Add activist blogger Mike Rogers to the
list of people outing South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer.
Rogers, who claims a perfect outing
record, said in a Monday post at blogactive.com
that “Bauer is a closeted anti-gay politician.”
In June, openly lesbian politician
Linda Ketner made a similar allegation about Bauer and two other
South Carolina lawmakers during an interview published on the
progressive political blog Fire
Dog Lake.
“We have more gay people serving in
South Carolina than probably in any place in the United States.
They're just not out of the closet,” she said, then gave the
examples of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina State Senator
Glenn McConnell and Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer. Ketner, who
came close to unseating incumbent South Carolina Representative Henry
Brown last November, later apologized for her remarks.
As South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford
resisted calls to step down over an embarrassing sex scandal in July,
his likely replacement quickly went on the offensive, and without
prompting denied rumors that he was gay.
“One word, two letters. 'No.' Let's
go ahead and dispel that now,” Bauer said in an interview with The
State, then added, “Is Andre Bauer gay? That is now the story.
We're a long way from where we were a week ago.”
Bauer calls himself “South Carolina's
hardest working elected official” and is considered a social
conservative, appearing often with anti-gay former presidential
candidate Mike Huckabee. He assumed office in 2003 after serving in
both chambers of the legislature.
Rogers' work recently appeared in
Director Kirby Dick's controversial documentary Outrage.
The film looks at the lives of gay politicians who remain deep
in the closet and actively support an anti-gay agenda.
In his post, Rogers cites several
unnamed sources as confirming Bauer's sexual orientation, including
one man who says: “I've had sex with him on two separate
occasions.”
On the Net: Mike Rogers' blog is at
blogactive.com