In and Out

Ever since the vice presidential debates, the airwaves have been abuzz with the ins and outs of Mary Cheney’s sexuality. The Kerry campaign claims that the daughter of the vice president is “fair game” and that the point in twice bringing her up was to praise Dick Cheney for his family’s tolerance. The Republican party may cringe at the extended airtime given to the controversial topic, but—as William Safire implied in his Oct. 18th editorial column in the New York Times—that they might have scored the final point on this one: The Democrats’ lip service was decidedly uncouth, and that’s not likely to go over well in those Midwestern swing states. And pro-Kerry activists like Michael Rogers, of blogactive.com, can tap his fingers gleefully and cross off one more person from the list of Gay Republicans Who I Must Out.

Rogers is one of the architects of the current movement alive on Capitol Hill to publicly out all gay politicos whose work is perceived to hinder the progress of gay rights legislation. This phenomenon is a complicated but, I think, ultimately sinister plot that hinges on shame and guilt. The former is in relation to mainstream society, and the latter is in regards to other members of the minority group. Both raise questions that lie at the heart of all of what we know as our “identities.” The constantly shifting balance of powers renders most of us minorities in some respects, at some times. Given the fluctuation, how do we negotiate the competing claims? To which identities do we assign primary, secondary, et al, importance, and to which do we feel most bound?

The most interesting bit of the frenzy around Mary Cheney has more to do with societal context and less to do with familial love. Both parties, of course, agree on this point. But what I am interested in are the dimensions of the views from the inside, whose measurements are similar across the dividing lines of identities. So while the lived experiences of black/Muslim/Jewish/Latino/Asian/queer/female residents of the United States differ in qualitatively significant ways, something remains constant for all of us. For Harvard students who are members of so-called “minority groups,” what are our options?

Using Mary Cheney as a test case, let’s examine the two clear-cut camps. The first is choosing to live with constant consciousness of ourselves and our position vis-a-vis lines of oppression, and the second is to act as the individual within who is blissfully unaware of inequality. Clearly I am simplifying matters, but I think the camps represent the two poles between which we wander: paranoia and ignorance.

Michael Rogers’ “outing” brigade illustrates his proclivity towards the former, his insistence on its superiority and his willingness to impose it by force. The problems with his tactics are numerous: disrespect for privacy, insensitivity to personal choices and so on. Furthermore, though, they highlight the deep divide between the two camps. His actions are driven by a conviction that Mary Cheney, as a member of an oppressed group, should act out of loyalty for her cohorts. She should be a good ally and use her position of relative power to insist upon full marriage benefits for same-sex couples.

That argument, however, is contingent upon Cheney buying into an ideology that necessarily sees a weighty connection between herself and, say, a working-class male immigrant whose primary relationships are with men. The ideology demands that we see ourselves as agents only insofar as we are positioned in a social web. Whatever we do, whatever political platform we speak for, we do so as a composite of identities. And if we happen to be Mary Cheney, we do so as the lesbian daughter of a wealthy white vice president of the United States.

Still, I happen to agree with Rogers that there should be a sense of loyalty to the similarly disenfranchised, even though I despise his tactics. And even if the privileges of certain identities (wealthy, white, powerful) outweigh the drawbacks of others (gay), it is the responsibility of the relatively privileged to act mindful of those who are not.

So, sexy as it sounds to claim the free radical (or in this case, conservative) voice inside and act as if the egalitarian future is now, the ties that bind are still binding. And for the time being, maybe we can look for freedom elsewhere.

Ilana J. Sichel ’05 is a literature concentrator in Dudley House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.