In 2015, Patricia Todd publicly threatened to out elected officials. In 2018, One Orlando Alliance offered her the job of Executive Director. Yesterday Todd publicly asked someone to out an elected official. The Alliance rescinded her job offer.
By Mark Baratelli
mark@thedailycity.com
One Orlando Alliance, a group of 30 LGBTQ+ organizations, announced today the Executive Director job contract given earlier to Patricia Todd, an openly gay state legislator from Alabama, was rescinded after it was discovered she'd publicly requested for someone to out the Governor of Alabama May 16th on Twitter.
"Will someone out her for God's sake....I have heard for years that she is gay and moved her girlfriend out of her house when she became Gov. I am sick of closeted elected officials. https://t.co/0WP5J734sd"
The press release announcing the rescinding included harsh language about outing someone:
"(Outing) is a form of psychic and emotional violence; a violence that robs one of their ability to self-actualize and manifest their truth..."
According to AL, Todd posted to Facebook another message threatening to out those elected officials having extramarital affairs... in 2015. This was in response to how two elected officials responded to the striking down of Alabama's same sex marriage ban.
"... I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about 'family values' when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have. I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet OUT."
Did the One Orlando Alliance know about the 2015 outing threat? If not, why? And if they did, how is the latest threat different from the first one?
Todd's 2015 threat is not specifically about outing elected officials as gay. It's about outing those elected officials who are having affairs. Those affairs, however, could involve elected officials who are publicly straight but carrying on an extramarital gay affair. This would, then, be an outing.
However, what degree of privacy can an elected official reasonably expect? If one is pushing an anti-gay agenda while in a straight marriage and then is revealed to be gay, that is information the public would potentially benefit from knowing.
This story will be updated with the answers from the Alliance.