The Ethics of "Outing" Anti-Gay Hypocrites

Last week I wrote about the closeted anti-gay Lutheran Pastor who urged his parish to leave the Evangelical Church in America ("ELCA") and used his pulpit to denigrate and pontificate against civil law equality for gay Americans. The story that exposed hypocrite pastor Tom Brock was released by Lavender Magazine, a biweekly for Minneapolis’s gay and lesbian community, and now the magazine has been criticized over its lack of ethics in exposing Brock for the lying bastard that he is in fact. Frankly, I do not understand the misplaced and delicate sensibilities of Lavender Magazine's critics. What about the damaged lives and possible suicides that self-loathing individuals like Brock help cause? These lives mean nothing compared to Brock's privacy? I simply do not comprehend the screwed up logic - if that's what you want to even call it. I am firmly in favor of outing any closeted public official or religious official who uses their position to harm other members of the LGBT community. If they want their "privacy," then stop meddling in the civil rights and privacy of others. I have no problem with closeted officials, clergy or celebrities that take no action against gay rights and/or the lives of others in the LGBT community. However, once they act to take away my rights or denigrate my "lifestyle" to use the disingenuous Christianist euphemism, I'm sorry, but all bets are off and I will do whatever I can to expose them as fraudulent hypocrites. Ask Ed Schrock - I put Mike Rogers onto him after he kept voting against gay rights even as he was looking for gay sex via Mega Phone ads. The Washington Post looks at the outing of Brock (which is a huge issue for me since I have lost people to suicide due to religious based homophobia). I am 100% on the side of Lavender Magazine. Here are some Post highlights:
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The reaction was swift when Lavender Magazine, a biweekly for Minneapolis’s gay and lesbian community, reported in its current issue that an outspokenly anti-homosexual local pastor attended a support group for people who want to remain chaste despite same-sex attraction.
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Many Lavender Web site commentators applauded the story. But among the critics was an unidentified advertiser who wrote she would pull her ads, because “12 step programs, regardless of what is at issue or who attends, are sacred.” National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association board member Michael R. Triplett blogged that the ethics of the reporting were “suspect.”
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Stephen Rocheford, the president and chief executive of Lavender, said the story began with a tip that Mr. Brock attended Faith in Action, the local affiliate of Courage, an international program of the Catholic Church. “We thought that kind of curious given his pronouncements against the gay community for years and years and years,” he said.
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In a particularly controversial YouTube video, since pulled, Mr. Brock, Hope Lutheran’s senior pastor and a cable and radio commentator, suggested that a 2009 Minneapolis tornado was a sign of God’s displeasure because it struck as a Lutheran Church body was voting to approve the ordination of practicing homosexuals in committed relationships.
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Mr. Rocheford said the magazine, with about 130,000 readers, has a policy against “outing” homosexuals. “One exception to the rule is a public figure who makes public pronouncements against the gay community and is in fact a homosexual,” he said, noting that this was the only time he had invoked that exception.
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Father Paul Check, the international director of Courage, said that the reporter “lied” to gain admittance, and that, “as far as I know this is the most grievous breach of our trust and confidentiality in our 27 years of existence.” He added: “I can only interpret this as an effort to intimidate current Courage members or others who might be considering coming to Courage meetings.”
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Again, I'm sorry, but if anyone's ethics are suspect it those of Michael Triplett and similar critics. As for Fr. Check, given the Roman Catholic Church's criminal cover up of child rapists, as a Catholic priest, he has no moral credibility to comment on anyone else's ethics whatsoever.