The closet on the Right.

Writer David Brock talks about Michael Huffington's coming-out as well as his own

When millionaire oil heir Michael Huffington revealed his sexual orientation in a January Esquire magazine profile, the news did not come as a shock to politicians in California. The onetime congressman and U.S. Senate candidate was widely rumored to be gay, although the whispers never surfaced in print. But the response to the article detailing Huffington's coming-out was as much about the story's author as it was about Huffington. That's not entirely surprising. David Brock, the gay journalist who helped make Paula Jones a household name, has been a lightning rod in national politics and journalism for nearly a decade.

Brock, 36, knew what he was writing about: He had his own sensational coming-out. In 1994 he publicly identified himself as gay in response to a New York Times column's attacking his reporting in The American Spectator, a right-wing magazine. Brock was a regular on the Washington, D.C., gay bar scene, and because of his gossip-tinged reporting and connection to the antigay right, his homosexuality had inevitably become an issue. Not only was he the first to happen across Jones, whose sexual harassment suit against President Clinton led directly to the revelation of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, but he enraged liberals and feminists with The Real Anita Hill, his 1993 book that questioned Hill's veracity in what critics felt were racist and misogynist terms. ("A bit nutty and a bit slutty" was his description of Hill, who went public in 1991 with claims that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her years earlier.)

But Brock quickly wore out his welcome in conservative circles as well. Shortly after the publication of The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, Brock's sympathetic 1996 biography of the first lady, the Spectator gave him his walking papers. Today, Brock is at work on a book about what he calls the "collapse of Newt Gingrich's revolution." In an April 1998 Esquire open letter to the president, Brock apologized to Clinton for his salacious Spectator articles and attacked the conservative movement's fixation on Clinton's personal life. It's been a dizzying ride for Brock. In just four years he has gone from reactionary rumormonger to openly gay journalist deeply skeptical of his former allies.

Brock spoke to The Advocate about Michael Huffington, gay politics, the religious right, and his own transformation.

How did the Huffington interview come about?

We became friends in January 1995, when I went to Los Angeles to investigate claims that there had been voter fraud in his election. It turned out not to be a story, but we got to know each other. He came to my house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., last Memorial Day. We had lunch, and he asked whether anyone would be interested in an article about him. I told him there probably wouldn't be any interest unless we got into the personal stuff. [Laughs] I had gotten the sense over the last year or so that he probably was gay, but this was the first time he had told me the whole story.

Why was Huffington finally ready to come out?

He didn't say it in so many words, but my feeling is that he was afraid his name would start showing up in gossip columns in California, where he lives. Now that he is divorced, he is ready to start dating men, and if he were seen out and about with them, the news would be sure to surface. He knew that at age 51, it was better to do it sooner than later.

In the profile you paraphrase Huffington as saying that the word "gay ... carries so much cultural baggage ... he's not that.... But he is homosexual." Some gay activists were offended at the thought that he might be rejecting the community and the identity.

I don't think that's what he intended. I was sensitive to the hairsplitting he was doing and the possible negative reception. My inference is basically that he doesn't think of himself as gay yet. It's part of a process. It wasn't that long ago that he was married. If I went back to him in a couple of years, his answer would be very different. To him, gay implies a way of life; he's not quite there yet. He hopes that as a result of this article there will be possibilities of speaking out and becoming involved in gay rights causes.

Huffington also says he tried to understand gay life by inviting gay men over to his Georgetown house for dinner. Were you one of them?

No. There was an awkwardness about his social life, and he allowed people to surmise what was going on with him. That's what the closet does. That's why he wanted to clear the air.

Time reported that Huffington, the ex-husband of conservative political commentator Arianna Huffington, told friends that "Brock got it wrong" by depicting him as homosexual rather than bisexual.

I stand by the article. I told Michael that the fact that we knew each other wouldn't stop me from writing the most objective piece I could. It doesn't surprise me that he's not completely happy with it. I'm not aware of any factual disputes. The article is carefully annotated with the tapes.

As a conservative who had a public coming-out after years of rumors, did you relate to Huffington's story?

I might have been more sensitive to the issue than some journalist off the street, but my own coming-out process was different. I was happy to be gay going back to when I was 18 or 16. I was fortunate that I never had a problem accepting it. Before I made my announcement, it was known among my friends and family and about 200 conservatives I dealt with in Washington. When I came out I had a day or two of stress. After that, I felt fine. Having it become public was a good thing for me. I believe it was a good thing Huffington did for himself as well. It's a big step in his journey to accept himself.

Before you began to move away from the conservative, antigay movement, you had many gay critics. Many felt you were aiding and abetting the enemy.

People did recognize me sometimes when I was in public, but it was never spoken to me directly. My politics are in a state of flux at the moment, and I'm not really prepared to talk about them. I was knocked off my conservative foundation in a fundamental way, and I still don't know where I am exactly. As a journalist I'm skeptical about all ideologies.

What do you think about the recent conservative Republican attacks on gay men and lesbians?

The tone of the Republican leadership in the last couple of years does make me wonder if there is any place for gay people in the Republican Party. It's something I've thought a lot about, and I'm not sure I have the answer yet. I'm not questioning the party's free-market philosophy, but its stance on social issues is wrong. I'm afraid to say the party might be a lost cause. The influence of the religious right has certainly increased over time. The pressure for a kind of culture war from neoconservatives like William Bennett is also increasing. I think it indicates that conservatives lack issues that resonate with Americans now, so they try to inflame their base. That's destructive.

But you played a crucial role in producing the Clinton scandal stories that conservatives use. You introduced Paula Jones to the world.

I've apologized to Clinton for this. There's no question that I spent some time digging up partisan dirt. It's something I was wrong to do. The Huffington story is different. I would never have done it against his will. The reporting on Huffington's sex life is not simply gratuitous. There are broader points involved, especially about how it's impossible to change your sexual orientation. He had gone to great lengths to be straight, and he couldn't do it. In the context of the Christian-right advertising campaign about conversion therapy, that's a powerful message.

What do you think about President Clinton's impeachment?

Despite the Republican protestations that it's not about sex, the fact is that they have made this a culture-war issue. That's why they are so vehement about it. Impeachment puts Republicans in a bind because they can't accept that the public is insisting that private behavior should remain private. They can't give it up because it's part of the religious right's whole social policy agenda. Gay issues and abortion rights have been tied up in the Lewinsky matter since the beginning. They have made this all about fighting the values of the 1960s, when it should be about the 1990s.