Hey, Gays: Leave Schock Alone

[DonViejo]

James Kirchick

The scandal that caused Aaron Schock to step down on Tuesday had nothing to do with his sexuality—but you wouldn’t know that by the way the gay community reveled in his demise.

Soon-to-be ex-Congressman Aaron Schock has much to dread about a potential criminal probe into his lavish spending. But for now he’s having to deal with an equally, if not more fearsome foe: the bitchy gay community.

Ever since he stepped onto the national scene as a 27-year-old congressman from Peoria, Illinois, Schock has been trailed by rumors that he is gay. He seemed to check all the boxes: snappy dresser, obsessive concern for his physique, the lack of a female love interest. The rumors have never been confirmed, but Schock didn’t do himself any favors.

Spending $40,000 to redecorate your congressional office with bright red walls in the style of an English country home ripped from the set of Downton Abbey is not the best way to scuttle speculation about one’s sexuality. Nor is throwing a 30th birthday party for yourself along an 1980s theme and handing out single, bedazzled white gloves a la Michael Jackson as party favors (thanks for the gift, Congressman).

Gay men want Schock to be gay because, well, they want him.
Asked the question up front, Schock has denied that he’s gay, but gays have treated his protestations with the same seriousness as people in Northern Ireland respond to Gerry Adams’s denials that he was ever a member of the IRA.

The explanation for Schock’s presumed closetedness isn’t that hard to understand: His party remains largely unwelcome to openly gay officials (only two Republican congressmen, Steve Gunderson and Jim Kolbe, have been elected while being openly gay), and it’s doubtful that Schock’s coming out would (literally) play well in Peoria.

Nearly every gay man I know in Washington, D.C., knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who had sex with Schock. The height of this innuendo was reached last year when Itay Hod, a freelance journalist, posted a note on his Facebook page relating a story from an anonymous friend who claimed that he’d witnessed his roommate exiting the shower with an unnamed Republican congressman. Hod didn’t name Schock in his post, but he didn’t have to. “Even though news organizations know this guy is gay, they can't report it because he hasn’t said so on Twitter,” Hod complained. This hearsay account then became the subject of an entire story in The New York Times.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/19/hey-gays-leave-schock-alone.html