promotion

When I heard that New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey came out of the closet and subsequently resigned, I did what any self-respecting gay man would do: I emailed all of my friends.
   I mean, here's the most All-American guy you can possibly imagine, the most Republican-looking Democrat ever, announcing to the world that he's been having an affair with a man and that he must come out, come clean and make things right. What to think?
   My friend Dan said, "I feel like it's the '50s or something: "The Governor's a gay! A GAY! Oh, the scandal! He must resign! I forgot how evil we are!'" Said my friend Chris, who works for a major civil rights organization: "I bet you anything he becomes a big activist."
   Coming out is difficult, frightening, challenging and disorienting. Imagine your worst nightmare about being naked and humiliated in public, magnify it by a thousand and you'll have an inkling of what its like. For that reason alone, I'm almost willing to give McGreevey a pass on resigning. He's going to need some peace and quiet, some "alone time" to get his life back together.
   On the other hand, his pre-emptive resignation is a major blow to gay politics. Here's someone who, had he remained in office, could have single-handedly disproved most of the myths about gays. He's masculine, clean-cut, a social conservative; he's every suburban family's dream neighbor. With his accumulated political clout and high visibility he could have had more influence on gay rights than Gavin Newsom.
   Instead, he just quit. I can't say I blame him — who wants to expose themselves to ridicule or put themselves in the middle of controversy? But by coming out and simultaneously resigning he cuts off the debate, allowing the homophobes to define his actions. His one-time political mentor Brendan Byrne said, "It's my hope [McGreevey's] achievements will be remembered long after today's tragic events are forgotten." Coming out is hardly a tragic event but McGreevey isn't sticking around to debate it. Almost more importantly, he isn't giving the public a chance to accept or reject him, to judge him on his merits not on his sexual orientation.
   Maybe that's the problem — his merit and character. The infidelity issue would have been a tough one. The public forgives heterosexual infidelity, but they might not forgive a homosexual indiscretion, especially if the alleged gay lover is also the "homeland security advisor" he appointed despite a lack of credentials. And McGreevey had other scandals brewing — his No. 1 donor is under investigation for hiring a prostitute to create a blackmail tape and his chief of staff was involved in an illegal billboard scandal. Admitting he's gay is probably a relief.
   Still, Jim McGreevey's resignation is a huge disappointment, even if it was necessary because of extenuating circumstances. It makes you wonder what would have happened if he had just come out earlier. Would he still have risen in politics? Would he have avoided the duplicitous behavior that made the other scandals possible?
   We'll never know. Maybe after McGreevey takes some time to re-group, and gets comfortable with himself as a "Gay American" he will return to public life and his "once-promising" political career to stand up for the important issues he's dodging by resigning. — Andy Horwitz


Initially, I was sympathetic to James McGreevey's decision to step down. I've burst into tears in too many office restrooms to lecture anyone on separating the personal from the professional. I anticipated arguments with my friends, who would, I was sure, grouse about McGreevey's responsibility to stay in office, to serve as a shining beacon of gayness beaming across the nation. Meanwhile, the psycho-conservative columnists whom I read like pornography would crow about the moral victory, and there would be a big old blowup. Unfortunately for my scandal-craving self, the universal official line is that it's not about McGreevey being gay, it's about political misconduct and corruption and . . . YAWN.
   If we lived in a world where gayness was accepted and political corruption wasn't, I'd overlook my boredom. But I'm a little bit skeptical when the same people who reveled in the California Supreme Court's invalidation of gay marriages are demurely suggesting that nepotism is obviously the real problem. Everyone's been overcome with grace and tolerance all of a sudden, and that's fucked up. Homophobes can afford to be graceful in this instance, because their goal has been pre-emptively met. For their purposes, McGreevey's Gay Uncle Tom, a good 'mo who knows when to make himself scarce.
   Meanwhile, you do realize that this is business as usual in Jersey, yes? That contracting scandals have been hovering around the state's governorship (not to mention, um, the entire country) for months (not to mention um, eternity), right? Oh, no? Really? Well, I guess it was in the back of the Metro section, right next to the article about birdwatching in Central Park.
    Strange that this scandal should play itself out on the front pages. It's less strange when you consider that the argument everyone wants to have is implicit. In the next article you read on the situation, try replacing the word "corruption" with "Big Gay Penis." It's enlightening, and the exercise recalls the first few hours of coverage on the 12th, right after McGreevey's rather impressive speech. The New York Times ran a surprisingly slimy piece which was replaced with more neutral coverage within the space of a few hours, making me wish I'd printed the original article out, if only to convince myself I wasn't hallucinating. The New York Post ran a pretty choice headline: "I'M OUT," a day before running obnoxious, though not blatantly homophobic, editorials. For twelve hours it was all about The Gay. There was something shocking and profound in McGreevey's declaration, something people were reacting to, were occasionally moved by, for Christ's sake. There was an opportunity to really have it out, possibly to think about things in unconventional ways, an opportunity forfeited for a veiled and meaningless debate, all because McGreevey's case quickly proved too ugly, too real, too un-spinnable — to serve as anyone's mythology. — Carrie Hill Wilner

