited scrutiny and criticism into his personal life. If he didn't do that, I'd be against outing him whether he voted responsibly or not.

That's more of an "ends justify the means" way of doing things, which I won't say is right or wrong; I just don't think I'd have gone there myself. If it's wrong to vote the way he did, it is wrong regardless of Boehning's personal life or perceived hypocrisy.
Click to expand...

If a person qualifies to be a candidate for Congress, under the GOP label, he doesn't need to flaunt family values. It's assumed he supports the core beliefs of his party.


This is really no different than the standard "Is it cheating?" test.

Could he have been elected to this district's seat, if his constituents knew he was gay? If the broad minded people of North Dakota don't have a problem with it, that should be the end of it.

It's not so much that he was outed as a gay man, it's much worse that he outed himself as a hypocrite. He said he voted against the anti-discrimination bill because his constituents wanted him to. Does this mean he is willing to violate his personal conscience and obey orders?

A Congressman is not obligated to vote for whatever the majority of his district favors. If he was, why would we need a Congress? He is elected to exercise his best judgment. In this case, we have a man whose judgment leads him to believe he can meet for semi-anonymous sex with other men in a state with a population of a little over 700,000 people. The arithmetic and demographics estimate (deduct the under 18 and over 65, and women) there are probably only a few thousand men with similar inclinations in the entire state. How many who live within easy driving distance might be a couple dozen.

How could he imagine none of them would recognise him? That's pretty poor judgment.
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I dunno; They call it the House of Representatives, not the House of People Exercising Their Personal Judgement.

I think that it is OK for a person elected to represent his constituents to vote against his own conscience, if he honestly believes that it is what his constituents want, and that it is in their best interests.

The questionable part is the latter; It is difficult to see how a gay man could consider anti-gay legislation to be in the best interests of his constituents, even if he thinks that it is what they want.

I don't think his decision to represent his constituents, rather than his own conscience, in this case is sufficiently poor as to justify retaliation by his political opponents; and even if it was, I think that exposing a person's private life is a sufficiently severe sanction as to warrant a much greater justification than this.
 
krypton iodine sulfur said:
The issue of outing another person is always thorny. If Boehning had brought his personal life into and flaunted fraudulent 'family values', I'd say he invited scrutiny and criticism into his personal life. If he didn't do that, I'd be against outing him whether he voted responsibly or not.

That's more of an "ends justify the means" way of doing things, which I won't say is right or wrong; I just don't think I'd have gone there myself. If it's wrong to vote the way he did, it is wrong regardless of Boehning's personal life or perceived hypocrisy.
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I'm inclined to think that his voting against an anti-discrimination bill is enough crossing the line to justify outing.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm inclined to think that his voting against an anti-discrimination bill is enough crossing the line to justify outing.
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I'm afraid I don't understand. Because he's gay and was in the closet, he deserves to have it used as leverage against him? Is it because there's a general gay theme to him being outed and his voting record, or could anything from a person's private life be used if they voted against an anti-discrimination bill? Or is it because he voted against an anti-discrimination bill it justifies a breach of conventional ethics? Or is just considered not a problem these days to out people? I'm not defending Boehning himself so much as I just don't think it's a good idea to out people. Perhaps things are becoming much more tolerant for younger generations, but a lot of people grew up with very strong stigmas attached to being gay, and those are very hard to shake off. That's why many have tried to promote a social environment where you just don't out people -- it's not about individuals so much as the idea that people in general can explore or experience their sexuality without getting outed.

