Gay political blogger Michael Rogers was recently threatened with a physical beating during an on-camera interview by Washington, D.C.-based talk show host Doug Mckleway, of Channel 8’s “Let’s Talk Live!” Rogers is a principal talking head in Kirby Dick‘s Outrage (opening 5.8 in several cities), and Mckleway was expressing his extreme anger and discomfort at the idea of outing closeted Washington, D.C. legislators, which is what the film is about.

Without hinting or suggesting anything, please watch the clip and offer thoughts about what is suggested by Mckleway’s telling Rogers that he’d like to take him outside and punch him in the face? Why would Mckleway be this enraged about anti-gay Republican legislators’ right to sexual privacy? Obviously he has some kind of dog in this hunt.

In my 4.25 review of Outrage, I said that it “seems to me like an exceptionally tight and disciplined and truthful testament. It’s ballsy and straight and coming from a healthy place. It’s certainly one of the best-made films I’ve seen this year, and without question one of the toughest and bravest.

“Dick’s aim is to expose a bizarre psychology on the part of closeted politicians who’ve voted against gay civil rights as a way of suppressing their own issues. Bluntly and unambiguously and without any dicking around, Outrage names names. Dick seems to have done his homework; you can sense discipline and exactitude and what seems like solid sourcing all through it. I came away convinced that it’s better to look at this tendency frankly and plainly than to just let it fester.

“I still feel opposed to personally outing anyone, but Dick’s motive is clearly to let air and sunlight into a series of Washington, D.C. situations that have been about shadows for too long. That’s what kept hitting me over and over as I watched — i.e., that Outrage is doing a fine job of persuading me that it’s all about telling the truth. I believed it, I believed it, I believed it.”