Ever since a newspaper outed Spokane Mayor Jim West for being gay, a persistent question I hear is: Who's next?

Who else is in the closet — particularly among conservatives? When will we hear about them, too? Sooner rather than later, predicts a state senator from Seattle.

"I think an outing campaign is coming here," says Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle. "The tension's so damned high right now. Ever since the gay-rights bill failed by one vote, there's been a lot of anger."

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Jacobsen wrote in a letter to "The Ethicist" advice column that some Washington state lawmakers are considering outing fellow legislators "who oppose gay rights but are rumored to be gay."

"What are the ethics in this case?" Jacobsen wrote.

Jacobsen was more specific on the phone.

"There's been talk about outing one of the Republicans in the state Senate," he said.

The advice from The Ethicist, also known as Randy Cohen, is: Go for it.

"Your colleagues may ethically out an official only if that official's being gay is germane to his policy-making," he wrote.

Cohen added it's OK to out a gay legislator who opposes a gay-rights bill, on the grounds that he's a hypocrite.

First, political nuance isn't The Ethicist's strong point. It's possible to be gay and against the gay-rights bill without being a hypocrite.

"Just because you're gay doesn't mean you have to agree to every plank of liberal, gay orthodoxy," says Dave Kaplan, president of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group.

Kaplan supports the gay-rights bill, but some members of Log Cabin do not because they believe it's a waste of taxpayer money to have a state commission investigate discrimination complaints.

I support the gay-rights bill, too. But it's extreme — disturbing, even — to conclude that anyone's position on it justifies a witch hunt into their personal sexual lives.

Now if somebody is outright gay bashing, that's a tougher call. I admit I'm filled with a fleeting schadenfreude when a true bigot gets outed.

West, who once sponsored a bill to ban homosexuals from teaching, fits that description. Still, he's in trouble not for being a hypocrite but for allegedly molesting two boys and using his office to get dates.

So if we do start outing, after a few bigots are exposed as hypocrites, where will we be?

Jacobsen is conflicted. He's always believed political private lives are not part of the public record. After years of the culture wars, he's reassessing.

"It's like baseball," Jacobsen says. "You throw at our hitters, well, then what do we do but throw back at yours?"

What we get from that is a bench-clearing brawl.

It won't help us achieve gay equality. It'll be just another spin in the cycle of nasty politics.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday.

Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com