The Architect of the Bush/Cheney '04 Campaign, About to Come Out of the Closet?

UPDATE: The Atlantic article mentioned below is now available online. Here's Mehlman's statement: "It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life," Mehlman said. "Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago." It's official.

Hold onto your hat, grab onto your knickers, and prepare to be thrown for a loop. Because if the rumors are true, then Ken Mehlman, the architect of the Bush/Cheney '04 re-election campaign and one of the GOP officials who helped orchestrate anti-gay ballot measures across the country ... is about to come out as a gay man.

Man, we all have baggage in our past. But Mehlman's might take the cake.

Mike Rogers, who writes over at Blog Active and starred in a documentary about closeted GOP politicians, Outrage, is breaking the story. According to Rogers, Mehlman is planning on coming out of the closet in an article in The Atlantic. Mehlman will couple it with a fundraising appeal, apparently, for marriage equality.

Though official confirmation from Mehlman is still up in the air, Rogers has been reporting on Mehlman for close to six years, and has noted multiple times that while Mehlman was plotting an anti-gay political strategy with the national GOP, he was in his own personal life completely and totally gay.

So how should the gay community react to this? Is Mehlman the latest Republican Party official to turn over a new leaf when it comes to gay rights? Or is he a man that has had such an unforgivable past, that even his coming out of the closet and supporting marriage equality can't undo the harm that his political work has done to the LGBT community?

It's quite the question. Mehlman, as one of the key pieces to the Bush/Cheney '04 re-election campaign, is responsible for helping put in office one of the most anti-gay Presidential administrations this country has ever seen. President Bush killed hate crimes legislation, showed disdain for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, threatened to write into the U.S. Constitution a ban on gay marriage, and gave federal dollars to people like Maggie Gallagher, the quintessential advocate for hating on LGBT people.

Gulp. This isn't going to be good.

Take a look at the headline that Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God used in describing Mehlman's impending announcement to the LGBT club: "Repulsive Anti-Gay Quisling Homophobic Scumbag Asshat Closeted Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman Is About To Come Out."

And that may be as good as it gets for Mehlman, at least in the short-term.

Mike Rogers, for his part, is even more direct. He wants Mehlman to publicly apologize for working to elect a President who wanted to enshrine discrimination against LGBT people into federal law.

"I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for being the architect of the 2004 Bush reelection campaign. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for his role in developing strategy that resulted in George W. Bush threatening to veto ENDA or any bill containing hate crimes laws," Rogers adds. "I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for the pressing of two Federal Marriage Amendments as political tools. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for developing the 72-hour strategy, using homophobic churches to become political arms of the GOP before Election Day."

I want to hear that from Mehlman, too. But I'm guessing that hell will freeze over first, or that Danielle Staub will have a number one song on Ryan Seacrest's American Top 40 before that happens.

Man, if social conservatives thought that Ann Coulter's appearance at a gay GOP event was enough to cause Armageddon, just wait until they get a load of this. Indeed, I'm not quite sure how I feel about Mehlman yet, and it probably makes sense to wait until the Atlantic's article breaks before really coming to a conclusion on Mehlman's decision to open up the closet door.

But definitely this says one thing: the GOP has a gay problem that's becoming as wide as the Grand Canyon. Will they become a party big enough for LGBT people to be involved, or will they fall back into the arms of social conservatives -- those same social conservatives that Mehlman, as architect of the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign, was all too willing to embrace a few years back.

Photo credit: YouTube/Meet the Press

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