>I find BigK's remark quite insulting.

My post was intended to be evocative not insulting.

I am totally opposed to outing for a couple of reasons:

1) Virtually every gay person has had to decide when to "come out". I don't believe that should be forced on anyone.

2) Outing has a negative connotation. If outing is considered hurtful, then the information dispensed must by definition be bad. I don't advocate equating gay with bad.

Let those who are hypocrites live in their own hell.

I think that the ethical question you have to ask yourself is, "How is any one person qualified to determine who might or might not hurt another?"

It's a judgment call. If you make judgments where others are concerned that cause negative things to happen in their lives, that makes you a judgmental do-gooder, just like Chuck Haggard.

Conway, why do you keep calling Haggard "Chuck?" His name is Ted.

Big K- I know harm when I see it. I am tired of clerics who tell developing young minds that homosexuality is sinful while they themselves are frolicking in the twolips. It screws up young gay kids and encourages others to become bigots and fagbashers. But I guess you think that is better than outing someone who preaches that shit.

So, we should all accept your judgment on what harm is at face value? What differentiates your judgmental assessment of how people like "Chuck" Haggard screw up gay kids and Haggard's judgmental assessment of how people like us screw up straight kids? Both are subjective statements.

It makes some of us sound much like birds of their feather. Both are inappropriate, in my opinion. In this argument, in order to maintain fairness, you have to be far more driven by values than by emotion. If you're driven by emotion, you'll be no different than them.

Of course, there's a difference. I think most people know that I'm gay, but I wouldn't want them to know that I'm paying for sex.

I dion't use my real name and I only pay cash. They do have my celll phione number, but that's unavoidable. I do worry more about law enforcement snooping around than about an escort mouthing off voluntarily (I'm just not a public enough person to make it worth their while).