Sexual McCarthyism.

Will the new scrutiny in Washington on private behavior mean more bad news for gay and lesbian politicians?

In the past year Americans have learned more about the sex lives of their political leaders than most would probably care to know. Besides the president, those exposed for past indiscretions, youthful or otherwise, included four conservative Republican representatives: Dan Burton of Indiana, Helen Chenoweth of Idaho, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde of Illinois, and, in a bombshell delivered by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt (with promises of more to come), House speaker-elect Robert Livingston of Louisiana, who stunned his colleagues by revealing past affairs and then announcing his departure from Congress.

The overheated--some would say poisoned--atmosphere in Washington has been dubbed sexual McCarthyism, after the late Wisconsin senator, Joe McCarthy, who made his career by recklessly labeling his enemies as Communists. Under the new McCarthyism every nuance of private sexual behavior becomes fair game for public scrutiny. It may just be a matter of time before a same-sex extramarital affair is dredged up. Does this mean a permanent scrutiny of the sex life of everyone in public view? Or will the public become so repulsed, or even bored with it all, that sexuality (including gay sexuality) is no longer an issue?

"It could go either way," says Alan Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard University and author of the presciently titled Sexual McCarthyism, published just as the latest revelations hit the headlines. "We live by the swing of the pendulum, and I think all politicians are very worried about sexual McCarthyism. But the silver lining, that your sex life is nobody's business, may be close at hand. And once that occurs for heterosexual politicians, it must be applied equally to those who are gay or lesbian."

Still, Dershowitz cautions that the new atmosphere could only serve to underscore the second-class status of gay and lesbian relationships. If gay politicians escape the brunt of the scrutiny, it may be because heterosexuals deem gays' affairs less important. "I suspect the straight community in general will apply a double standard to gays," worries Dershowitz, "in a sense, expecting less of them, which I think is wrong."

Not everyone is convinced that the country has entered a brave new world of sexual politics, in the meanest sense of the tenn. "I don't think it's as bad as people think," says openly gay Democratic representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who has witnessed the tumult as a member of Hyde's judiciary committee. "Livingston was in a particularly vulnerable position, running for speaker in the midst of impeachment, but the other three Republican members suffered no consequences at all."

Dershowitz, a friend of Frank's since high school, disagrees. "Sexual McCarthyism is very real, and I don't like it," he says. "I don't like the fact that people can use other people's sexual secrets as a way of influencing their polices."

With events in Washington moving at a dizzying pace, it is almost impossible to predict just what long-term effect the new sexual atmosphere will have on gay politicians. Some people may draw the line when talking about the sex lives of gay officials out of sheer squeamishness.

"I think it's too early to say," says Brian Bond, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that funds gay candidates. "But recent polling tells us that that 87% of the people say we should have equal rights, but when asked about legalizing same-sex acts, the number drops to 55%. They don't want to think about us having sex. They're not ready."

Indeed, for once, heterosexuals may have a harder time going public with their sexual behavior than gays and lesbians. In essence, sexual McCarthyism is the kind of outing that closeted gays and lesbians have lived with for years, something straight politicians have had little firsthand experience with.

"The straight community is dealing with their own sexuality, finally," says Bond. "From the Victorian age all the way to the millennium--it's taken that long to get the subject to the table, even if we aren't at the table yet."

Yet sexual McCarthyism carries with it an implicit slap at gay relationships. Affairs are adulterous only when either or both members of the couple are married. Lacking that legal recognition, gays and lesbians may find themselves not so much excluded from consideration as perceived to be beneath consideration.

With that point of view, conservatives probably won't out gay politicians who stray from their relationships. "It would be ironic if one of the first semiofficial acts of recognition of gay and lesbian families came just for the purpose of sweeping us into this discussion," says Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the first out lesbian elected to Congress.

As Frank sees it, the impact on openly gay candidates will be minimal. "Closeted politicians will feel more threatened, but not the rest of us," he says. "Me? I gave at the office. What are they going to do--tell people I have sex with men?"

But for those politicians who are in the closet, their lives may seem even more fair game than ever before, particularly if they reek of hypocrisy. However, in their case hypocrisy has more to do with the disjuncture between their sexual orientation and their public positions than with their specific sexual behavior. The willingness to discuss the private sexual lives of straight politicians may serve to remove lingering discomfort with talking about the sexual orientation of closeted gay politicians.

"I have no problems with moral outing," says Bond. "If conservatives want to play a moral game, then they deserve what they get. People deserve to be in the spotlight if they don't play by their own rules."

Frank concurs. "Getting rid of hypocrisy is a pretty good thing," he says. "If a closeted gay politician had an antigay record, I hope people would say `Oh, that's good to know.' It would be the same if a right-to-lifer helped his daughter get an abortion or if [gun-control activist] Sarah Brady owned an Uzi."

Even Dershowitz admits there are times when outing closeted gays is justifiable. "It would have been perfectly appropriate to out, say, Roy Cohn because he made a career of destroying gay people's lives," says Dershowitz. "Hypocrisy is always fair" grounds for outing.

Will any good come out of sexual McCarthyism? In the scorched-earth world of Washington, it's hard to imagine. "I try to search for glimpses of good in everything," says Baldwin. "But it's pretty tough to find a silver lining. My sense is that we are seeing a backlash from many in the public, and this will prompt a dialogue and a reaction that hopefully we can learn from. That's about as positive as I can get."

Given the public's continued willingness to separate President Clinton's private and public lives, the country could already be heading in that direction. "I want people to ask, `What earthly difference does it make?'" says Isadora Alman, a board-certified sexologist who writes the syndicated "Ask Isadora" column. "Sex does not enter into your cooking if you're a chef, so why should it enter into politics?" If voters take that attitude away from the current controversy, that would be good news indeed for openly gay candidates.

Kirby is a regular contributor to The New York Times.