PERSPECTIVES ON HOMOSEXUALITY : Hypocritical Rule of Invisibility Reigns : The media will report everything else about a public figure but gayness, as if gays aren’t found in mainstream America.

The homophobic hypocrisy of the news media and the military regarding gay women and men was made clear last week by the “outing” of an assistant secretary of defense in Jack Anderson’s syndicated column. Anderson reported that although the military regularly kicks out thousands of low-level gays merely for being gay and not for misconduct, a high-level aide to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is known to be gay.

But major newspapers that subscribe to Anderson, such as the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, refused as a matter of policy to run this column, which has been prompted by a longer article in a respected gay magazine, the Advocate. An unwritten rule of mainstream journalism is that unless a gay public figure says on the record that she or he is gay, then that person is assumed to be straight. Sort of innocent until admitted guilty. Why this double standard exists for gay public figures has never been honestly explored. It is an outmoded deceit that should be challenged.

If a public figure is Jewish or Jehovah’s Witness or Hindu, divorced or married or single, Asian or Icelandic or Kenyan, those personal and private facts, if adequately verified, may be duly reported. No need for an on-the-record admission. Only in the case of gays does this silly rule of invisibility apply.

It is based on the hackneyed straight assumption that, somehow, being a gay person is innately bad. Never mind that such a person may be well-bred, well-educated and doing a terrific job, have a stable romantic relationship, even attend church every Sunday. If he or she is gay, the media pulls a pious veil of privacy around that fact. Why? Because doing otherwise would confirm the terrifying (to straight folks) truth that gays are normal, happy, well-adjusted, hard-working, capable and everywhere. If you’re not gay, you know someone who is.

Advice columnist Abigail Van Buren recently wrote, commenting on a “Dear Abby” survey to which more than 210,000 people responded: “Although mental-health professionals in the past have estimated that 10% of the population is either gay or bisexual, my survey indicated that there are possibly twice that (percentage).”

Gays are even high-level government officials with access to top military secrets. National security is not compromised because friends and co-workers, including the boss, know that the person is gay. But the rest of America cannot be told the truth. Cheney’s aide, whom the secretary has defended on national TV, cannot be named in this newspaper. To learn the truth about military hypocrisy that kicks out gay Army grunts but retains gay Pentagon officials, you must read the Advocate.

The press has no problems, however, printing unsubstantiated rumors about gays when misconduct is alleged. No veil of privacy shielded the sailors involved in the tragedy of the mysterious 1989 explosion aboard the battleship Iowa, when the Pentagon and the press had a field day with gossip of a gay relationship gone fatally sour. Congressional investigations later proved that the blast was caused by an ammunition defect. The unfortunate sailors were not even gay. No apology was offered to America’s gays for this group smear by the military brass.

Part of the problem is gay people themselves, when they buy into the assumption that being gay is bad. Lynn Shepodd, executive director of the annual Oct. 11 National Coming Out Day, said, “As long as the overwhelming majority of the gay community remains hidden to families, friends and co-workers, we will continue to be dismissed, omitted and brutalized by others and ourselves. If I were a closeted public figure, I would hope to be courageous enough to get ahead of this issue rather than waiting for my name to appear in the tabloids. The personal price we pay for hiding is enormous.”

We are all diminished by the denial of gay people in public life. It is time for both closeted gays and mainstream news executives to openly and honestly acknowledge what is already a fact of life: Gay women and men are part of every social, economic, political, racial, ethnic and religious group, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Printing the truth will liberate everyone.