'Outrage' Film Is Gay-Bashing in the Name of Gay Rights

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

One thing we're going to miss, in the 21st century, is the quality of mercy.

Life is not, cannot be, just. If it was, children would not die. All but a tiny few of us would roast for our sins. And to quote the lovely Jennifer Nettles, this would be the very last country song.

But if human beings cannot be just, we can be merciful. We have that choice. And not too long ago, folks took mercy seriously. We believed in values like the Golden Rule, and lessons like the Sermon on the Mount. These days, the exercise of mercy is seen as a sign of weakness, or self-delusion.

I've been thinking about mercy today, after reading a review in the daily paper about a new documentary that has been released, called Outrage, in which director Kirby Dick goes around, a la Michael Moore, outing gay conservatives.

I suppose, on an intellectual level, I recognize the rationalization for this intrusion of privacy. A gay public official who votes against gay rights, some of my liberal friends would argue, needs to be exposed. The public has a right to know.

"They have a right to privacy but not a right to hypocrisy," says Rep. Barney Frank, on camera.

Well, I don't buy it.

Isn't it just as hypocritical to show selective tolerance? To reserve compassion only for those gay Americans who have the strength to come out in a still-hostile society? And to deny it to other gay Americans who, for a gazillion reasons having to do with family, faith, shyness, or job security, want to keep their sexual orientation private?

And by putting gay Americans—liberal or conservative, closeted or not—under such leering scrutiny, aren't we treating them all as freaks?

It is not just. It's cruel.

Worst of all, it's adopting the mean tactics of gay-bashing foes. In this particular debate, cruelty is not what we need. We've seen plenty of cruelty.

Enough with the public burnings.

In the years before World War I, my old friend Clarence Darrow was defending union militants charged with bombing nonunion job sites. Then some corporate goons were caught with dynamite, blowing things up to fix the blame on, and discredit, the labor movement.

The press went to Darrow, presuming he would issue a blistering condemnation of the company men. No, he said, they were just victims, like his clients, of an industrial system that was out of control. We needed more understanding, he said. There is plenty of condemnation to go around.

Darrow was right. Condemnation is cheap. What we always need a little more of, is love. And mercy. We remember them. Or should.

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