“Outrage” premieres on HBO tonight

I’m sure that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will not be watching HBO tonight because he probably fares the worst of all the polkiticians – past and present – who are profiled in Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick (HBO’s Twist of Faith) searing indictment of politicians with appalling gay-rights voting records who actively campaign against the gay community they reportedly belong to, at least covertly.

The film, which was in theaters last spring, probes the hidden lives of some of the country’s most powerful policymakers – from Crist to now-retired Idaho Senator Larry Craig, to former NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey.

It examines how these and other politicians may have inflicted damage on millions of Americans by denying the truth about themselves, and voting in ways seemingly at odds with their sexuality.

I spoke with Mr. Dick about the film and he said: “Even to people who might be liberal, they’re going to find themselves really stunned and they’re going to think about this for a long time.”

Dick spoke with me last spring about Charlie Crist who has long been dogged by gay rumors:  “He’s a skilled politician. He’s very popular in Florida still. But I think it’s sad. We’ve been aware of these (gay) rumors for a long time. But it was when he came out in support of Amendment 2 which not only outlaws same-sex marriage but also forbids the right of gay and lesbians to even enter into civil unions – it’s that restrictive. And it’s an amendment. It took 60 percent to pass, it’ll take 60 percent to overturn. This may be the most important legacy of his career as governor.”

Crist is a smooth politician but has raised eyebrows with his personal life which has shown a pattern of relationships with women just before important elections. After he was elected governor and angling to be John McCain’s vice presidential pick, Crist got married.

“This is where I think it’s actually kind of tragic,” Dick said. “I actually think Crist was positioned to at some point come out and  be the first significant openly gay candidate for the presidency. I think he possibly could have pulled it off. [The gay marriage] issue is shifting very fast. I think if he in 2014, two years before the end of Obama’s second term – let us hope – he had come out and said, ‘Look I haven’t been completely truthful but it’s been very difficult. I’m a gay American and it’s time to be open and honest about this. I actually think a lot of people and a lot of Democrats would have said,. ‘How refreshing, an honest candidate.’ I think he would have had a shot. Maybe he does.”

Two men prominent in the movie who no longer have political futures are former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig. Both were part of well-known gay sex scandals but their stories reveal a much deeper story of why these men do what they do.

“From very early on, I was very interested in the psychology of these people,” Dick said. “I do feel a great deal of empathy for them because they also are victims of homophobia. Even Larry Craig who has an incredibly horrible anti-gay voting record, is himself a victim of homophobia. I think if there was no homophobia in this country, why wouldn’t he be out? I think there’s a real personal anguish to being in the closet and I just hope that very soon we come to a time when politicians don’t ever have to make that choice to live that way.”

Of Craig, who was arrested in an airport restroom, he added: “Here’s a man who I suspect has  real difficulty with being gay, has probably compartmentalized it, probably has made the decision that the safest thing for him to do, the safest way for him to have sex is to have it anonymously.”

Craig and his wife of 30-plus years have remained together despite the scandal but McGreevey and his former wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, split soon after he made his “I am a gay American” speech and resigned as governor of New Jersey. Both McGreeveys come off sympathetically in the movie and I asked Dick why the movie isn’t harder on them since they dragged each other through the mud during their divorce proceedings with all kinds of outrageous accusations and being gay was the least of the reasons why McGreevey resigned from office.

“He’s a very savvy politician and he used the multiple scandals that were going to force him to resign anyway, he used that opportunity to in some ways paper it over by saying, ‘I’m a gay American,’” the filmmaker acknowledged. “On the other hand, that was a very important moment in this whole issue of out gay politicians. Even if he was resigning, it still becomes a model and also him talking about his experience.”

In the film, Dina plays the victim card convincingly but during the divorce proceedings, Jim alleged that she knew all along about his sexuality even though that contradicted his own book.

“I believe her,” Dick said. “Even in Jim McGreevey’s book, he said he didn’t tell her until a year or so before he made that speech. She claims it was within a few days of the speech. But either way, he wasn’t honest and he led her through much of their married life to believe a lie. This is very common that people marry someone and they for a long time don’t know they are gay or lesbian. It’s hard to imagine. Everybody thinks people fall in love and they completely know the person. That is a mythology.”

Dick, whose past films include This Film is Not Yet Rated and the Oscar-nominated Twist of Fate, clearly believes his film does a job that the mainstream media has not.

“This hypocrisy,  people are stunned by it and are so unaware of this,” he said. “I want people to learn about it. One of the reasons people don’t know about it is the mainstream media has really stayed away from it. Another thing I hope for this film is that it will contribute to the demise of the closet in American politics. Because the mainstream media hasn’t written about this, people who go in to politics early on their career in their late teens or early 20s, when they are going to make the decision whether to be out or closeted, think, ‘Well, there’s not much coverage of this. I can be a closeted politician.’Hopefully these young people will say, ‘No, it’s the wrong thing to do politically, it’s gonna backfire and it’s the wrong thing to do personally. Why live a lie?’ Once we have these successful models out there, hopefully the closet will be a thing of the past.”

One of the people in Outrage who I was most moved by was former Arizona congressman Jim Kolbe, once a closeted Republican who underwent quite a transformation personally and politically once he was forced out of the closet.

“Even though he came out 13 years ago, to me it still seemed like it was an experience that was very profound for him,” Dick said of Kolbe. “What’s interesting is you see how much a weight was lifted off his shoulders but what you also see is that he changed his voting record. Here’s a man who voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act which restricted the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Then when the Federal Marriage Amendment came up in 2004, he was one of the leading opponents of it. That’s a testament to the damage of the closet by showing the positive side when somebody comes out of the closet.”

Outrage debuts tonight (Oct. 5) at 9 pm on HBO and will repeat several times, check your listings.