Would politics be better if we didn't know (or care) about the personal lives of politicians?
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As a general idea, most people believe a person’s private life is their own and no one else’s business, if they’re not committing any crimes or hurting anyone else. However, like a lot of things in life, it’s not so black and white. The line at whicWould politics be better if we didn't know (or care) about the personal lives of politicians?
As a general idea, most people believe a person’s private life is their own and no one else’s business, if they’re not committing any crimes or hurting anyone else. However, like a lot of things in life, it’s not so black and white. The line at which people will rationalize it becoming “okay” to pry into the sexual activities of someone else is a bit more murky and subjective. For example, by and large, the practice of “outing,” or revealing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent, has long been controversial and severely frowned upon within the LGBTQ communities. Organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign and the Log Cabin Republicans have vehemently opposed outing people who’ve decided to remain in the closet. However, there have been journalists and activists who’ve argued there should be exceptions. Michelangelo Signorile, now an editor-at-large for the Huffington Post, caused considerable debate about the subject in the early 1990s after authoring pieces identifying Hollywood producer David Geffen and publisher Malcolm Forbes as gay men. Village Voice columnist Michael Musto outed Ellen Degeneres and Rosie O’Donnell before either had publicly acknowledged they were lesbians. Both Signoirle and Musto have asserted the private lives of public figures are fair game, especially if it’s relevant to their media coverage, public positions, and official actions, and to not acknowledge this particular aspect of someone’s life is an implicit acceptance that to be called “gay” is shameful. When former New York City mayor Ed Koch died 5 years ago, many of the media obituaries speculated about something they never would mention in their coverage of him while he was alive: Koch is believed to have been a closeted gay man, which he went to his grave denying. This became an especially significant point of conjecture when remembering Koch’s lacking performance as mayor at the start of the AIDS crisis in the city, with people like Signorile arguing it is “Exhibit A” for what happens with powerful people who’re allowed to remain in the closet and vote “against gay rights in part to cover for themselves." This dynamic of private behavior arguably impacting public choices is the nexus by which all media rationales for digging into someone’s life are based. Usually words like judgement, trust, and character are thrown around as justification. Although, it has not always been true, with the press in the past giving politicians and celebrities extremely favorable deference in not covering scandalous material, with these skeletons sometimes being an open secret in famous circles. One of the seminal moments where the old ways fell and the current attitudes took hold, especially in relation to politics and politicians, was the 1988 Democratic primary, and the coverage of Sen. Gary Hart’s personal life. Going into the ‘88 presidential race, Hart was seen as a formidable candidate, the likely Democratic nominee, and possessing a real shot of beating George H.W. Bush. This all changed when reporters for the Miami Herald, acting on an a tip, followed a marketing representative for a pharmaceutical company named Donna Rice to a Washington, D.C. townhouse owned by Hart, where Rice spent the night with him. From there, Hart’s candidacy played out as a high-speed car crash spread over the course of three weeks. Read more