Forty-year old Maj. Alan Rogers died in Iraq last January, but the papers didn’t start gabbing about him until recently.
While the media celebrated this military man’s death, they never mentioned his homosexuality, which leads journo Chris Johnson to conclude the media’s in collusion with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The press, however, says it’s a matter of privacy:
The Washington Post, National Public Radio and the Gainesville Sun, the local newspaper in his hometown of Hampton, Fla., made no mention of his sexual orientation or his involvement with a group that works to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Lynn Medford, Metro editor for the Post, said the newspaper debated whether or not to disclose Rogers’ sexual orientation and ultimately decided not to include such information as a matter of ethics. Rogers to some degree “kept his orientation private” and outing him after his death would “take a decision out of his hands,” she said.
Are we the only ones who find the “let the dead man decide” argument a little suspect?
How about we take this to the next level?
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leomoore
I had a similar decision when a friend died in 1996 for whom I was primary caretaker. I went to his apartment to check on him after nearly four days of not hearing from him. I found him in a coma-like state in the middle of his king size water bed. His eyes opened but it was clear “no one was home”. I called emergency services and explained that my friend had AIDS and was unresponsive. The EMTs arrived. They didn’t even bother taking his blood pressure. Claiming he was uncooperative, they left. When I protested that he wasn’t even aware we were there, the senior EMT became quite sarcastic and asked if I had a piece of paper from a judge stating that my friend was incompetent. I called another friend to come over. One of the EMTs offered to stay with me until he arrived. I’m pretty sure the EMT was gay, but it didn’t absolve him in my view of meekly going along with his asshole partner. I told him to get the fuck out. When the other friend arrived, we wrapped him up in a comforter partly to keep him warm and partly to restrain his arms when we carried him down two flights of stairs to my car. I took him to hospital. Two weeks later, he was transferred to hospice. He never came back to his home.
I was so angry with the treatment by the EMTs. I lodged a complaint with the county and debated whether to file a lawsuit on behalf of his children. Dave was a very private person. His family knew he was gay and that he had AIDS, but he never got a divorce. I talked it over with another of his closest friends. Both of us knew him well enough to know he would not want something that likely would become a public issue in Atlanta’s very large and, at the time, politically active gay community. His greatest fear was that his children would suffer ridicule at school. I settled for the reprimand that was put into the EMTs personnel files. I’m still angry particularly with the EMT who quietly went along.
Charley
Most prudish provincial newspapers and editors thinks it is embarassing to family members if they mention in an obituary that someone was gay or in a gay relationship. Most of the Southern white papers in S.C. and Georgia, write that you have “gone home to be with the lord, sitting at the feet of Jesus”, whether you are religious are not.
New York Times only lifted the “gay” “homosexual” word ban a decade or so ago.
foofyjim
You tell a sad and emotional story, leomoore. It’s a bit sad that your friend’s children will never know who their father really was.
I think the story of this soldier is a bit different. He was out in his close circle of friends, was active in an organization whose purpose is to change “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and he was also out to some of his fellow soldiers. With no children, living parents, or a partner he is left with no one to tell his whole story or decide if it should be told. I say yes. We should be proud of his service to our country, even though he had to hide the truth about himself to do so.
D-Lister
I think it would be a HUGE mis-step if they did mention his sexuality. Do they mention the sexuality of all of the heterosexuals that die? As a reminder, people, we want equality rather than what the far right insists is ‘special treatment’.
John
leomoore:
God, I can’t imagine what you had to go through…food for thought..
Brian Miller
“Do they mention the sexuality of all of the heterosexuals that die?”
Uh, yes they do.
‘He left his girlfriend/wife of 7 years and 2 children.’
Dawster
if being gay is the only thing you have going for you, then leaving it out of an obituary is a very big deal. being gay defines you, it describes you, it’s who you are at the core. announcing it to the world is paramount to exposing your hair or speaking your voice.
but if being gay is only one of many many traits, and your life is riddled with accomplishments, achievements, and passions going in multiple directions, then leaving it out of an obituary isn’t that big of a deal as one’s sexuality isn’t the primary or even secondary description of who you are.
this hero, being a soldier, it is PRESUMED that he was closeted as he was in the military which does not allow openly gay soldiers (normally). any newspaper would err on the side of caution (and in this case “caution” = “watered down truth”). that is normal. how he lived his life determines more than what anyone else thinks (i.e. leomoore’s story or mrev griffin).
we can be indignant, we can have opinion… but in the end, it’s really about his history as a human being on this planet… and if he was in a relationship, living openly gay, and completely out… that should be noted… if not, it is the tendency to overlook it and present one’s death plainly and whitewashed – and that actually goes for gay and straight obituaries.
dizzyspin
Leomoore,
While I cant imagine what you went through, that EMT felt free to act the way he did because so many of us are complicit in hiding our truths. You “quietly went along” with the shroud of secrecy about your friend’s life to avoid any unpleasantness, when to speak out may have helped hundreds of other people in the same situation. Did you talk it over with his family–the people you were presumably “protecting”?
