[Cross-posted from ProgressiveHistorians.]

So my song for you this evening, it's not to make you sad

Nor for adding to the sorrows of our troubled northern land

But lately I've been thinking and it just won't leave my mind

I'll tell you of two friends of mine who were both good friends of mine

-- Tommy Sands, from "There Were Roses"

At a used bookstore hidden in a bargain barn several months ago, I picked up an intriguing book.  The Gentleman from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative was the memoir, said its jacket, of former Congressman Robert Bauman, a conservative Republican from Maryland's Eastern Shore.  I opened the book's cover and entered into the sordid world of Washington gay culture -- a world peopled with individuals desperate to indulge their sexual desires but terrified of exposure to their constituents.  Such a combination of fear and need creates a cocktail for destruction.  This is the story of that destruction -- and how it brought down two leading lights in Maryland politics.