Jim McGreevey gets to be the first politician in the history of the earth to resign with the line "I am a gay American." (Maybe Barney Frank said it, but it didn't seem as hot.)
    McGreevey's speech, in a throaty repentant oratorial style that has been the mainstay for generations of lawmaker-horndogs, seems to be an attempt at pre-empting something much larger — whether it involves a direct link to him in the fundraising scandals that plagued his administration or just a really steamy sex scene on an anchored yacht caught on digital camera (everyone is doing it!).
   I always worry for guys who come out of the closet later in life. In just one year, we may see him in a too tight cut-off t-shirt dancing on a Gay Pride Bacardi-sponsored float wearing a rainbow lei and screaming "Wooo!" McGreevey may have to go through the less-than-dignified phase of gay life that is more-than-ready to accept newly identified men into its fold, as he buys package-enhancing 2(x)ist briefs, begins listening to the never-changing thrum of "oonce oonce" dance music, and blows all his money on circuit-party tickets.
   Maybe you always kind of thought Jim was gay, even before he did. As we soak ourselves in the exploitative news reports sure to come, let us remember to always trust our media gaydar and never suppress our suspicions again. We live among myriad arranged marriages of politicians, sports stars and actors. At least McGreevey had the balls to come out — you can rest assured there are a ton of other politicos out there who are furtively checking their Manhunt.com profiles, with no intention of looking "deeply in the mirror." — Mike Albo



Why are passion and corruption so often bound so tightly? Why does James McGreevey's big, wrong lust for Golan Cipel — which led him to lie, steal, and put New Jersey in peril — make my straightforward, unhidden, heterosexual married love feel so puny and ineffectual? Do I still have the morals of a teen goth?
   But who wouldn't be jealous of such unreasonable and riotous desire? It began the instant McGreevey, that Anthony Perkins lookalike, saw Golan Cipel — poet, sailor, Israeli — across the room at a wine-and-cheese reception. Man approached man. They spoke for five minutes. Golan Cipel stayed in his own country. McGreevey went back to his, and became governor. Still, he could not forget those five minutes with Golan Cipel. He had his donor send for Golan. First, he was made McGreevey's personal liaison, then McGreevey appointed him head of homeland security with a salary of $110,000 a year. Later, Golan became "special counsel." They had become two rich politicians in love. McGreevey got Golan an apartment close to the mansion he shares with his wife and daughter. But still, there were obstacles to them being in the same room. Golan couldn't even attend homeland security meetings, because he was an Israeli citizen without clearance from the CIA! Who knows how much further into nefarious nepotism McGreevey would have sunk, had Golan not turned on him. Like McGreevey's dirty generosity, Golan's filthy greed knew no bounds. His substantial salary and luxe apartment were not enough — he was now blackmailing his lover for millions! And I bet they were still doing it, even while the blackmail moved forward. Oh, how I love hot, sailing, poetic, law-breaking, blackmailing, Catholic-Jewish gay love!
   But wait — I'm supposed to discuss whether McGreevey's resignation was justified and necessary, and what kind of message it sends. Of course McGreevey had to resign. But only in this world. In my world, a foreign blackmailer is the best candidate to figure out what a fundamentalist Islamist might do next. We need more men like Golan. Or so I thought, until I read that now he is accusing McGreevey of smearing him. Of all the ungrateful concubines!
   And of all the sleazy keepers of kept men: McGreevey said he would not back legislation to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey. (He did sign a domestic-partnership bill.) He figured he could fake it, so everyone else should. But everyone else can't go around appointing their lovers and buying love nests. I guess that's what excites me about corruption — it's sweeter than one person deserves, like an almost-rotten nectarine. It's all-consuming. McGreevey was no dispassionate ruler.
   The fallout, the outcry (only from Republicans, I think), is certainly not an anti-gay thing. Imagine if Golan Cipel were Monica Lewinsky. If Clinton had given her an apartment and a security job she were not equipped to handle instead of just a messy dress, he'd have ended up in jail. It's probably gayist (homophobic is not the right word here) of the Republicans, and of me, to believe that homo-love is so lascivious, so unusual, that the participants can't help but sin for it. Those Republicans and I are actually giving McGreevey an exemption for being Other, as if he and Golan were figments of our fantasies where nothing really counts, instead of rational human beings who made decisions all along the way. — Lisa Carver  n°

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