In an article in “The Atlantic” called, “Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I’m Gay,” the author, Marc Ambinder, quoted Ken Mehlman as saying, “It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life.”

That’s only three years longer than it took me to figure it out and disclose my secret life.

Mehlman was President Bush’s campaign manager in 2004 and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is the most powerful Republican in history to identify as gay.

Many of us who came out late in life, or have yet to do so, can understand what Mehlman meant when he said, “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey.”

Although concealment of sexual orientation occurs for a variety of reasons, I know from my own experience that it is possible not to be able to accept it even when there are so many things in our lives that would point in that direction. As someone once wrote, “I don’t want to want what I want.”

Mehlman has found that his family, friends and current and former colleagues were far more supportive than he had imagined. In fact all of us before we come out magnify the potential negative consequences and minimize the potential positives.

Mehlman said, “The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.” Many of us have felt that way, but a variety of circumstances seemed to interfere with that process.

Mehlman said that he now wants to become an advocate for gay marriage. Because he is well connected to the powers in the Republican Party, he is in a position to influence those in power who offer resistance to it.

Some gay activists will say he is a hypocrite, and he is not welcome within the gay community. But whether you come out as a young man, a middle aged man or an old man, all of us before we came out were hypocrites who lied about our sexual orientation. The only real difference is that Mehlman was in a much more powerful position than most of us. But each of us has the power to change minds about what it means to be a man who has sex with other men.

At the same time we may want to offer Mehlman some understanding about the personal conflict he faced while delaying his coming out, he must still be held accountable for his role in using hatred of gay men and women as a political tool to manipulate voters. Watch this video as Dan Savage addresses this topic.

One of Harvey Milk’s classmates remembered him this way: “He was never thought of as a possible queer—that’s what you called them then—he was a man’s man”.. Milk is said not to have come out to his mother before she died.

Some political commentators have said that Mehlman’s coming out is the result of the Republican Party’s recognition that public sentiment about homosexuality, and gay marriage in particular, is changing. They see that anti-gay rhetoric has lost its power as a wedge issue that can motivate their political base. I would like to believe that Mehlman’s coming out is more than that.

Mehlman was aware that Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief strategic adviser, had been working with Republicans to make sure that anti-gay initiatives and referenda would appear on November ballots in 2004 and 2006 to help Republicans. I would prefer to believe that Mehlman was tormented by his feeling paralyzed to move against Rove and Republican Party consensus.

Karl Rove’s step-father, Louis Rove, divorced his mother and lived the rest of his adult life as an openly gay man.

I want to believe Mehlman because I want others to believe me when I say I really didn’t understand I was gay until I was forty. Mehlman said. “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.”

Mehlman asks of those who doubt his sincerity: “If they can’t offer support, at least offer understanding.” I offer my understanding, and even though I disagree strongly with his politics, I support his new life as a gay man.

Mehlman is quoted, “I wish I was where I am today 20 years ago. The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn’t know. My friends didn’t know. Anyone who watched me knew I was a guy who was clearly uncomfortable with the topic,” he said. I could have said those same things.

To read the entire article in “The Atlantic,” click here.