Again, i dont mean any disrespect. Its just I feel like we wont get anywhere if we dont all take a personal stand when the time comes.
I'm So Sure, Helen
What a quandary! Respect the wishes of someone you loved and cared for especially when it comes to his perceived fears surrounding the safety and well being of his children who he won’t be around to protect anymore or totally betray this person and the bond you shared by nailing him to a political cross to make a martyr out of him for the good of gays everywhere. What to do, what to do.
Schwanksta
Uh, speaking as a journalist on this one, could someone tell me why mentioning his sexuality would be necessary in a news sense? Regardless of how you might think it would help a specific cause, newspapers strive toward objectivity in their reporting. I wasn’t aware it was anyone’s job to publicly out members of the military, whether former or current.
That’s why we have blogs like these to read the juicier details.
How anyone could possibly “conclude” some sort of vast conspiracy from the time-honored tradition of careful obit writing is beyond me.
Rest assured, there is a battleground out there in the fight for gay rights, but it is not in the obituaries. Please leave them alone.
Jaroslaw
Dawster – I hate to be “mean” but you’re an idiot. What you say on the surface makes sense, but most posters here are way beyond that. If a person is married, has kids, goes to Church, is buried at St. so & so cemetary – all of that speaks to who he is – straight, married and Catholic. For this guy to be involved in an organization to overturn DADT unless I’m missing something, it would be obvious where his sentiments lie – to be open about his orientation. I don’t see the “Quandary” as someone mentioned previously.
Lara
As one of Alan’s approximately dozen gay/lesbian friends who volunteered with Alan with American Veterans for Equal Rights and who spoke with the post, I want to explain to you what exactly happened and why we were so offended by what the WashPost did. First, many of us were close to Alan (others more so than me); one of us corresponded with him the day before he died. Second, Alan had made it clear on numerous postings to our 130+ person gay and lesbian veterans’ mailing list that he was very comfortable with his sexual orientation and felt very strongly about repealing DADT. He told me once that when he took office in AVER, he was so glad that he had finally found a way that he could contribute to the gay community.
We found out about his death a couple of weeks before his burial at Arlington, and immediately debated whether any of the organizations to which he had contributed so greatly as a volunteer should issue a press release or tribute in his honor. We decided not to do that because, while we knew Alan would have wanted us to do anything we could to end the DADT policy, we were afraid that a press release would draw someone like that Fred Phelps “God hates fags” guy to Alan’s burial and turn it into a media circus. We wanted to make sure that the day was all about Alan and about fond memories, not political statements.
Many of us spoke at length with the WashPost reporter. I told her that, while I had only recently learned he was a minister, that didn’t surprise me, because he approached his work with AVER like a minister would–drawing diverse people together and forming them into a community where we would care for one another, just like a church congregation. I listened as Patrick High told the reporter about Alan’s obsessive love of carrot cake, and how Patrick had promised him he would bake him a carrot cake when he came home from Iraq.
The point wasn’t to make a point of saying that Alan was GAY. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded if they had run the whole article without using the word “gay.” We just wanted our memories of Alan’s to be cherished and honored along with everyone else’s. But the Post article went out of its way to erase nearly 2 years of Alan’s life (he was involved with AVER while he was finishing up his master’s at Georgetown, where he wrote his master’s thesis on guess what? DADT). It was as if our relationship with Alan, all of our fond memories, had never existed. That’s when we got upset.
bigvanillafresh
i served with maj rogers. i’m not too sure that his sexual orientation, whether homo or heteral had any impact on the effectiveness of which he exacted the duties trusted in him. he was a great soldier, role model and human being. i would’ve trusted my children with him.
i miss our daily dialogue, long runs and banter on who’s the better college football conference…
i’m in no way advocating for rights in either way here…just wanted some time to reflect on my friend. he was the best…