There’s an old, not terribly meaningful saying in the gay-rights movement that “no matter how far in or out of the closet you are, you still have a next step.” Perhaps, but I propose that we back off and let Ken Mehlman think about his for a while.

Until this week, Mehlman was mostly known for being the wonkish young man who managed George W. Bush’s re-election campaign and then ran the Republican National Committee. Now, he’s mostly known for what he shared with The Atlantic’s Mark Aminder: “Ken Mehlman, President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, has told family and associates that he is gay.”

Well, it’d be tough enough for most of us to have that conversation with Mom and Dad — imagine it with Karl Rove. And Mehlman isn’t going to keep his private life totally private, he tells Ambinder: “he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California’s ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8.”

Unsurprisingly, for many gay and liberal bloggers, that’s far too little far too late. “While it’s nice that Ken has finally come out of the closet as an advocate, it’s really hard to forgive him for the damage he did to the community by working actively against it for pay for years,” writes Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. “That he can coast on the gains for our community by supporting AFER’s stellar work on Prop 8 on the backs of many during his tenure at the RNC who bore the brunt of homophobia, those who died as a result of hate crimes, the activists who were assailed professionally is unbelievable. Yet here we are in 2010 watching it unfold. As a human being Mehlman owes the community a serious apology for fomenting homophobia for political gain.”

“I don’t feel angry as much as I feel pity,” adds Melissa McEwan at Shakesville. “I can’t imagine the self-loathing, the discomfort in one’s own skin, the profound disassociation of self that happens with the subjugation of authenticity behind thin façade, that exists within someone who had the professional life he did. I wish him contentment of the sort that means he will never betray himself, or any other members of his LGBTQI family, again.” No pity at all from Joe. My. God.:

More at Source: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com