Gay political scandals

Many a gay sex scandal reset the course of American history and transformed the way national leaders will be remembered for time immemorial. Until some sudden revelation exposes a member of the. And as history has proven, the allegations alone are often enough to nullify a budding political career, particularly among those who rely on support from conservative voters.

Take a look at 25 politicians to battle gay allegations below. Republican politicians and conservative Christian leaders won’t stop talking about the benefit of “traditional family values” while villainizing and criminalizing the queer community. These high-profile political scandals raise an inevitable question: What is it with conservative male politicians who publicly espouse “traditional family values” while seeking same-sex.

The following 10 pages are in this category, out of 10 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. In , conservative congressman Robert Bauman was caught soliciting sex from a year-old boy. The scandal landed the married father of four on the front page of newspapers across the country. It spelled the end of his political career—and the start of a years-long journey toward self-acceptance.

Learn more about Robert Bauman in this short congressional biography and this Washington Blade interview. Or have a look at his autobiography, The Gentleman from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative , which was published in ; you can read a review here.

In the s, Bauman was a rising star among conservative Republicans of the New Right. In , while seeking reelection, Bauman was charged by the FBI with soliciting sex from a teenaged boy. By , Bauman had rebranded himself as an out gay conservative—a move not welcomed by all in the community. You can read about his new role as an out gay public speaker here and listen to a speech he gave to the Concerned Republicans for Individual Rights the precursor to the Log Cabin Republicans here ; he begins at They would give cash so there was no traceable evidence.

Bauman spoke at the latter. In , Bauman debated Rep. Frank came out publicly the following year to much community acclaim. I thought he was out of the closet; I thought the way I phrased it was simply an acknowledgement of a known condition. In the episode, Bauman mentions two other gay congressmen: the closeted Stewart B.

McKinney and Gerry Studds , who became the first openly gay member of Congress after his homosexuality was disclosed in a sex scandal. Washington, D. Since leaving politics, Bauman has written several books about offshore living and banking, as well as articles and reviews in a wide range of publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times to The Advocate.

He lives in Wilton Manors, Florida, one of the gayest zip codes in the country. When former Congressman Robert Bauman and I recently caught up on the past plus years of his life in preparation for this episode, we discovered we both had the same question. What was he doing in my book? Among the 49 people whose oral histories I included in the original edition of Making Gay History , Bob Bauman is an anomaly.

republican scandal

But he did make gay history. In , the Republican congressman was charged with soliciting sex from a year-old boy in a splashy scandal that drew widespread media attention, not to mention plenty of liberal schadenfreude. It was a stunning fall from grace for the year-old right-wing conservative from Maryland. Since his election to the House of Representatives in , Bauman had quickly risen to prominence as a savvy political player.

He relished being a thorn in the side of the Democrats. But as the scandal laid bare, Bauman had been living a double life. So how did I come to include him in a book about the gay and lesbian civil rights movement? Bauman was born in in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to an unwed mother and adopted when he was six weeks old.

His adoptive mother died when he was 8. And when his father remarried soon after, young Bob was sent off to military school in Virginia.