Posted: 9/17/04
Congressman outed by gay-rights website
By Robert Marus
ABP Washington Bureau
NEW YORK (ABP)–Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.), one of Congress' staunchest opponents of gay rights, has declined to seek re-election to a third term in the House after a website claimed he solicited sex with men on a gay telephone-rendezvous service.
Schrock, a layman in an Indpendent Baptist church, shocked many of his fellow Republicans in New York City for the Republican National Convention when his office said he would not seek re-election.
The Virginia Beach-based representative referred to unspecified “allegations” that “will not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation and region.”
While Schrock and his spokespeople have not elaborated further on those allegations, his announcement came less than two weeks after he became the latest subject of a controversial “outing” campaign against Capitol Hill personalities by a Washington gay-rights activist.
Schrock is the first member of Congress to be targeted in the campaign.
For several weeks, gay-rights activist Mike Rogers had been posting the names of gay aides to members of Congress who support a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Even many gay-rights leaders have criticized the campaign as mean-spirited, but Rogers has defended his project by saying he simply is exposing hypocrites.
Schrock is a co-sponsor of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
He also voted for the Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House earlier this year. That bill would strip federal courts of the ability to overrule part of the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defines marriage, for federal purposes, exclusively in heterosexual terms.
The conservative Christian Coalition gave Schrock a 92 percent approval rating in its 2003 voters' guide.
In the 2001-2002 session of Congress–the last term for which figures are available–the gay-advocacy group Human Rights Campaign gave Schrock a score of zero percent in his support for gay-rights issues.
Schrock, a Vietnam veteran, also is on record supporting reinstatement of the military's ban on homosexuals. He opposed former President Bill Clinton's so-called “don't ask, don't tell” policy requiring military officials not to conduct investigations into the sexual orientation of servicemen and women.
In his original Internet accusation about Schrock's sex life, Rogers said Schrock “has made a habit of rendezvousing with gay men” on “an interactive telephone service on which men place ads and respond to those ads to meet each other.”
After Schrock announced his resignation, Rogers posted a downloadable audio file of one of the sexually explicit phone messages alleged to be Schrock's. Rogers has declined to say what proof he has that the voice on the message is Schrock's. Several media reports have quoted Virginia Republican officials as acknowledging Rogers' allegations as the reason the congressman is stepping down.
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.