The Politics of “Coming Out” and “Outing”
     “Coming out” (of the closet) and “outing” are two important strategies of “gαy liberation”.
     ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ academics Warren Johansson (Act Up) and William A. Percy (Lesbian and gαy Caucus of the American Historical Association) consider these terms to be “two sides of the same coin.” In contrast, writer Philip Gray claims that “the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ is not coming out of the closet, he’s coming out of day care.”
     In the Collective lexicon, coming out is the conscience-raising process that transforms the “ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ” into a “gαy” man and binds him to the Collective.
     The commonly acknowledged stages of the coming out process are as follows:
     Stage 1— The acknowledgement by the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ that his condition is a fixed component of his personality — his being.
     Stage 2— The self-acceptance and celebration of his new “gαy” identity.  gαy is Good! The elimination of feelings of guilt and self-hatred.
     Stage 3— The ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ/gαy man shares his coming out with other people including other ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs, friends, family and other associates.  He tells his coming out story to anyone who will listen. Common outward manifestations of his new status include participation in “gαy” public functions including parades and other types of public demonstrations, the joining of a “gαy-friendly” church, and the wearing of Jєωelry or distinctive clothing that marks him as a “gαy” man. The neophyte begins to immerse himself in the “gαy” sub-culture. His new social milieu opens the door to an endless supply of sex partners whom he doesn’t have to pay. Drug taking initiates him into the more overt criminal features of the “gαy” world.
     Stage 4 — The final stage, that of coming out politically, is the most important if not for the individual at least for the Collective, since without it the Collective would cease to exist. As a “gαy” man, the individual must recognize his debt to the Collective and devote himself to the fight against societal homophobia and the struggle to end the oppression of “his people.”  “gαy Liberation” becomes his reason for living.
     Thomas F. Driver, a Methodist and former Paul Tillich Professor of Theology and Culture at the Union Theological Seminary in New York described coming-out as a “confessional experience.”
     “Confessional performance is an early, necessary step in the liberation of any oppressed people. I am speaking of acts in which people openly proclaim their identity as members of an oppressed group, and confessing loyalty to the cause of liberation,” said Driver.
     According to Rueda, once the transformation of the “gαy” man is complete and loyalty to the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ borg assured, he is then ready to serve as a role model for ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs in the early stages of the coming out process.
     In the international anthology Coming Out, New York political activist/editor Stephen Likosky affirmed the importance of coming out as a symbol of opposition to “the authority of the traditional family, religious doctrine, and state power.”  He compared the “gαy movement” with “other great freedom movements of the twentieth century” including the anti-apartheid, civil rights and feminist movements, but with one significant difference:

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The gαy revolution, however, is unique in at least one important way. It has the potential of liberating the homoerotic component repressed in all of us, and in doing so, transforming social relations as never before experienced in history. The vision of a world peopled by polysɛҳuąƖ individuals and freed of rigid sex roles is today no longer confined to sci-fi literature. Rather, it is a vision for which…many of us around the globe find necessary to struggle if the human family is to be preserved.

     “Outing” unlike coming out is not based on choice. It unclosets the closeted, whether they want it or not. It has become a powerful political weapon used by activist groups like Queer Nation and Act Up against those ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs who refuse to “come out” on their own volition, and especially those who are known to harbor feelings of indifference or even hostility toward the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ Collective.
     Historically, exposure of an individual as a sodomite was connected with transgressions of the moral laws against which the State and Church applied sanctions. Today it is being used by sodomites as a means of exposing closeted ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs of prominence including entertainers, celebrities, socialites, politicians, wealthy entrepreneurs, corporate executives, sports stars, high clergy and other power brokers — living and dead. AIDS has also played a role in indirectly outing closeted ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs from all walks of life including the priesthood and religious life.
     In Outing—Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence, Johansson and Percy expressed enthusiasm for the practice:

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Outing represents a pressure brought by the visible and vocal portion of the Queer Nation on the invisible, silent, prestigious minority, as it were a demand that the elite of our community recognize their allegiance and act to further the collective interests of our nation to which — by birth, socialization, or choice — they belong. This practice stems from the growth of political consciousness that sees all of us as sharing a common fate and as responsible for one another. If it succeeds, it will magnify our symbolic presence at the upper levels of society and make the public aware of how many prominent individuals prefer tabooed sɛҳuąƖ pleasures.

Both men agreed that outing has “a historic mission,” and is a “necessary and irreversible process whereby the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ culture or subculture, driven underground by religious intolerance, is regaining or asserting its public identity and image.”  The authors contend that once the “postmedieval anachronism of conformity and unanimity in sɛҳuąƖ life” is destroyed, the need for outing will be relegated to “the dustpan of history.”
     On the subject of outing ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ clergy, Johansson and Percy noted that, in recent years, the only clergy that have been outed are clerical pederasts, but that none have been outed on purely “ideological grounds.”  “The outing of a living American cardinal might be beneficial to the queer nation as the outing of a Supreme Court Justice, and it can scarcely be believed that there are none,” they concluded.
     In his “Manifesto,” Goss characterized outing as a manifestation of “transgressive politics.” He quoted “gαy” philosopher Richard Mohr who believes that the practice does not violate privacy rights “since it is maintained by the homophobic force of society.”  Goss concurred that outing is a legitimate means of fighting oppression and those “who would betray their own,” and that unless it “violates an overall dignity value, it does not violate private rights.”
     Goss suggested that one of the services that “Queer Christian-based communities” may choose to perform after a period of “reflection” and “dialogue” is the outing of “church leaders who have taken active roles in leading homophobic hate campaigns.”
     Goss gave an excerpt from a letter that was written by a “gαy” priest to Rev. Robert Williams, author of Just as I Am — A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud, and Christian, and the first openly ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ priest in the Episcopal Church.
     According to Williams, “his friend, queer priest Zal Sherwood” told him he had slept with “so many closeted clergy including three closeted bishops” and that he had “a very good memory for detail.”  Sherwood said he was anxious to out them and sought Williams’ advice.
     Williams replied that if these priests and bishops are doing something to actively harm us (gαys), outing is in order. If they are just living their lives quietly, it is not. However, he agreed with Sherwood that closeted gαys harm all gαys and they perpetuate homophobia. Williams concluded that “they owe us something,” and urged Sherwood to use as his guide — “what would be the most loving thing to do?”
     Ordained by the openly ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ Episcopalian bishop John Spong of the Newark, Diocese, Williams died in 1992 at the age of 37 of AIDS-related complications.
     Williams demonstrates the love-hate relationship that exists between the Collective and all organized religion to which we now turn our attention.