First Look: Kirby Dick’s “Outrage”; New Tribeca Doc Names Names

The poster for “Outrage.” Image courtesy Magnolia Pictures

The vast majority of people who do not keep close tabs on the political rumor mill may find the same level surprise after the film screens as when former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey came out of the closet as a “gay American” and promptly resigned from office (McGreevey and his former wife make appearances in the film) or when conservative U.S. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested for allegedly soliciting a hook up in a men’s restroom stall at the Minneapolis airport. Both are profiled in the movie.

Politicians including Ed Schrock (R-Virginia) who opposed every piece of gay rights legislation that came across his desk during two terms in Congress used an interactive phone dating service soliciting sex with men (the recording is played if a bit inaudibly in the film). And he promptly dropped out of the race for another term. Even back in the Reagan era, the film argues, while the conservatives pushed to remake the U.S. and stamp out the sexual revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s, some of those same right wingers were, in fact, sexually gay on the down-low.

Terry Dolan, the president of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) during the ‘80s, who played a fundamental role in ushering in the conservative era, was also a patron on the dance floor at the Flamingo gay bar in New York.

“This is a man whose raising money to kill us - Terry Dolan,” ACT-UP founder Larry Kramer said about Dolan, in the film. Kramer confronted the conservative activist after he showed up at a gay party. “I said [to him], ‘how dare you come to a party of gay people! And then I threw a drink in his face…” Dolan and other Reagan-era closeted figures were a part of the gay cadre working for the government during the dawn of the AIDS crisis, which received no official Presidential attention until 1987.

Also profiled in “Outrage” are higher profile politicians such as California Congressman David Dreier (R), who is rumored to have a relationship that goes beyond employee/boss with his chief of staff, Brad Smith. Dreier has consistently voted no on gay-related legislation ranging from health to political rights. 2004 Bush/Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman (once outed on Larry King by Bill Maher) is alleged to be in the closet, although at the time, his boss, President Bush, pushed for an amendment to enshrine in the Constitution disallowing gays couples from ever receiving a marriage certificate - even in the few states that currently protect that right.

The Republicans do not have a complete monopoly on closeted gays targeting LGBT issues, according to the film. New York City mayor Ed Koch kept a lover, Richard Nathan, and refused to answer questions about his sexuality, claims Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice in “Outrage,” one of many journalists, political insiders and politicians interviewed in the film. After their relationship ended, Nathan was alleged to feel unsafe in New York and left. Meanwhile, Koch did little to help the AIDS crisis as it gripped the city’s gay community during his tenure, and his former lover died of the disease in 1996.

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Is it OK to out a gay politician who works against gay rights?

	Yes, their hypocrisy should be exposed...
	No, privacy should always be respected...
	It depends on the individual situation...

Read & React: First Look: Kirby Dick’s “Outrage”; New Tribeca Doc Names Names