I get that politics are often petty, fucked up, and delve inappropriately into people's personal lives, but a political move should be met with political consequences in my book. I've been on the receiving end of such political decisions and I still stand by that. Others do things differently, and again, I'm not here to say it's right or wrong; it's just not how I'd operate, myself.
 
krypton iodine sulfur said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I'm inclined to think that his voting against an anti-discrimination bill is enough crossing the line to justify outing.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid I don't understand. Because he's gay and was in the closet, he deserves to have it used as leverage against him? Is it because there's a general gay theme to him being outed and his voting record, or could anything from a person's private life be used if they voted against an anti-discrimination bill? Or is it because he voted against an anti-discrimination bill it justifies a breach of conventional ethics? Or is just considered not a problem these days to out people? I'm not defending Boehning himself so much as I just don't think it's a good idea to out people. Perhaps things are becoming much more tolerant for younger generations, but a lot of people grew up with very strong stigmas attached to being gay, and those are very hard to shake off. That's why many have tried to promote a social environment where you just don't out people -- it's not about individuals so much as the idea that people in general can explore or experience their sexuality without getting outed.

I get that politics are often petty, fucked up, and delve inappropriately into people's personal lives, but a political move should be met with political consequences in my book. I've been on the receiving end of such political decisions and I still stand by that. Others do things differently, and again, I'm not here to say it's right or wrong; it's just not how I'd operate, myself.
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I agree. If you disagree with a legislator's voting record, then it is fine to vote against him at the next election; or to raise funds for his opponent; or to canvass your neighbours and ask them not to vote for him.

It is OK to say "You should not vote for this guy, because he voted for/against the <whatever> bill, that allows/prevents discrimination against gays".

It is NOT OK to say "This guy has a personal secret he doesn't want anyone to know, but because he voted for/against the <whatever> bill, here are the details..."

It doesn't matter if the secret is an affair he is having with a colleagues wife; that he wears a wig; that he is homosexual; or that he has a pimple on his butt. If he isn't breaking the law, then he has a right to privacy; and if revealing his personal secret(s), whatever those may be, is used as a threat to influence how he votes in the legislature, then that is unacceptable.
 
bilby said:
It doesn't matter if the secret is an affair he is having with a colleagues wife; that he wears a wig; that he is homosexual; or that he has a pimple on his butt. If he isn't breaking the law, then he has a right to privacy; and if revealing his personal secret(s), whatever those may be, is used as a threat to influence how he votes in the legislature, then that is unacceptable.
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What does it mean to have a secret, and why is it unacceptable for people to spread the truth? If the revelation of this secret is that some people who did vote for him wouldn't have, or some people who didn't vote for him would have, then it's valuable that the secret comes out.

Eating meat is not against the law, but imagine a politician elected from an inner-city, left-leaning seat, whose win is partly attributable to a widespread (but false belief) that the politician is a vegan. If he were not, in fact, a vegan, it is right and good that this information is known to the electorate.
 
Metaphor said:
bilby said:
It doesn't matter if the secret is an affair he is having with a colleagues wife; that he wears a wig; that he is homosexual; or that he has a pimple on his butt. If he isn't breaking the law, then he has a right to privacy; and if revealing his personal secret(s), whatever those may be, is used as a threat to influence how he votes in the legislature, then that is unacceptable.
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What does it mean to have a secret, and why is it unacceptable for people to spread the truth? If the revelation of this secret is that some people who did vote for him wouldn't have, or some people who didn't vote for him would have, then it's valuable that the secret comes out.

Eating meat is not against the law, but imagine a politician elected from an inner-city, left-leaning seat, whose win is partly attributable to a widespread (but false belief) that the politician is a vegan. If he were not, in fact, a vegan, it is right and good that this information is known to the electorate.
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But should it really matter? If he's willing to vote for oppressive taxes on meat products and government subsidies for vegetables, then why would what he does in his private life be relevant? If he represents the will of the voters while in public office, then who cares what he does outside of the office?
 
Wait, I'm still trying to figure out why people are saying he was "in the closet" and this stuff was "private". Didn't he put out his PHOTO on a GAY HOOKUP SITE?
 
When a certain class of people is being persecuted by those in power, I hardly see it as wrong for them to try to turn some of the persecution back at the ones doing it.
 
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