Congressman Mike Fleck (R-PA) claims he waited until after the election to admit he’s gay to “avoid unnecessary distractions for his friends and colleagues”, but I’m not buying it. He just announced it in an interview over the weekend with his district’s local paper.
No matter how you feel about his being gay or not, I find it absolutely dishonest to conceal it just to get elected. I’m not saying it was an easy decision to make for him to ‘come out’, but if I were a Republican voter in Pennsylvania I’d want to know all the facts about my candidate before voting. Otherwise I’d feel duped.
If power means more to Fleck than telling the truth to his constituents, he doesn’t deserve to be in Congress.
DAILY MAIL – A Republican state representative from rural Pennsylvania announced Saturday that he was gay in an interview with the Huntingdon Daily News, making him just the party’s second openly gay member currently in state office.
Mike Fleck, 39, who describe himself as a devout Christian, said that the decision to make his sexual orientation public was a difficult one but one that he felt needed to be made.
‘Coming out is hard enough, but doing it in the public eye is definitely something I never anticipated,’ he told the newspaper. ‘I’m still the exact same person and I’m still a Republican and, most importantly, I’m still a person of faith trying to live life as a servant of God and the public. The only difference now is that I will also be doing so as honestly as I know how.’
With his announcement, Fleck joins Missouri state Rep. Zach Wyatt as just the second openly gay Republican representative currently in office. He is also the first openly gay legislator in Pennsylvania, though he will be soon joined by newly elected representative Brian Sims, a democrat.
Fleck said that his announcement would not change how he votes in office and pledged to his constituents that he will remain a steadfast representative of their Republican beliefs.
‘The Republican party is all about the government needing to stay out of people’s lives,’ he said. ‘I’m not a one-issue person and it’s not a one-issue party.’
And it appears that he will have to, if he hopes to keep his seat long-term. The district is one of the more conservative in the state, as registered Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2-to-1.
Fleck said he waited until after the election to disclose his sexuality in order to avoid unnecessary distractions for his friends and colleagues. He has been in office since 2006 and ran opposed this year.