It self-righteously claims to be on a mission of justice and redemption, but Churchouting.org is as unethical as a website can be: as driven by lame rationalizations  as the vile adultery-facilitating ashleymadison.com; as destructive as the undercover drug informant outing website, Whosarat.com; as reckless as the slander sites Dontdatehimgirl and Juicycampus. Launched in anger and frustration over the failure of several state same-sex marriage initiatives, Churchouting.org urges visitors to “out” priests in the Archdiocese of Washington “who are socially, romantically or sexually active gay men, yet stand silent while Archbishop Wuerl and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops increase their dogmatic war against gay families.” The site’s justification for encouraging this despicable tactic is part terrorism, part vengeance and part fury at what the site calls “hypocrisy”:

“It is shameful that in many Catholic churches, this abuse is being supported by men, who are gay themselves, leading closeted lives of self-persecution and quiet desperation. Even more shameful, is that many of these priests, while remaining silent, actually lead duplicitous lives rich with romantic and sexual relationships — both homosexual and heterosexual. This hypocrisy must end.”

It is not at all certain that the priests targeted by the website’s creators are in fact hypocrites, but it is undeniable that the website itself is hypocritical even as it condemns hypocrisy. Hypocrisy #1: They are using the very bigotry against gays that the site purports to oppose as a tool against those who do not share their policy views. Hypocrisy #2: the site violates the individual’s right to keep his or her sexual identity private, or not, without penalty, a right the site’s founders vigorously support. Hypocrisy #3, of course, is the absurdity of attacking hypocrisy while being hypocritical in the process.

In ethics, the most useful analytical tool is often the simple question, “What’s going on here?” What is going on at Churchouting.org is that gay activists  who would scream injustice to the skies if anyone threatened to out them or their friends in order to pressure them to, for example, advocate a higher percentage of federal research funds going to breast cancer studies rather than AIDS research, nevertheless feel justified in using the same coercive tactic in support of a measure they favor. They reach this point through  unethical devisces, including:

• Rationalizing that their desired results justify harmful means to achieve them, while others using similar tactics to achieve results they think are equally valid is wrong.

• Using the excuse of supposed hypocrisy to permit them to restrict the choices of other individuals, and to employ unfair and coercive means to make others do what they do not want to do.

• Accepting terror tactics—creating fear, dread and distrust—as legitimate tools of persuasion because they “know” their position is the only correct and virtuous one.

Phil Attey, the social media expert and gay activist who runs the site, has no idea whether his victims are hypocrites or not. A gay priest may be closeted because he really believes that his sexual orientation is a sin. Attey himself accuses such priests of “self-persecution;” if they are persecuting themselves while (in Attey’s view) persecuting other gays, then that isn’t hypocrisy, is it?  No, that’s consistency.

Does a gay man have a right to be a priest? Presumably Attey would say yes. Does a gay man have a right to be closeted? The answer is also yes; I don’t care what Attey thinks. Yet Attey insists that a gay priest only has a right to be closeted if he opposes Catholic dogma regarding gay marriage. By what logic, and whose authority?

Attey has no right to dictate what any straight or gay man, priest or not, should believe or advocate. He has no right to threaten or harm anyone, gay or otherwise, who disagrees with him, votes against measures he supports, or defines virtue and godliness in ways he finds offensive. All the soaring, indignant rhetoric on Churchouting.org cannot change what is going on there: 

Vengeance.

Coercion.

Cruelty.

Bullying.

Hypocrisy.

Worst of all, Churchouting.org invites anonymous outing “tips,” thus encouraging malicious and untrue allegations with no consequences, just like the gossip and slander sites such as Juicycampus. That is irresponsible and unfair.

This is what happens when activists convince themselves that they and only they have a tenable, justifiable position.  Sometimes its worse: sometimes the activists fly planes into towers. Never mind that marriage has been defined as a union of a man and a woman for thousands of years: voters, citizens, pundits, politicians and Catholic priests who won’t jump on the same-sex marriage bandwagon immediately aren’t merely  mistaken, or bound by tradition, or conservative, but bad people, who deserve to be hurt….especially if they are gay. This self-righteous fury leads to tactics that can degrade and undermine the most laudable causes.

Same sex marriage is such a cause, and Churchouting.org is such a tactic.