Is the "closet" something to be ashamed of, or is it a one-way political portal?

And what is a "closet"?

I'm so damned frustrated by the national debate that I don't know the answer. I may have never known. I don't think I was ever allowed to have a closet, and now mine is so cluttered with skeletons that there's no room for me! Windows for closets are one thing, but what about the clutter? Is there any room for the baggage that life carries? Any room for weapons, literal or figurative? Isn't an undefended closet as ripe for invasion as an undefended house? If a man's home is his castle, well, don't castles have closets?

What is a closet? Depends on whom you ask?

Let's start with the guy I tried to answer yesterday, because I don't feel emotionally satisfied with my answer (or the questions he raised):

"Had Foley lived his life openly and been proud of who he is, this never would have happened."

Rogers may be an extreme example, but it doesn't take an extremist to understand that "the closet" is something generally agreed by the forces of political correctness to be a bad thing. A toxic thing, even. Whatever you may think of them, Barney Frank and Andrew Sullivan can hardly be called extremists where it comes to outing people, but they do agree on the profound evils of "the closet."

"It's a terrible place to be, and it's got to be worse if you're a Republican," says Frank.

Ditto for Sullivan, who additionally implies that the closet might account for Foley's apparent preference for teenagers.

If sexual preference is innate, predetermined, and unchangeable, it's a mystery to me why being in "the closet" would in any way facilitate a shift one way or another in what one likes (i.e. announcing to the world what you like is going to change the nature of what you like?) It would seem to me that if "the closet" is characterized by discretion, then a preference for congressional pages might not be the best way to be discreet. But never mind! The closet caused Foley to like pages. Were they more "available" than street hustlers who hang around Dupont Circle? I doubt it. Why he would prefer the former to the latter probably has more to do with Foley's own tastes than whether or not he is open and public about his sexuality, but I'm not a shrink. And shrinks are not supposed to opine about these things. Nor is anyone else. For "the closet" is now considered sacred ground according to the Rules of Identity Politics. If you are not certified as "out" (and approved politically by the forces of penile correctness), then you are "the Other" -- and you have no right to discuss the formation or liquidation of the closet!

Even though the concept is ill-defined, it's clear that being in the closet is a very politically incorrect thing to do, that is, if you are in any way into homosexuality. Heterosexuals can be as closety as they want. They can marry or not marry, engage in the most lurid practices with the opposite sex, and it really isn't considered anyone's business.

Not anyone's business.

Whatever happened to that concept? It was once a garden variety Republican view of things, and when I was a kid, many Democrats thought the same way. Human sexuality was one of those things that was considered so, so personal in nature that it just wasn't considered polite to pry. Unless the person was coming onto you or something, you just didn't care.

In the early days of the gay movement, there used to be a thing called sexual freedom. There was even an organization called the Sexual Freedom League (SFL), and I knew some of the founders. The idea of sexual freedom was that you pretty much had a right to be into whatever you were into as long as you did it only with consenting adults and didn't harm or bother other people. As to "the closet," why, there was of course a right to "come out" in the sense of telling people about what it was that you were into. But such a right included (as all rights inherently do) just as much right not to tell people. What you did with your genitals carried no particular duty of disclosure to anyone (aside from your intended object of desire, of course).

But over the years, the politics of the personal crept into this, and gays began perceiving themselves (and being perceived) as a political special interest group. Identity group politics set in. Everything became political. Gays were targeted for special treatment by the left, and activist "leaders" materialized out of nowhere, claiming the right to speak on behalf of all who had similarly oriented penises. For reasons I have never been able to grasp, if your penis has any desire for members of the same sex, it is said to follow that you should be a socialist in your thinking. Otherwise, you have betrayed not only your penis, but all other similarly situated penises.

(Sorry to be so crude about this, folks, but I am trying to simplify a laborious political process of thought control. Not that I've ever understood it, but I have a stubbornly slow brain.)

So according to gay activist reasoning, "out of the closet" must also mean into socialism. And (especially) out of Republicanism!

To recapitulate, it is not politically correct to be in the closet, and to be both right-of-center and in-the-closet is even more politically incorrect. Therefore, outing conservatives from their closets is the epitome of political correctness.

While I'd like to think the above should be obvious, the Foley scandal seems to be shifting the debate, because certain conservatives have grabbed hold of a left wing idea, and now display a sudden peculiar interest in prying open closets which conservatives traditionally left alone.

Here's Tony Perkins:

"They discounted or downplayed earlier reports concerning Foley's behavior - probably because they did not want to appear 'homophobic,' " said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "The Foley scandal shows what happens when political correctness is put ahead of protecting children."

What gives here?

Is the Family Research Council now saying that gay Republicans should be outed?

That because of what they do with their penises, they belong in the Democratic Party?

Sounds like political correctness to me -- and from a supposed bastion of opposition to political correctness.

Sheesh.

Next thing you know, the people who claim the right to speak for "the family" will be in favor of this obnoxious thing called "The List" that's been floating around.

Um, because "the family" hates "the closet," they need "The List"?

(I never thought I'd see so many people who so hate each other doing so much to help each other.)