Closet Raider

Mike Rogers laughs sheepishly and asks me if he sounds crazy. It's a moot point, probably, given how he sometimes comes off over the phone. The founder and editor of blogACTIVE (www.blogactive.com)—a journal that is, depending on your point of view, either bravely or reprehensibly devoted to outing closeted congressmen and other government officials unfriendly to the gay-rights cause—Rogers in conversation is everywhere at once. He's prone to fervent, rambling tangents, the occasional pause to hold back tears, and referring to himself in the third person in a manner that seems to imply he's both more influential than he's given credit for and simply the humble, hunted quarry of those on the right.

"When Mike Rogers is attached to that, it can be the finger of destruction," he says, by way of explaining why he doesn't want to go too much into details about some of his past work as an activist. "I know what happens. I know how they work. They look for anything they can go after. I'll give you an example: A story appeared about me [that] talked about how I was the president of my student organization at SUNY Buffalo. The next thing you know, there were three letters [of complaint]. And I haven't been on the school campus since, what, 1994? It's just so ridiculous. But that's how they work."

"They" are the conservative Republicans—"they" is the word in the Rogers lexicon— and listening to Rogers unload his tireless condemnations of them can make you worry for his present and future well-being even when you're agreeing with him.

"They have lost the battle," he says, explaining the right's own vociferousness. "This is their [last] fighting breath. It's always a vicious battle. But let's be clear: It wasn't about slavery, and it certainly wasn't about the rights of black people when we went to war in this country against each other—no more than I believe the next war will be about 'those queers.' But it very well may be about these people, who are arming to the teeth with automatics in Alabama, telling a federal court, 'We are not recognizing Steve and Joey's marriage, and if you have a problem with that, this is Mr. AK-47.'"

He laughs, knowing how that sounds, but he doesn't back away from it.

"I believe that it could come down to that," he insists, "because what people have ever won true freedom and justice and liberation without dying for it? Now, I want to make it pointedly clear—that is a battle that I am not interested in undertaking. But when gay men feel the need to line the streets of the Salt Lake City Pride [Parade] with guns to protect my brothers and sisters, I won't judge them. And I'll give them a place to talk about that. I won't do it—I know what I'm capable of—but I understand why other people may turn to that."

Even while offering such incendiary notions, Rogers has the chummy frankness of an East Coaster, a gay Jew who grew up in Monsey, N.Y., and went on to various marketing and development positions for liberal organizations (Greenpeace, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force). The persistent affability required for such outreach, which still pays his bills, must be a natural for him: He says anything and everything that comes into his head. He might best be described as a neurotic mensch, a man of decided integrity who's slightly distracted by what's required of a man of integrity in a nation overwhelmingly ruled by just the opposite. He's not so distracted, however, that he can't suggest I stop cradling my phone receiver between my neck and my shoulder.

"Steve, get yourself a headset," he says, noticing some effort on my end. "I'm telling you this after 20 years as a fund-raiser. I'm not talkin' about a crappy cell phone headset. I'm talkin' about a nice headset for your office. Because, eventually—you know how your head is tilting? It's gonna kill your neck."

If Rogersis the nut he self-deprecatingly worries he is, he's a nut with passion and purpose, as Republican Ed Schrock learned late last August, when blogACTIVE posted an alleged recording of the virulently antigay congressman asking for action on a gay chat line. Though Schrock—who had also been busy co-sponsoring the federal marriage amendment—never confirmed or denied the "I'd-just-like-to-get-together-with-a- guy-from-time-to-time" sex plea, he soon announced he wouldn't be running for re-election. And that was that.

It was Rogers' biggest knockout since setting up shop online in the nation's capital in the spring of 2004, but, he wants it to be known, the thrill of victory does not have him gunning for the innocent, however much those opposed to his methods claim he may be.

"There are a lot of gay men on the right and the left who are doing things for our community, who are living their lives, and I'm not going to report on them," he swears. "And, yeah, they're engaged in a battle. They're directors of county commissions, or they're closeted members of state and civil commissions. And when the stuff about marriage comes up, they sit in the back room and they manage things and they do what they do. It's not going to benefit me to drag these people out and destroy their names. They're on their journey, man. They're on a journey that you took and I took as gay men. It is a thin line. But it's not like I just go slapping names up. I build a case and cause for every person I expose."