Former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman Comes Out: I'm Gay

Ken Mehlman, who headed the Republican National Committee between 2005 and 2007, has come out in an interview with the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder:

Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked 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.

"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."

Mehlman headed the RNC when the Republican Party was pushing anti-gay initiatives and increasingly speaking out against marriage equality. Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and Mehlman's longtime friend called Mehlman's coming-out "significant," but added that he remains opposed to gay marriage.

Comments

[shaunlandry]

02:51 AM on 09/02/2010

Your "Travels". Your "Progress". Your "Journey". Gosh. Your flowery talk makes me want to kick you where you cahones *should have been from 2005-2007*. Oh wait? You wouldn't have a job and there was no money to made doing the right thing then? Oh right. Our bad. We *forgive you* (eyeroll)

There is being in the closet afraid to tell your mom. Then there is *this*

Here is something you can do if you wish to absolve yourself from the years of damage you have done to millions of people Mr. Mehlman:

Take all the riches you made to screw over people just like you and give it all to overturning Prop 8 and stop talking. Just write a check for all the money you made from 2005-2007 then walk away. You don't get away this easily in my mind sir. You may have made your life a living hell. But you also decided to take millions of people along in you "Hell Journey".

[Zino Macaluso]

03:44 PM on 08/31/2010

I welcome Ken Mehlman's epiphany and his newfound respect to the advancement of LGBT causes. And, as soon as he has spent the next 20 years promoting the LGBT rights he so eloquently and effectively destroyed, I'd be pleased to listen to anything he has to say. Until then, please don't play me (us) for a sucker, dirtbag.

[kcsandy]

06:04 PM on 08/28/2010

This is a bit off topic, but I have to say I am really unhappy with the number of comments that are being deleted. I can understand deleting comments full of profanity or blatant hatred, but I've tried to reply to dozens of comment that were neither of those only to discover I was replying to a comment already deleted. I'm beginning to wonder why I use this site at all.

[guggabear]

03:37 PM on 08/28/2010

Mehlman is gay. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but with the damage that this guy caused, I can't help but think of Leo Felton, who is a white supremacist with a black father.

[rgateman]

02:47 PM on 08/28/2010

So what? A gay repubeliklan teabagger that lied about himself and what he is for years. Oh say it ain't so. Maybe he can get some consolation from Larry 'I'm still not gay' Craig.

[SenorainTexas]

02:39 PM on 08/28/2010

Has Faux News reported on Ken Mehlman's coming out as gay?

[Wasp35]

03:06 AM on 08/29/2010

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/25/republican-party-chairman-ken-mehlman-admits-hes-gay/

[bamaliberal]

12:52 PM on 08/28/2010

Ken Mehlman needs to donate every penny of money that he earned while promoting hate and limiting the human rights of gays and lesbians. There are many worthwhile organizations that he could help in supporting younger GLBTs who are struggling with their sexual orientation. On the one hand I can sympathize with Mehlman, on the other I am short on forgiveness of him. He used his position of power and political skills by getting in the bed with Karl Rove. He promoted homophobia preying on the fears of the ignorant as a wedge issue during the 2004 elections. Give back to your community Ken then you will be welcomed into the community you have so wronged.

[Totto]

04:03 PM on 08/28/2010

Sorry. I won't welcome him, after the damage he's caused. F&F!

[Carpool Kathleen]

05:26 PM on 08/30/2010

I doubt he'll be donating his $4,000,000 condo to help undo the damage he helped create. He says he's "at peace".

It would be great if he threw himself into helping his gay brothers and sisters now...but I wouldn't expect much.

[Aaror]

08:17 AM on 08/28/2010

Republican Leader...Gay...Again,
Why is this news, we know all the Republican leadership are gay, otherwise they wouldn't be in politics...
Democratic males get in politics for women, Republicans buy women, so the only reason they get into politics is for the men.
Nothing new here...

[HolyPinkUnicorn]

06:06 AM on 08/28/2010

Is this really that surprising? How many of these bigots are actually just closeting some secret they don't have the guts to admit publicly lest it call their political loyalty into question.

Reminds me of the late comedian Bill Hicks talking about Jesse Helms; "You know anyone that far to the right has got to be hiding a very deep and dark secret."

[Satish Dass]

08:09 AM on 08/28/2010

Glenn Beck will soon come out as "black."

[stepheng777]

04:52 PM on 08/28/2010

why not? Bill Clinton did!

[rick91]

01:37 AM on 08/28/2010

Here is why Mehlman "arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently".

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/08/cnn-poll-is-first-to-show-majority.html

The first poll to show a majority of Americans support gay marriage.
And, yes, the poll did COME OUT "fairly recently".
Last month, in fact.

