NEW YORK (ABP) — Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.), one of Congress' staunchest opponents of gay rights, has declined to seek re-election to a third term in the House after a Washington activist's website claimed the congressman solicited sex with men on a gay telephone-rendezvous service.
Schrock, a Baptist layman, shocked many of his fellow Republicans in New York for the opening day of the Republican National Convention Aug. 31 when his office announced, via a late-evening press release, that he would not seek re-election. In the statement, the Virginia Beach-based representative referred to unspecified “allegations” that “will not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation and region.”
While Schrock and his spokespeople have not elaborated further on those allegations, his announcement came less than two weeks after he became the latest subject of a controversial “outing” campaign against Capitol Hill personalities by a Washington gay-rights activist.
Schrock is the first member of Congress to be targeted in the campaign. For several weeks, activist Mike Rogers has been posting the names of gay aides to members of Congress who support a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Even many gay leaders have criticized the campaign as mean-spirited, but Rogers has defended his project by saying he is simply exposing hypocrites.
Schrock is a co-sponsor of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment to ban gay marriage. He also voted for the Marriage Protection Act, which passed the House earlier this year. That bill would strip federal courts of the ability to overrule part of the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defines marriage, for federal purposes, exclusively in heterosexual terms.
Schrock, a Vietnam veteran, also is on record supporting reinstatement of the military's ban on homosexuals. He opposed former President Bill Clinton's so-called “don't ask, don't tell” policy requiring military officials not to conduct investigations into the sexual orientation of servicemen and women.
In a 2000 article in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper, Schrock spoke about the necessity of preventing gays — whether open or closeted — from serving in the military. “You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them,” the congressman said. “You just hope no harm would come by folks who are of that persuasion. It's a discipline thing.”
Schrock's website describes him and his wife as “active members” of Atlantic Shores Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, an independent Baptist congregation.
The conservative Christian Coalition gave Schrock a 92 percent approval rating in its 2003 voters' guide. In the 2001-2002 session of Congress — the last term for which figures are available — the gay-advocacy group Human Rights Campaign gave Schrock a score of zero percent in his support for gay-rights issues.
In his original Internet accusation about Schrock's sex life, posted on Aug. 19, Rogers said Schrock “has made a habit of rendezvousing with gay men” on “an interactive telephone service on which men place ads and respond to those ads to meet each other.”
After Schrock announced his resignation, Rogers posted a downloadable audio file of one of the sexually explicit phone messages alleged to be Schrock's. Rogers has declined to say what proof he has that the voice on the message is Schrock's. Several media reports have quoted Virginia Republican officials as acknowledging Rogers' allegations as the reason the congressman is stepping down.
Reached via e-mail Sept. 1, Rogers told Associated Baptist Press that he would post similar audio files to his site “every few days” for the near future. “As the tapes go up, we will ask the congressman, 'How many tapes of you on the phone service are required for him to admit these tapes are the real deal?'” he said.
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