Talk:Wes Goodman

Removing LGBT state legislators in Ohio Category from the article

I removed Category:LGBT state legislators in Ohio because I find the circumstances of the inappropriate behavior by a public official to be similar in nature to the Larry Craig scandal. A decade ago, Larry Craig was a Senator from Idaho who engaged in cottaging in a public bathroom at a Minnesota airport. The Larry Craig article does not have a LGBT category. However, his talk page included the Wikiproject, LGBT studies. FunksBrother (talk) 21:22, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

• Irrelevant. Wes Goodman resigned after being caught having sex with a man in his legislative office. Plenty more men have now come forward to say he solicited them etc. So the category stays as this is not an article about Larry Craig. JimmyJoe87 (talk) 09:42, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

There's also Ted Haggard. Haggard was with a male prostitute and the prostitute alleged that he had sex with Haggard. There are no LGBT categories for his article. The LGBT category for Wes Goodman is highly inappropriate and bordering on defamation. FunksBrother (talk) 16:05, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

In a perfect world, I agree with you. However, there is a long-standing Wikipedia policy not to add an LGBT category unless the subject in question has self-identified as LGBT. Others can point you to where this policy exists, so you can read about it. (I don't happen to know where it is.) Per that policy, an LGBT category is not appropriate for this article (even though, on a personal level -- which is irrelevant -- I don't doubt that this subject is G or B.) Moncrief (talk) 21:10, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Moncrief, I decided to check out WikiProject LGBT studies to see what they wrote in identifying people under the LGBT category. Lo and behold, this was mentioned under Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines. If you read the third guideline, subsection one; it tells that the category is appropriate, "only if they themselves publicly identify as such." Going forward, if I ever encounter this situation again, I will rely on the guidelines mandated by Wikiproject LGBT studies. FunksBrother (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. Are you not removing the category from the article because of the 3-edit revert policy? I'm not doing it because I like to avoid Wiki-drama. Moncrief (talk) 21:57, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I find it laughable that you think the LGBT category is 'highly inappropriate' and 'bordering on defamation'. May I ask why you think that it is defamation or highly inappropriate? JimmyJoe87 (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Because this person has not come out publicly. I would read Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies/Guidelines again. FunksBrother (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

You are not in the right here, JimmyJoe87, and if this matter were taken to arbitration, you would lose. I understand what you are saying and your point of view -- I really do. There is a very strong case to be made that Goodman is bisexual or gay; heterosexual people tend not to repeatedly seek out sexual contact with their own gender. I get it. However, Wikipedia has the integrity it does because procedures and rules are followed. One of them is that we can't categorize someone as LGBT until that person self-identifies as such. There are numerous examples on Wikipedia where the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that said person was gay or bisexual, but the process was respected and an LGBT category was not added until the article subject actually came out of the closet. I can absolutely assure you that if this article were more heavily viewed and edited, that your category addition would be reverted without question.

I strongly encourage you to read FunksBrother's link above, particularly the introduction and guideline 3(1). Moncrief (talk) 04:10, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Just a thought or two three. First, the guideline mentioned above is a WikiProject guideline, not a community guideline, so it really is advice and not an enforceable rule. That said, it's generally a sensible rule, and I think it's appropriate to apply it here. Second, I think JimmyJoe87 is right to question the use of the word "defamation" (although one might suppose consider the possibility that it's LGBT identity that's being borderline defamed by the subject, not the other way around). Third, sexual behavior is not the same as sexual orientation. Even if an openly gay man were observed in flagrante delicto with a woman, it would not be a good idea to assume that he is heterosexual or bisexual. By the same token, sexual activity per se between persons of the same sex doesn't automatically make anyone gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 05:26, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree that FunksBrother should not have said "defamation." It was the wrong word to use, and this is not an issue of defamation. Moncrief (talk) 15:20, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• The responses here are all correct: Wikipedia has a rule that we have to be careful about the application of LGBT categories, adding them to living people only when the person has come out as possessing an L, G, B or T identity. Strictly speaking, we don't give a rat's hiney what's going on in a person's private personal life — we care about LGBTness only insofar as the person chooses to publicly identify themselves with the LGBT community, and not what makes their naughty bits tingle. Sure, gay men sometimes twist themselves into pretzels to avoid identifying as gay — sometimes even after being caught with their pants down, precisely as happened here — but it's not our role to force their hands. To put it crudely, categorizing him as LGBT doesn't depend on whether he's doing gay sex things with his penis, it depends on whether he's publicly identifying in a social and political and cultural sense with the gay community. Bearcat (talk) 05:34, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Freddie Mercury never "came out"; with him it was an open secret that he was attracted to men. Those in the list may not have LGBT labels but it is demonstrably the case that they are no more heterosexual than male rapists of other men. Sure they can identify how they choose but the "blank label" (i.e. no category) implies one of two things: 1) the subject is heterosexual and known to be so, or 2) the subject's life is private and no notable information exists to comment on his or her sexual orientation. Neither of these points apply to Wes Gooodman, nor the others listed in the thread. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 08:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Freddie Mercury is not relevant to this situation. The restriction that a person has to have come out in their own words only applies to people who are still living and can be directly affected by what we publish. For dead people such as Freddie Mercury, all that's necessary is that reliable sources directly address the matter of his sexual orientation, and whether he ever came out in his own words or not is no longer relevant. Bearcat (talk) 16:06, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I only used Mercury as one example, he is not that important. I cannot quite see the logic behind the description here. Goodman as a living person can indeed be affected by what editors publish but it is too late in the day for this person to be considered a heterosexual even if he insists he is. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Whether or not I or anyone else personally considers him to be a heterosexual (I don't, FTR, but then I also don't know him personally, so it's just my opinion) is not the same as whether or not we should add an LGBT category to his (a living person's) Wikipedia page. Moncrief (talk) 18:12, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

