Newsweek
|
Oct 28, 2008 04:37 PM
By Stefan Theil
Berlin -The death on October 11 of Austrian right-wing politician Jörg Haider was not
only dramatic – he ran his Volkswagen Phaeton off the road at 142 kilometers an
hour while drunk as a skunk – but also high drama. Late last week, Haider's
protégé and designated successor as chairman of the Alliance for Austria's
Future party, Stefan Petzner, effectively outed himself as Haider's lover in a
series of tearful television and radio interviews. Witnesses reported Haider,
58, and Petzner, 27, quarreling at a reception, after which Haider drove to a
local gay watering hole for a bout of drinking.
Haider's
homosexuality seems to demonstrate the banal truth that anyone can be gay, even
unsavoury right-wing types. What it doesn't fit is the model of the deeply
closeted gay man so at war with his desires that he crusades against gays in
public-- like notorious McCarthy-era prosecutor Roy Cohn, or the anti-gay
evangelist Ted Haggard. Haggard, after his admission that he frequented male
prostitutes, said that "there is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark
that I've been warring against it all of my adult life." Judging by Petzer's
grief and statements last week, he and Haider had carried on an intense
relationship. Haider didn't seem to be fighting his nature all that hard. On gay
rights, Haider's party has been more liberal than Austria's mainstream
conservatives.
Stranger, however, was the way the incident was treated
in the Austrian press and public.
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