Look, I understand that some people just can’t bring themselves to do it. 17% or so are happy in that closet, and who am I to judge, except to say that happiness isn’t found there. But this is just ridiculous:

The Mark Foley fallout was Topic A everywhere this weekend — except from the stages at the two biggest gay parties in Washington. (No gossip at the tables? Oh, please .) Due to a scheduling glitch, the Human Rights Campaign fundraising dinner at the Convention Center and the Miss Adams Morgan contest at the Washington Hilton were both held Saturday night— and both, as it turned out, were Foley-free zones.

HRC President Joe Solmonese briefly mentioned the disgraced Florida rep in his speech, but only to warn the 2,800 political activists not to let the unfolding scandal take the focus off next month’s elections. “We put Mark Foley and his scandal into the appropriate perspective and moved to what really needs to be focused on, and that is the opportunity to make history by electing a record number of fair-minded candidates,” he said yesterday.

If I may: Joe, pull your head out of your ass, ok?

I gave up on the HRC a long time ago; it seems to me the national leadership is more interested in throwing Fabulous Parties for itself than actually making any progress on real issues affecting real gay people. Like so many other Beltway “interest” groups, the HRC is engaged in a game of Kabuki “advocacy” the better to be able to extract money for parties from that part of the membership too busy to actually follow the “progress” being made.

But as we’re seeing, there’s a deep unwillingness of Beltway gays to look into the mirror and understand what the Foley mess really means. The short version: you’re out of the closet now, kids, like it or not. The Evangelicals and Flyoverland wingnuts have really long memories when it comes to things like being made the fool…and that’s exactly what you’ve done to them. “You” of course is every gay Beltway staffer, pol or pundit who has engaged in the discourse of “America’s not ready for gay marriage” and “don’t ask don’t tell,” as well as those of you bathing in the hypocrisy of sucking cock at home while authoring legislation at work that criminalizes or disenfranchises you for your behaviors.

Gays on both sides of the Beltway fence need to wake the fuck up.

Tucker, who may or may not be queer, I can never tell, put it out there for all to see. Your secret is out: theocratic Heartland Amurkan knuckledraggers now know Beltway queers hate and despise them. Well, I do too, but I’ve never made a secret of that. HRC, Kenny Boy, and every queer in between need to understand that the game is over, dead, done, and the days in which the closet served any purpose are past.

Thank you Mark Foley, for being a leacherous old queen who couldn’t keep his mouth off fresh page cock. Thanks to you, we can finally begin to move down the road to the Golden Land of Civilization, where no one will care about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home. I’m sure it’s been a lot of fun in Beltway closets for many years now, but trust me kids, the sex is even better when it’s out in the open.