You can always count on Republicans to support civil rights.
LONG after everyone else has.

[stepheng777]

04:54 PM on 08/28/2010

Lincoln outlawed slavery. Happened to be a repub. They taught you a lot in school.

[BluePrideStephen]

06:06 PM on 08/28/2010

Your snarky reply gives 'Stephens' a bad name... Look up Bull Moose Party and school yourself. This period saw another progressive party grow (Roosevelt was too progressive to get the elephant nomination) while the Dems and Republican'ts actually crossed politically (right to left/left to right) with the Dems becoming liberal and the repub sycophants genuflecting to big business. They've done so ever since. Don't buy all the repub revisionism and don't try to correct others until you know history. And certainly don't spew it ignorantly telling another factually inaccurate info. They aren't now anything like the party of Lincoln.

Lincoln was the last good repub...

[The Evil Few]

11:37 PM on 08/27/2010

America. Equality for All. Land of The Free. Home of The Brave.
Ken Mehlmen seems Very Brave and Very Proud!!
We are all Americans. :)

[manray05]

12:13 PM on 08/28/2010

Very Brave and Very Proud? He's neither.

Mehlman worked as architect of the 2004 and 2006 elections which used gays and marriage as issues to drive voters to the polls. After throwing his own under a bus, now he wants to be welcomed? That's not going to be easy.

Ken Mehlman was a coward then and I suspect will remain one. He's rich, nothing more.

[Montaignelover]

02:19 PM on 08/28/2010

Two serious issues with your post: first of all, this is not a society that provides equal opportunity for all of its citizens (our class war is waged primarily through the discrepancy in property taxes funding schools- assuring rich neighborhoods have good schools, poor neighborhoods bad ones!).

Secondly- can we call the country with the world's highest prison population the "land of the free"? That strikes me as intensely Orwellian.

Have a fantastic day.

[Daisy Duke]

10:50 PM on 08/27/2010

Oh I see now! Liberals are only tolerant if the gay man is a democrat, if the racist is black or if the religions is anything but Christian. I'm catching on....

[gussiejives]

12:23 AM on 08/28/2010

Actually the idea is that we're only tolerant if a gay man didn't promote anti-gay policies. That's called hypocrisy.

[rick91]

01:28 AM on 08/28/2010

No.
You're not "catching on" at all.
Still just as stu pid as ever.

[Roger Lakins]

08:58 PM on 08/27/2010

I am relieved for Ken Mehlman that he has finally been able to accept himself more fully, while I deplore the stands that he supported which were inimical to the LGBT citizens of our nation. People like Mehlman have suffered from a syndrome that has been sometimes called "The Best Little Boy in the World" after Andrew Tobias's book in which he so movingly describes his extreme discomfort accepting his sexuality because he did not want to lose the love and approval of family and society. Many young people who grow up in an environment in which their family and religion mistakenly believe that sexuality is a matter of choice try desperately to deny or resist their need for intimacy with a member of their own gender. Acceptance and validation are so psychologically crucial to all humans. Rather than condemn the poor man for hypocrisy, I would hope we could look at his case with compassion. His work furthering the toxic anti-gay Republican agenda was most probably very sincere and very hopeful - Hopeful that if he could be part of slaying the dragons of "temptation and sin" he had been taught that his sexuality were -- somehow he could be given the grace and gift of inner peace and a "straightened" orientation. For someone emerging from that hideous place of shame and darkness, what a relief to accept that God made him just as he is and loves him unconditionally. Sexuality is a gift from the Creator.

[MagicalPossibilities]

11:36 PM on 08/27/2010

I do try to look at people who struggle with their own feelings with compassion, but when they use their hypocrisy to deny other people their rights from a position of power it is very hard to do.

[BartRoberts]

12:49 PM on 08/28/2010

Agreed. While I might have compassion for the average foot-soldier, for this "Fuhrer" of the GOP, who led the charge to destroy others, I will always have nothing but disgust and contempt.

[roonie4]

09:37 AM on 08/28/2010

This is a beautiful way to look at this person. Many times, gays who do not accept themselves yet are trying so hard to be what they think others want them to be. If everyone could look at people with kindness and love, this world would be a lot different. Thanks for your words Roger.

[theleftwingblows]

08:30 PM on 08/27/2010

maybe he could ask Barny frank out

[rgateman]

02:56 PM on 08/28/2010

and you are a teabagger because???

[bamaliberal]

05:22 PM on 08/28/2010

He is beneath going out with Ken, is in a monogamous relationship. How 'bout Larry Craig?

[Nerdiac]

07:43 PM on 08/27/2010

He was inspired by the blue ranger.