The Washington Post’s Well-Meant Homophobia

Very recently, another American soldier was killed in Iraq:

Maj. Alan Rogers, 40, a gay intelligence officer who served on a military transition team that trained Iraqi soldiers, died Jan. 27 in Baghdad from wounds caused by an improvised explosive device that detonated near him while he was conducting a patrol on his Humvee. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on March 14.

For sacrificing his life in the line of duty, the Army posthumously awarded Rogers a Purple Heart and a second Bronze Star.

In the light of the US military’s continuing discrimination against gay servicemembers, it seems very relevant to me that Rogers’ sexual orientation – about which there is no doubt – be included in coverage of his death and obituaries. And yet the mainstream media decided to enforce that closet – and perpetuate the military’s policy – even after Rogers’s ultimate sacrifice:

The Washington Post, National Public Radio and the Gainesville Sun, the local newspaper in his hometown of Hampton, Fla., made no mention of his sexual orientation or his involvement with a group that works to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Lynn Medford, Metro editor for the Post, said the newspaper debated whether or not to disclose Rogers’ sexual orientation and ultimately decided not to include such information as a matter of ethics.

Rogers to some degree “kept his orientation private” and outing him after his death would “take a decision out of his hands,” she said. Rogers had no partner and no immediate family to consult with to determine what his wishes would be, Medford noted.

The only reason Rogers was even semi-closeted to his peers was to protect his career in the military. As treasurer of an organization to end the military ban and with countless sources testifying to his sexual orientation, the decision of the Post and NPR to enforce the closet even after his death cannot be expained except by a view that somehow being gay is shameful or private. I can see why outing someone who is alive and closeted is unethical; inning someone who is dead and was out is a function of utterly misplaced sensitivity, rooted in well-intentioned but incontrovertible homophobia.

We already persecute these gay heroes when risking their lives for their country. For the MSM to maintain the shame, stigma and persecution after their death is unnacceptable. Email Howell at ombudsman@washpost.com to ask for the Post’s defense.

John Paul To Benedict

Amy Welborn rightly wants a deeper treatment of Benedict. Here’s Paul Elie’s 2006 article from the Atlantic:

Whereas John Paul seemed most at home when celebrating mass for 100,000 strangers, Benedict is most himself when among fellow churchmen in Rome. Whereas John Paul made all the world an altar, Benedict’s sphere of action is the compound of churches and offices surrounding St. Peter’s. As a symbol of the papacy John Paul’s popemobile has been replaced by Benedict’s personal theological library of several thousand books, which were photographed after his election so that they could be reshelved in the same order in the papal apartments.

In short, Mr. Outside has been succeeded by Mr. Inside; and the story of Ratzinger’s emergence as the Church’s leader reveals the ways in which his pontificate is likely to affect the Church as a whole. In many ways the central fact of the papacy in the modern age is the gap between the pope’s growing power in the Church and his diminishing influence on the religious lives of individual believers. This gap is one that John Paul and his predecessors sought to close. Under Benedict the gap is open—wide open. He will govern more but matter less than John Paul—and will probably matter less to the lives of individual Catholics than any other pope of the past half century.

She’s Come Undone, Part XXVII

Noonan an Clinton:

What, really, is Mrs. Clinton doing? She is having the worst case of cognitive dissonance in the history of modern politics. She cannot come up with a credible, realistic path to the nomination. She can’t trace the line from "this moment’s difficulties" to "my triumphant end." But she cannot admit to herself that she can lose. Because Clintons don’t lose. She can’t figure out how to win, and she can’t accept the idea of not winning. She cannot accept that this nobody from nowhere could have beaten her, quietly and silently, every day. (She cannot accept that she still doesn’t know how he did it!)