The Most Feared Man on the Hill?

The Craig scandal has gripped the capital. For many gays, the episode harks back to times when closeted homosexuals were arrested in the city's cruising spots for "disorderly behavior." For many people, gay and straight, parsing out the details -- toe-tapping, fingers under the partition -- has been incredibly intriguing, and sometimes awkward.

Out of that discomfort, so many jokes to make, some exacerbated by Craig himself. A new catchphrase was born: "I have a wide stance."

Rogers, still sitting on his club chair, laughs about that one. He turns serious, takes a sip of soda and goes on a tirade: "We, as a society, are afraid of talking about two men having sex. Lesbian sex? 'That's hot!' But gay male sex? Well, nothing makes straight men more uncomfortable. Look at the reaction from the right, the double standard. . . . Take [David] Vitter, the senator who's on the D.C. madam's list. . . . Where were the calls for his resignation? . . . Yes, Craig pleaded guilty to a crime but that's not really the reason why they're throwing him under the bus."

Here comes the other "h" word. Not just "hypocrisy." But "homophobic."

At 43, Rogers came out in his early 20s and has spent the bulk of his life working for gay organizations. A native of the New York metropolitan area, he's lived in the District for more than a decade. Although his blog isn't his main source of income -- he was a fundraising consultant and currently runs Page One News Media, a gay-oriented online company -- the Web site has become more than a full-time job. He's a student of the gay rights movement and considers Larry Kramer, the writer and AIDS activist, and Franklin E. Kameny, the lifelong Washington firebrand, as models.

"Mike's always been active, very involved, in the gay community," says Andy Humm, a reporter for Gay City News in New York and Rogers's friend of nearly 20 years. Like Kramer and Kameny, Rogers, some activists say, is fearless, aggressive, in-your-face. But unlike them, he's got a blog, which since its inception has become a must-read among certain sets in Washington, especially its sizable gay population.

The way Rogers tells it, his online activism began when the Republican-controlled Senate scheduled a vote against same-sex marriage in June 2004.

The birth of the Internet has been a boon for gay socializing and organizing, and one of the first things Rogers did was post a profile on Gay.com, a popular site among gays. The profile read: "If you're against the Federal Marriage Amendment and know someone who's closeted, send that information to me." And while Hill groups such as the Gay, Lesbian & Allies U.S. Senate Staff Caucus and the Lesbian and Gay Congressional Staff Association opposed his actions, word got around. E-mails poured in, many anonymous. He investigates his tips by working the phones; on rare occasions, he flies around the country to meet with sources. Among his sources was a 40-year-old man who claimed to have had oral sex with Craig in a bathroom in Union Station.

Rumors about some members of Congress have swirled for years, but for the most part, they've stayed just that: rumors. There have been "outing scares" before, when a gay activist would write about this or that elected official. But until Rogers and his blog came along, few people off the Hill knew of the rumors. .

Says Kelly McBride, who teaches about ethics at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank: "In the past, when the mainstream media were the gatekeepers of information, you could scream all of you want -- 'A conservative senator from Idaho is gay!' -- and nobody would hear you. But now people can hear anyone, and that's changed how mainstream media makes decisions about what to publish."

To some, Rogers is a hero, which is what BlogPac, a political action committee that funds progressive blogs, called him in July when presenting him with an award. His supporters say he's been more effective than the established gay press and gay organizations in exposing the GOP's "image problem."

"He's a sort of a muckraker, and he's sharing good information that other people don't," says Matt Stoller, the liberal blogger who heads BlogPac.