Robert Bauman

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Robert Bauman (April 4, 1937–) is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the 1st Congressional district of Maryland. He was elected to the House as a Republican in an August 1973 special election, replacing William O. Mills, who had died the previous May. He was re-elected in 1974, 1976, and 1978, but was defeated in 1980. In 1982 he was nominated by his party to run for the seat he had lost, but withdrew from the race before election day.

Bauman is perhaps most famous for his well-publicized fall from political grace. Bauman had established a reputation as a strong conservative, often bemoaning the perceived moral decay in the United States. He was a founding member of several conservative activist groups, including Young Americans for Freedom and the American Conservative Union and received a perfect 100 on the Christian Voice Morality Rating.[1] A devout Catholic, he was married to Carol Dawson, a fellow founding member of YAF, and they had four children.

He had publicly denounced homosexual behavior, so it was doubly surprising when Bauman was arrested on October 3, 1980 for attempting to solicit sex from a 16-year old male prostitute and "oral sodomy" ^[1], contributing to his electoral defeat one month later. As he related in his autobiography, The Gentleman from Maryland (1986), he had led a secret double life for years. The resulting stress eventually caused him to become an alcoholic. Bauman was renominated in 1982, but withdrew from the race, and a year later came out as gay. His wife had their marriage annulled soon afterwards, although his children have remained close to their father. He was able to overcome his alcoholism after publicly disclosing his true orientation.

Bauman now serves as legal counsel for the Sovereign Society, an Irish-based group dedicated to the avoidance of taxes through use of the offshore financial system [2] and edits two publications, The Sovereign Society Offshore A-Letter and The Patriot Act Report. [3].