Aaron Schock's 'Flamboyant,' 'Racy,' 'Ripped Ab Muscles' 'Lifestyle'

Things haven't improved for presumed closet case GOP Congressman Aaron Schock who continues to battle ethics charges and questions about his extravagant spending and "lifestyle" choices such as having a young gay looking "personal photographer" who travels with him everywhere.  Michelangelo Signorile rightly increases Schock's headaches by again looking at Schock's presumed gayness in a piece in Huffington Post.  Note the part about Schock reportedly getting caught showering with another guy.  Here are fun highlights:

For several weeks now, GOP congressman Aaron Schock of Peoria, Illinois, has been at the center of a great deal of negative media attention because of things he has seemed to be -- or is alleged to be -- hiding. 

There's the revelation two weeks ago of his allegedly Downton Abbey-inspired office, which Schock's press secretary tried to keep a reporter from writing about. (The press secretary, days after coming under media scrutiny for his attempt to block the story, resigned after his racist Facebook posts were revealed.)

There's also the sale of Schock's home to a former Caterpillar executive and political supporter for a price well above the market. 

And there are his myriad of trips, some to far-off locales on chartered planes and including a paid personal photographer, which are raising question regarding who paid for them. 

All of this has inspired ethics complaints against Schock in addition to the negative media coverage. But the one thing reporters are not talking about openly -- yet appear to be wink-winking and nudge-nudging about -- is the question of Schock's sexual orientation. This is glaring and curious. 

The possibility that Schock is gay has been discussed openly, both on hundreds of blogs as well in the traditional media. That happened both when Schock, who has voted anti-gay, set off lots of gaydars online and on social media (like when he wore white pants, a magenta gingham shirt and a teal belt to the White House picnic, or when he posed shirtless for Mens' Health) and after former CBS reporter Itay Hod wrote on Facebook that a friend of his, a TV journalist, had told him he'd walked in on Schock and the TV journalist's roommate coming out of the shower together. 

Even the Washington Post, in an opinion piece by Jonathan Capehart, openly discussed Hod's Facebook post, using Schock's name. 

More interesting is how the media runs from this story, refusing to investigate it while looking into all other aspects of Schock's political life -- yet the possibility that he is gay is part of his political life. Just as he's denied wrongdoing with regard to who paid for his office makeover or his trips, Schock denied being gay when I asked him in 2012 in the context of his anti-gay votes. He did not do this by saying, "I'm not gay," but by saying the question was "ridiculous" and pointing to a denial from years past, saying, "I've said that before, and I don't think it's worthy of further response.

The question is relevant because if Schock is gay, then he is a hypocrite, since he voted against the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and has said he was against gay marriage and for a federal marriage amendment. There are few more stellar examples of past possible deceptions that relate to the current stories about Schock.

But whether it's intentional, unconscious, or coincidental, the lack of any overt discussion (or investigation) of Schock's sexual orientation, while wink-wink words keep popping up, betrays a lot.  

As I discuss at length in my next book, the media and many LGBT activists themselves often breathlessly talk about polls that point to increased acceptance of homosexuality and LGBT rights, as if we've nearly won the war. But when the media still views the possibility that someone is gay as, at best, something that would be too damagingly invasive to report on or, at worst, a dirty little secret -- even when it's relevant or interesting to report on -- then we have surely got a long way to go.