First Openly Gay Congressman Dies

Former U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA), the first openly gay person elected to Congress, died early Saturday from a blood clot in his lung, his husband Dean Hara said. He was 69.

Studds was first elected in 1972 and retired in 1997. Studds was a pioneer by winning re-election after publicly acknowledging his homosexuality. It was the first time the public saw that a gay man could occupy a high-level elected position in government. Americans are slowly understanding this and the likes of Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin, among others, have benefited from his experience. Unfortunately, they are often elected or appointed as 'straight' and later revealed to be gay and usually when some sort of problem arises. Witness former NJ Governor McGreevey. There are even a group of former Navy Admirals that have come out in the effort to prove that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is flawed. And, I suspect, a Supreme Court Justice is gay.

Studds's revelation came when a page said he'd had a relationship with Studds a decade earlier when the page was 17. Studds defended the relationship as consensual with a young adult. The scandal recently resurfaced during the Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) scandal. Republicans accused Democrats of hypocrisy for savaging Foley but saying little about Studds at that time. Studds was censured for sexual misconduct by the House at the time.