From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_DreierDavid Timothy Dreier (born July 5, 1952), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since January 1981, representing California's 26th congressional district.<1> He was first elected to the U.S. House in 1980.
Sexual orientation
In the fall of 2004, journalist Doug Ireland claimed to "out" Dreier in print in L.A. Weekly, in its issue of September 24–September 30, 2004.<20><21> The L.A. Weekly printed that Dreier had had a romantic relationship with his longtime chief of staff, Brad W. Smith, who at the time collected a $156,600 government salary. Smith earned the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member<22> and was reportedly the highest-paid chief of staff working for any House of Representatives committee chair. ("By comparison," wrote Ireland, "the chief of staff to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee makes $126,000, while the chief of staff to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee makes just $100,696.")<20><23><24>
The alleged "outing" was a result of Dreier coming under increasing scrutiny from gay rights groups because of his voting record, which includes support of the Defense of Marriage Act, as well as votes against gay adoption,
and against inclusion of homosexuals as a protected class in hate crime. However, he did vote for employment discrimination legislation to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2007. <25>
Dreier's 1998 and 2000 Democratic opponent, Janice Nelson, alleged that his relationship with Smith had been an open secret for many years. His 2004 opponent, Cynthia Matthews, came out of the closet and demanded that Dreier do the same. Dreier did not publicly respond to these charges, which were discussed on local radio programs in his district. At the time, the mainstream U.S. print media did not cover the story (although the controversy was later, in June 2005, addressed in the British press<26> after it was announced that British prime minister Tony Blair's son Euan would work as an unpaid intern for Dreier's committee during the summer of 2005).
Amid the controversy, Dreier voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment on September 30, 2004. He explained his opposition to the amendment by stating that he felt the Constitution was not the appropriate tool for restricting rights.
Dreier also opposed hate crimes protections for gay people in his vote against the Matthew Shepard Act.
On September 6, 2007, blogger Mike Rogers outed Dreier on Talk of the Nation on NPR. The topic of the program was, "The Ethics of Outing."<27>
Dreier's alleged closeted sexuality is one of the features of the 2009 documentary film Outrage. The film depicted photos of various exotic vacation locales around the world that were visited by Dreier, noting that each time, Dreier's chief of staff Brad W. Smith would arrive at the same getaway spot a day later.
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