Is it OK for a journalist to out a member of Congress who has consistently voted against expanding rights and protections to gays and lesbians?

That's one of the arguments put forth by journalist Itay Hod, who has worked for the likes of CBS News and NY1. In a Facebook post, Hod outs Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), without directly naming him, and asks whether the media have an obligation to out Schock as well:

Doesn't the media have an OBLIGATION to expose his hypocrisy? if he had done something so hypocritical and he wasn't gay, wouldn't we demand journalists do their job? but they can't... because we won't let them. you're not allowed to out ANYONE, we tell them.

we've created a situation where even though news organizations know this guy is gay, they can't report it because he hasn't said so on twitter. 

if we keep saying that being gay is genetic; ergo, it's no different than having blue eyes or blonde hair... than why are not allowed to mention it? why do we need anyone's consent to talk about their sexuality? are we not allowed to say someone has blue eyes until they post a fb message telling us they are in fact blue?

Schock hasn't made any public statements yet about Hod's allegation, though he did block his Instagram account.

It's worth noting that most mainstream journalists shy away from outing anyone by hearsay, even when their sexual orientation is a generally understood fact. It was widely known that both ABC's Robin Roberts and CNN's Anderson Cooper were gay long before they came out, though much of the media took a hands-off approach to that fact when reporting on them.

On AmericaBlog, John Aravosis posits that for some, Schock must be outed because of his anti-gay legislating. Over at BuzzFeed, chief Los Angeles correspondent Kate Aurthur and Legal Editor Chris Geidner debate whether outing Schock amounts to bullying, or whether journalists are too careful in reporting on people who may be gay. Geidner sums up the struggle well: 

Journalism is changing too, obviously, and it’s more and more difficult — as Hod proved this weekend — to keep a story that people want to tell out of the news, whether it percolates out of the mainstream media or is front and center on the nightly news.