OK I think we've covered it. Based on what you are saying (Wikipedia policy), it just isn't appropriate for us to add the category. My gripe is clearly with the policies and not this one particular article. As there will be no changes, I can't add any more to this thread. Onward we go. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 09:04, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

We don't care what anybody else "considers" him to be. There's only one person whose "opinion" about Wes Goodman's sexuality is in any way relevant to whether we can categorize Wes Goodman as LGBT or not — and that one person is Wes Goodman himself. We're not a platform for forcing people to take on the identity labels we think they should publicly adopt — when it comes to categorizing a living person as LGBT, no matter what sexual behaviour may be known on the public record, we don't do it until they've publicly claimed an LGBT identity by coming out. Bearcat (talk) 06:30, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Apart from the final part of your comment being a total throwaway, the self-evident fact that Wes Goodman is a homosexual is unequivocal. That is not what I personally consider since knowing what I do makes it impossible for me to deduce any differently. I guarantee you there are many notable people (without checking) who are openly involved in same-sex relationships and have the label but who have never actually stated the words to confirm their sexuality. If you (inadvertently) walk into a gay theme bar and find two drag queens snogging and groping in the corner, is it even the case that either needs to say what he is when it is patently obvious. Sometimes I think that Wikipedia's policy-making goes a step too far. This time it has gone several steps too far. A lot of editors are discussing the matter as if Goodman's blatant attraction to members of his own gender may not be the case. The man is queer, get over it. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 14:35, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

We do not categorize people by their sexual behaviour; we categorize people by the sexual identity that they publicly affiliate themselves with. You can be entirely right that Wes Goodman is behaviourally homosexual, but that doesn't make him categorizable as LGBT: we don't give a flying fig about his sexual behaviour when it comes to determining who belongs in that category tree. Inclusion there lives or dies on the question of whether he publicly associates himself with an LGBT identity or not — even if a person is behaviourally gay, they don't go in our LGBT categories if they're closeted, and a person who comes out does go in our LGBT categories even if they're sexually a virgin, because the categories are for sexual identity, not sexual behaviour. Bearcat (talk) 03:39, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

All right. I take your point. --Edin Balgarin (talk) 10:02, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Confusing Ambiguity in "Political Career" sectionOsomite (talk) 21:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Wes Goodman is not a particularly noteworthy individual. Other than the irony of supporting "traditional marriage", having consensual sexual relations with an unnamed adult male in his Ohio state representative office, and having been on Jim Jordan's staff (maybe that is not ironic); there is little support for Goodman to have his own Wikipedia article. At best, this man is a footnote in history.

Nonetheless, the article has problems. A problem that really sticks is the following poorly written sentence: "Goodman entered the race to succeed him, and in the Republican primary, defeated with 41% of the vote former State Representative Steve Reinhard, who had represented the same seat from 2001 to 2008." It's not clear who defeated who.

It needs to be edited to clearly communicate its meaning.

If someone would like to fix this (and maybe do a review and edit of the entire article) that would be appropriate.

I will leave this "issue" open for now. If no one steps up to edit it, I will undertake it with some loathing and reluctance. This situation makes me think about what my High School English teacher faced quite often--trying to help fix bad English and poor grammar written by a high school sophomore.

Osomite (talk) 21:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

A much belated note to say that I agree with your assessments of this article's weaknesses circa 2019, and I've made edits (maybe others have as well) since you wrote this. I think the grammatical/semantic issues you raised have since been resolved. Moncrief (talk) 16:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)