Republican congressman Aaron Schock — who represents Illinois' 18th congressional district — is known for one thing: being pretty and probably-almost-certainly gay. Schock is anti-gay on the record and he's frequently affirmed his straightness, but he may be feeling a gust of air this morning thanks to a sledgehammer wielded by journalist Itay Hod.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post identified Itay Hod as a member of CBS News. A CBS News spokesperson says that Hod, who lists himself as a "reporter, writer and producer" at CBS on his Linkedin is "not a CBS News employee." Though a clip reel posted to what appears to be Hod's YouTube account in 2011 shows him appearing on CBS, the spokesperson says Hod is not a current freelance contractor of CBS and never pitched the outing of Schock to anyone at the network. In an email to Gawker, Hod confirmed that he left CBS News two years ago and never pitched a story relating to Schock to CBS or any other news network.

Early yesterday, Hod — who is also gay — posted a long note on Facebook wondering why no journalist has ever outed Schock, who he claims has been caught by a journalist in the shower with his male roommate as well as in gay bars by TMZ. "Doesn't the media have an OBLIGATION to expose hypocrisy?" he asks:

here's a hypothetical: what if you know a certain GOP congressman, let's just say from Illinois, is gay... and you know this because one of your friends, a journalist for a reputable network, told you in no uncertain terms that he caught that GOP congressman and his male roommate in the shower... together. now they could have been good friends just trying to conserve water. but there's more. what if this congressman has also been caught by tmz cameras trolling gay bars. now what if you know that this very same guy, the darling of the gop, has also voted against repeal of don't ask don't tell, opposed the repeal of doma, is against gay marriage; and for the federal marriage amendment, which would add language to the us constitution banning gay marriage and would likely strike down every gay rights law and ordinance in the country?



Are we still not allowed to out him?

Hod goes on to defend outing the "certain GOP congressman" before posting a link to "The 7 gayest Aaron Schock Instagram posts of 2013" juuuuust to make sure we're all on the same page.

This might end up being a shitty weekend for Schock, or maybe it will be a freeing one. Maybe he'll even finally cop to being queer — as long as he's getting a 0% score from the Human Rights Campaign it's not like any of his fellow bigots in the GOP will care anyway.

And, hey, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the Illinois congressman who represents the city's capital of Springfield: in June he can get married.

UPDATE: It appears that after this story broke Schock moved his Instagram account to private. As Business Insider's Josh Barro pointed out yesterday, of the 71 people Schock follows on Instagram, one is queer diver/twink Tom Daley.

Below is Hod's full note, in the event he deletes it:

people always say, no one has the right to out anyone. that coming out is a private matter. i disagree. as you can imagine, not a very popular opinion. but bear with me.



here's a hypothetical: what if you know a certain GOP congressman, let's just say from Illinois, is gay... and you know this because one of your friends, a journalist for a reputable network, told you in no uncertain terms that he caught that GOP congressman and his male roommate in the shower... together. now they could have been good friends just trying to conserve water. but there's more. what if this congressman has also been caught by tmz cameras trolling gay bars. now what if you know that this very same guy, the darling of the gop, has also voted against repeal of don't ask don't tell, opposed the repeal of doma, is against gay marriage; and for the federal marriage amendment, which would add language to the us constitution banning gay marriage and would likely strike down every gay rights law and ordinance in the country?



Are we still not allowed to out him?



let me ask another question... 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?



we've been so effective at convincing everyone that outing people is a crime against humanity, that we've made it impossible for any network or news organization to talk about this "hypothetical" gay republican congressman and his hypocritical vote against gay rights. they won't touch it for fear of retribution from GLAAD or HRC. (in fact when my friend's network interviewed said hypothetical republican, he talked about wanting to find a nice woman to marry... and the network aired it... knowing it was a lie...



so, forgive me if I don't subscribe to the notion that you're not allowed to out anyone... in fact in some cases, i'd celebrate it. but I'm crazy that way.

[via Queerty, image via Getty]