Coming Out
In August 2010, Mehlman revealed that he is gay. Prior to this revelation, rumors about Mehlman's sexual orientation had circulated since at least 2004. In May 2006, Mehlman denied that he was gay, telling the New York Daily News, “I’m not gay, but those stories did a number on my dating life for six months.” On November 8, 2006, comedian Bill Maher made an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live, during which he referred to Mehlman as a closeted gay man. The incident became controversial because CNN edited out Maher’s comments in later taped editions and removed the reference to Mehlman's sexual orientation from the transcript of the show. The day after Maher's comments, Mehlman announced he would step down as chairman of the RNC (although reports said that his resignation had been expected for some time).
Almost four years later, in an article in The Atlantic, Mehlman stated that he is in fact gay, and that he plans to be an advocate for legalizing same-sex marriage. According to the New York Times, Mehlman's "announcement makes him apparently the most prominent Republican official to come out." This disclosure followed years of him avoiding and denying inquiries about his sexual orientation. During his RNC chairmanship, Mehlman supported social positions of the Republican Party, including opposition to same-sex marriage. Mehlman claimed that he could not have gone against party consensus, but acknowledged that, had he come out of the closet earlier, he could have impacted Republican efforts to pass state initiatives and referenda banning same-sex marriage.
Read more about this topic: Ken Mehlman
Famous quotes containing the words coming out and/or coming:
“Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. The argument goes that, if people could see just how many of us there are, some in very important places, the negative stereotype would vanish overnight. ...It is far more realistic to suppose that, if the tenth of the population that is gay became visible tomorrow, the panic of the majority of people would inspire repressive legislation of a sort that would shock even the pessimists among us.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“We can’t do anything.... They just die and die and die, and they keep coming and coming and coming.”
—Florence Parent, U.S. physician. New York Times, p. 1A (July 22, 1994)