Photo: Gary Noel
As part of our Power Issue, we sent Charles Kaiser into the lion's den -- the still-semi-secret world of gay Republicans working in Washington. At a time when queer GOP staffers are as likely to be attacked by right-wing advocacy groups as they are outed by gay activists, whatever cease-fire may have temporarily existed across the aisle seems to have disintegrated.
Still holding court at the center of Capitol Hill is Rep. Barney Frank (at #2, he is topped on our Power 50 list only by Ellen), who this week made headlines by calling for whichever Democratic presidential candidate is losing to drop out by June 3. Here's his civics lesson about why it's OK to out homo hypocrites:
"If you had pro-life people having abortions, or if Sarah Brady had a gun, there would be no hesitation. Think of any other context in which people would be allowed to blatantly violate the public policies they advocate and say, 'I have a right to keep this secret.'"
The erudite Frank -- often voted the smartest member of Congress by Hill staffers -- cites John Locke’s second treatise on civil government as the "philosophical grounding" for his position.
"Locke says that one of the major arguments for, in effect, representative government is, if the people who make the laws are not subject to the laws, they will make bad laws with impunity," Frank says. "That was a very important principle in the document that was the single most important influence on our Constitution. A basic principle of free government is that rulers must be subject to the laws they make."
Read more about the long history of gays GOPers at Out.com.
> And, on the eve of the nation's most populous state -- sunny California -- handing down a major court decision about same-sex marriage, here's what Gov. Schwarzenegger has to say about it all:
Schwarzenegger said Friday he is opposed to amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
"I will always be there to fight against that," the governor said in San Diego at the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest gay Republican group, as the attendees erupted in loud applause.
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