Former Rep. Aaron Schock comes out: “In many ways, I regret the time wasted in not having done so sooner.” - NBCOUT
Schock, who has been criticized for a dismal track record on LGBTQ rights, revealed that he tried to avoid addressing his sexuality while growing up in a religious household in Illinois and that when he entered Congress, he did not feel like people would accept him as a gay man, so he “threw” himself into his work.“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and against hate crime protections for LGBTQ people.
“That fact doesn’t make my then position any less wrong, but it’s sometimes easy to forget that it was leaders of both parties who for so long wrongly understood what it was like to defend the right to marry,” Schock wrote. Last April, pictures of Schock kissing another man at Coachella surfaced on social media, which some interpreted as confirmation that Schock was gay. Many criticized him at the time for appearing to benefit from the work of LGBTQ activists without using his political clout to bolster the community.
Schock wrote that he recognizes that he can now “live openly as a gay man because of the extraordinary, brave people who had the courage to fight for our rights” and that were he in Congress today, he would support LGBTQ rights in “every way” he could. While Schock added that it’s “never too late to be authentic and true to yourself” and that he hopes his story can help others struggling with their sexuality, social media responses to Schock’s coming out have been overwhelmingly negative, with many remaining unsatisfied by Schock’s “lack of apology” for not elevating LGBTQ rights when he was in a position to do so.
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