Michelangelo Signorile: Gawker Didn’t Out Peter Thiel

Yesterday billionaire homocon Peter Thiel declared that he secretly funded Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker in retaliation for the site having outed him nearly a decade ago. Michelangelo Signorile has a problem with that. He writes:

Reporting on a public figure who has been open to many people as gay, and is out in public as such, is not the equivalent of reporting on private sexual activity, but rather is equivalent to reporting on a characteristic akin to religion or ethnicity, and certainly if someone has not gone to great lengths to hide such facts. And that’s why Thiel had to go and find other cases, such as Hogan’s, in order to take action against Gawker. If he tried to sue Gawker himself for his supposed ‘outing’ it would surely be thrown out of court.

Not only has the Supreme Court for decades given wide latitude under the First Amendment to reporting of simple truths such as sexual orientation about public figures —- the distinction being public figures, not private citizens who do not seek public life — but as homosexuality itself has become more accepted, so has the reporting on it. In 2012 a New York court ruled that even falsely saying someone is gay is not “per se defamation.”

Signorile also notes that Thiel is a California delegate for Donald Trump, who shares Thiel’s passion for limiting freedom of the press.