Anti-Gay Republican Outed As Gay

Posted: Apr 29, 2015

A North Dakota lawmaker who has made a name for himself as an anti-gay crusader has been outed by the guy he tried to pick up on the gay dating app Grindr. Rep. Randy Boehning says his secret habit of sending explicit photos of himself to men on Grindr under the username "Top Man!" (not quite "Carlos Danger" but close) would have stayed a secret if pro-gay lawmakers didn't hate him for his votes against gay rights. He suggested instead that this was "payback" by gay people just because of his beliefs. This baseless theory notwithstanding, the man who did out Boehning is just a 21-year-old citizen with no affiliation to the Capitol. He was, however, bothered by the fact that the man he was sexting on Grindr had just voted against offering gay people – the ones that are open about it – legal protections against discrimination. According to North Dakota's The Forum: The exchange came to light when Dustin Smith, a 21-year-old Bismarck man with no known connections to the Capitol, contacted The Forum earlier this month, saying he recognized Boehning from a gay dating smartphone app called Grindr. Chatting under the user name Top Man!, Boehning sent Smith sexually suggestive messages and, in the early morning hours of March 12, an unsolicited photo of his _____, according to exchanges reviewed by The Forum. "How can you discriminate against the person you're trying to pick up?" Smith said in a recent interview. In classic politician form, Boehning initially wouldn't say whether the user was in fact him, but eventually conceded that it was. "That's how things happen on Grindr," Boehning told the paper. "It's a gay chat site. It's not the first thing you do on that site. That's what we do, exchange pics on the site." Boehning's comments somehow manage to miss the point entirely. There is the obvious embarrassment that comes with any politician sending nude photos, but what makes this story unique is that Boehning has been adamant in opposing gay rights legislation. It's hard to imagine he would be quite so sure of his voting record if anti-gay intolerance was something that he faced personally. Passing as straight, Boehning allowed other members of the LGBT community to be harmed by his legislative record from the relative safety of blending in with straight people. Now, Boehning says he is kind of grateful for being outed. "The 1,000-pound gorilla has been lifted," he said. "I have to confront it at some point." That optimism may change when his chickens come home to roost. He may not realize it, but part of confronting his new life as an openly gay man means facing some of the intolerance that he had previously dismissed. Thanks to the votes of his colleagues and him, North Dakota recently shot down a bill that would protect the LGBT community from discrimination at businesses like we saw in Indiana. He had previously voted against similar measures in 2009 and again in 2013 (almost – his colleagues in the Senate killed the bill before he could cast his "no" vote.) Now Boehning is about to discover that his Republican colleagues have made North Dakota not such a great place to be for someone like him. ***** First Bruce Jenner comes out over the weekend as a transgender and a Republican, and now Boehning has been outed as gay by the guy he sent the picture of his _____ to. Times they are a changing.... rapidly. Next the Supreme Court will be ruling in June on marriage equality. Whatever happens, it's always good to see karma in action. Now this Republican hypocrite gets to find out what it's like to live with the discrimination that he himself has voted to allow.;