“The biggest sleeping asset in the fight for full gay equality lies in the shadows of the closet. When we live openly, we force those around us to reconsider their negative views of homosexuality”
--Kevin Naff, managing editor of The Washington Blade, in his
Oct. 21, 2005 editorial, “Out, Out Damn Celebs!”
“At large gatherings of extended family, I don't always bring my partner because it's easier to just avoid the stress … When we check into a hotel together, sometimes one of us will hold back in the lobby to avoid those awkward confrontations with the front desk staff … Of course, in an ideal world, full openness at all times would be the reality … But who lives in that place? … Before the sanctimonious among us line up to bash Mary again, they should ask themselves if they're really living an honest life 100 percent of the time, no exceptions. I'm not. Are you?”
-- Kevin Naff, in his May 26, 2006 editorial, “Don't Bash Mary Cheney”
SPLAT!
That's the sound of Kevin Naff throwing himself under a bus for Mary Cheney on Pity Party Boulevard. It's ugly. Turn away, damn it! Turn away and call the queeramedics.
In his May 26 editorial, Kevin Naff, the managing editor of The Washington Blade, one of the country's oldest and most respected gay newspapers, not only defends Mary Cheney's blah, blah-ing and boo, hoo-ing, but also attempts to justify her internal homophobia with his own.
In the three minutes that it took me to read the editorial I lost a great deal of respect for not only Kevin Naff, but also for the Blade. I absolutely, positively believed Naff to be more proud and less afraid of awkwardness than he now admits to being. And I thought the Blade to be above exploiting the insecurities of a few in support of one--one Mary Cheney, who is as warm, sincere and deserving of a big, gay, group hug as a Mitt Romney ice sculpture.
I'm shocked and disappointed by Naff's words because he has never made a secret of how he feels about closeted people, especially those in the public eye. He wants them all out. Immediately.
Last October in an editorial called “Out, Out Damn Celebs!” he wrote, “ When rich, famous, wildly successful Americans refuse to acknowledge their sexual orientation, they contribute to keeping us at the margins of society and send a message that homosexuality is somehow shameful.”
In that editorial, he chided Anderson Cooper for dodging the gay question, “Note to Cooper: I have been a journalist for as long as you have and being open about my sexual orientation has never cost me a job, a story, a source or a promotion.” Then, he took aim at Fox News host Shepard Smith for the same reason, and landed what I think was a very low blow.
“Smith once chatted me up in a New York City gay piano bar, bought me drinks, and invited me back to his place. When I declined, he asked me to dinner the next night, another invitation I politely refused. We sat at the bar chatting and drinking martinis until 3 a.m., our conversation interrupted only when he paused to belt out the lyrics to whatever showtune [sic] was being performed.”
Naff has even taken The Washington Post to task for what he calls “straight-washing”--not reporting the sexual orientation of some of the people it covers. In February of this year he wrote, “The very fact of an interview subject's sexual orientation should not be considered a private issue any more than a heterosexual person who is asked about having a spouse or children.”
Now, just months after banging on and banging down closet doors, he gives the very public Mary Cheney a pass for having a revolving one.
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