Outrage is incendiary for its prosecution, if not persecution, of American political leaders that help perpetuate the institutionalized condemnation of the US’ queer community while keeping their own gay desires in the closet for years. It seems like once a year, some fire and brimstone member of the Moral Majority manages to literally get caught with their pants down in the company of another man. Be it in a bathroom stall in a Minneapolis airport or in the travel records of a Congressman and his chief of staff, Washington is one of the gayest cities in America, as one staffer observes. But you wouldn’t know it from everything you see on CNN, would you?

Director Kirby Dick’s film is an up-to-the-minute accounting of the struggle to get gay rights recognized as the quintessential civil rights struggle of our times and the persistent roadblocks thrown up by politicians who tow the part line during the day, but are cruising the gay bars after the end of business. One of the issues discussed is the gotcha tactic of outing conservative politicians that fight against gay rights despite their own proclivities. Are these people traitors that deserve to be exposed in the blinding light of media flashbulbs, or do they merit pity because they’re clearly confused about their own sexuality.

Dick obviously sides on the former, and honestly who can blame him. The other part of the equation are gay activists, journalists and reporters that cover gay issues as they struggle to bring awareness to their issue and the irony over the fact that the very people that could help them the most, are some of the biggest obstacles in their way. It’s an interesting and utterly, unintentionally funny paradigm, and with every consecutive politician whose vainer of heterosexuality falls like a house of cards, you’re forced to wonder what’s still driving the façade.

Outrage uses humour as an effective weapon, but there’s a cold shower in the fact that these closeted politicians are helping to foster the very conditions that are keeping them in the closet. By this of course I mean the bigotry, name-calling and even violence that sees openly gay young people either frightened into silence or beat into a hospital bed. One wonders how these politicians sleep at night, but Dick is far too cutting an advocate to let anyone off the hook so easily. In fact, I’d say that Outrage is framed like a giant shame on you to the very people it profiles.

But naturally, there is a silver-lining. The film points to several outed Republican politicians that have become powerful voices of advocacy for the community they once shunned. Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe talks about how his fear of coming out turned to enjoyment the more he told people that he was gay following years of trying to live the straight life. The sum and total message of the film comes from Shakespeare by way of former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey: to thine own self be true. Because if we can’t expect our leaders to accept change, what hope is there for the rest of us.