Friday, February 18, 2010 two vans parked and waited in the valet circle of the Hilton Hotel in Madison, WI only a few blocks away from the State Capital Building. The occupants of the vans anxiously waited until a few members emerged from the hotel lobby and waved them in. It was then that students from Michigan Tech flooded into the hotel for what was to be Midwestern Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, and Allied College Conference (MBLGTACC) 2010.
MBLGTACC is an annual gathering of college students in the Midwest who are LGBT or supportive. The program started in 1993 with its first conference at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The conference was originally titled the “Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay College Conference,” but was amended to add Transgender and Allies in 1998 and 2001, respectively. In the past, conferences have had over-arcing missions to them; this year, the mission was “Get Real: Confronting Privilege, Provoking Dialogues, and Building New Foundations.” According to the MBLGTACC web site, this mission “means real discussion on racism in the queer community, instead of ignoring it. Get Real means real inclusion of transpeople, not just adding them to the back of our acronym. Get Real means voices will be heard, privilege will be challenged, and lives will be changed.”
The conference was host to over 80 different workshops spread over six different time slots, five of which were scheduled for Saturday. The workshops were all presented by volunteering students and speakers who were themselves attending the conference. The workshops were organized into several different tracks, including Allyship, Faith and Spirituality, Health and Wellness, Politics, Organizing, and Activism, QPOC (Queer people of Color) Issues, Dating and Relationships, Transgender Issues, and University Life.   The workshops included lessons, discussions, and activities, including Jumping In Head First: How YOU Can Start an Activist Group, The Idiot’s Guide to Asexuality, Media’s Marginality: TV’s Effects on LGBT Student Self-Perception, L@s Jot@s y Las Artes (Queers in the Arts), Beyond Binaries: Identity and the Sexuality Spectrum, and Fighting Bible with Bible: Christianity’s Queer Traditions.

When Roy Ashburn, the Republican Congressman from California, was outed by receiving a DUI while leaving a gay nightclub, it was oddly…not surprising at all.  Ashburn, whose anti-gay voting record continues even after the incident, merely joins a long line of conservative, homophobic politicians who have been outed in a homosexual scandal of some sort.  Whether meeting up with their favorite hustler or enjoying leather night at the local gay bar, the far right never ceases to amuse, enrage and shock the general public with secretive homosexual antics.  Why is it that the most actively homophobic leaders are the ones exposed in these scandals?  If those making the principle arguments against homosexuality are any indicator of the integrity of anti-gay rationale, I’d say the future is bright for the gay and lesbian community.
I would like to take this opportunity to address those who are disappointed and angered by Ashburn’s recently revealed sexual orientation.  Perhaps you should be more concerned that he was roaring drunk on a weekday, rather than the fact that he’s gay.  Of all the opinions offered on this scandal, nearly no one has addressed the Congressman’s apparent drinking problem.
However, when the sensationalism of the event wears off, how are we to view these hypocritical, double-life leading politicians?  Many, both left and right, condemn them for lying to constituents.  Some take pity on them and denounce the homophobia that has forced these people, mainly men, to lead a double life.  Either way, Ashburn’s dilemma presents a fascinating ethical dilemma.  How exactly should the gay, lesbian and straight ally community receive the news of Ashburn’s scandal?  Should they reach out to their new, however homophobic, community member?  He is, after all, the recipient of the same discrimination which unites them all.  Or should they denounce him as a hateful, twisted politician who persecutes the very group he identifies with?
Admittedly, my first reaction upon hearing about Ashburn’s DUI-outing incident was pure, unbridled amusement.  There is supreme satisfaction when such a fervent anti-gay politician reveals the hypocrisy that underlies so much of the homophobic rhetoric; his personal website declares him a “champion of openness [and] accountability”.  Years of personally promoting a homophobic agenda lost all of its legitimacy the night he was arrested.  Now, by his own admittance, he is merely a vehicle for the majority of his constituents, despite having personally experienced the repercussions of his legislation.  I’m guessing then, if the majority wished to legalize sacrificial cat killing, Ashburn would actively promote it.  Who cares about the cat owners: minorities don’t need to be fairly represented, right? Ashburn, along with Mark Foley, Bruce Barclay and Troy King, create a sometimes sad, sometimes humorous collage of undercover gay Republicans.  Like an absurd, dark comic strip, conservative men-in-power relieve us from their predictable politics with the scandalous color of secretive homosexuality.  It is a classic scenario, the politician fallen from grace, that so deliciously entertains us.
After I had a good laugh (and forwarded the news to all my friends) I began to consider the incident more closely.  When I thought of the deep confliction Ashburn must have been experiencing all the years leading up to being outed in such a public, humiliating fashion, I did pity him.
The hypocrisy that now surrounds Ashburn is a testament to the complex and dangerous monster of homophobia.  Although Ashburn’s justifications for his politics may never be fully understood, it is all too easy to make the connection between his anti-gay efforts and the persona he assumed to hide his sexual orientation.  It’s also encouraging (or perhaps disturbing) to consider how many other vehement anti-gay activists may be facing similar struggles with their sexual orientation.
However, it has been shown time and time again that no amount of anti-gay activism can truly change a person’s psyche; it only makes their struggle more painful and ultimately more damaging.  The closet is not a place of healing; it offers nothing but comfortless solitude.
When we see Roy Ashburn’s political role reduced to a puppet of a destructive majority, his family forever transformed, and his credibility beyond recovery, it requires us to respond with compassion.  It isn’t precisely known what extreme societal or familial pressure Ashburn faced throughout his life caused him to repress his sexuality.  The amount of guilt and fear he felt cannot be measured.  To label Ashburn as a hypocrite or bigot is to oversimplify the complexity of human emotion.
And yes, politics are emotion.  Values are emotion.  To separate emotion from any human activity is to absolve that very activity of its humanity.  Roy Ashburn could not make this separation and the fact that he professes to be able to legislate without the foundation of emotional and moral commitment is pitiful.
All of this caused by a bizarre, unnatural aversion to gay people.  The closet has never looked darker.

October is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally History Month, and National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11. It is a day for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender as well as allies to show support for those brave enough to be open about their sexuality, an open discussion about GLBTA issues as well as simply raising public and government awareness about the GLBTA community. Here at Michigan Tech, Keweenaw Pride is sponsoring the events for National Coming Out Day.

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