(Community Matters) updated Ken Mehlman has finally come out. Anyone who finally comes out of the closet should be welcomed with love into this community, and this isn’t mutually exclusive from accountability for their previous behavior, especially how they’ve treated others. I appreciate that he’s seriously engaged in marriage equality advocacy.
it’s up to others much wiser than me (some would say only a divine being) to determine if his marriage equality advocacy is adequate penance.
Community Matters 
Eugene,
I’ve waited a day to respond to this to let my initial fury pass. The idea that the gay community should immediately welcome Ken Mehlman with love and forgiveness is abominable. We’re talking about a man who diligently and purposefully did his utmost to make life worse for gays throughout the United States, all the while knowing that he belonged to the minority his masters were pouring hatred upon. I’m sure there are other terms for this sort of person, but why don’t we go with “ratf@&*er” for now.
And now Mehlman, who ginned up a scare campaign in Ohio, predicated on the “threat” of gay marriage, so powerful that apathetic, mostly apolitical sorta-Republicans streamed to the polls in droves to vote for Bush–now he wants to be part of the community he ratf@&*ed so thoroughly.
No. Hell no. Goddamned motherf@&*ing hell no.
If Mehlman wants love and acceptance and whatever else from the gay community, here’s what he can do, for starters:
He can spend every waking minute for the rest of his life working, for free, on programs benefiting gay youth, gay addicts, and gay HIV/AIDS victims.
He can hand-write a letter to every voter in Ohio, explaining how he lied his ass off to them before the 2004 presidential election and how he did this knowingly and for the worst of reasons.
He can donate his “skills” to the HRC, Lambda, GLAAD, the Service Members Defense League, and any other gay advocacy group that could use them.
Your general idea, that gays who come out, at any age, should be welcomed joyfully by the community is valid–with this one exception. Closeted gay politicians who use their immense power to actively make life worse for millions of innocent gay men and women, those ratf@&*ers should be given no quarter. Before they come out, most gay people do things they’re not proud of: they lie to the people closest to them about who they are, they torture themselves needlessly, they make antigay remarks to fit in, etc., etc. But the actions of political figures like Mehlman aren’t even measured on the same scale of wrongdoing. He wielded enormous power against his own kind, and he did it with malice aforethought. Forgiveness for evil that intense must–MUST–be earned, not just blithely bestowed.
You say in your post that only someone wiser than you, or perhaps divine, can determine whether Mehlman’s advocacy for gay marriage is adequate penance. Bullshit. I’m neither, and I know as well as you do that the atrocities Mehlman helped perpetuate are going to require much more in the way of expiation than some lame, self-exculpating, public “change of heart.”
To hold otherwise would be to say that all the suffering Mehlman directly contributed to was meaningless.
Kip
Kip, we have no idea if it would have been even worse if Ken Mehlman hadn’t been there.
Nevertheless, I don’t profess to know my answer is correct. The one I articulate is just mine – and David Mixner’s and John Aravosis (I haven’t agreed enough with these two guys in a while so this makes me happy)
I’ve sent Ken a note through a mutual friend, thanking him for raising $1mm+ already for the fight against Prop 8. I read this morning in the NYT’s that he’s co-hosting another high-dollar Prop 8 fight fundraiser in Manhattan among Republicans.
I’m not gonna work overtime to quell the voices condemning him. Your position may be right. I’m just following my own heart
I guess if I were a man of real integrity, I’d be willing to extend this same olive branch to Karl Rove – that thought makes my stomach turn. So we know there are limits