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May 29, 2007
NY Blade column: Why Honor McGreevey?
http://nyblade.com/2007/5-18/viewpoint/opinion/lucasfiles.cfm
By MICHAEL LUCAS
May. 18, 2007
Why would any self-respecting gay person choose to be associated with the slime-bag scum-ball Jim McGreevey?
When he served as governor of New Jersey, McGreevey was not without his positive accomplishments. For instance, he lobbied strongly for the Garden State’s domestic partnership law for same-sex couples and signed that law in 2004. However, he was guilty beyond doubt of intolerable breeches of his constituents’ trust. He was guilty of association with “pay to play” arrangements where his administration awarded no-bid government contracts to big campaign contributors. His administration was implicated in extortion scandals involving party fundraisers. Most notoriously, he assigned to his male lover Golan Cipel the post of Homeland Security Advisor, and knowingly deceived the public by lying about that lover’s qualifications for the job.
In the post 9/11 world, it is hard even to imagine that a U.S. government official would ever stoop so low as to make his unqualified lover a Homeland Security Advisor. Yet having stooped that low, McGreevey stooped even further. On August 12, 2004, Cipel’s lawyer advised McGreevey that Cipel was going to file a sexual harassment suit against him. The skeletons rattling around in McGreevey’s closet at that time were not mainly the gay ones. They were also the skeletons of corruption and dishonesty. Yet instead of doing the honorable thing, confessing to wrongdoing and resigning, McGreevey let off with a non sequitur. He said: “My truth is that I am a gay American.”
AND? HOW DARE THIS flaming jerk seek to deflect attention from all his wrongdoing by declaring that he is gay? That move was one of the most sickeningly selfish PR stunts I have ever had to witness. He knows there is widespread public antipathy toward gay people. He knowingly exploits that antipathy as a defensive hedge. When people rightly criticize him for his corruption, he can troop out his non sequitur and imply that they are criticizing him because he is gay. Every time he does that, he sets back the advancement of equal rights for gay people. By making such an issue of being gay, McGreevey redirects the conversation about him. Yet, as he well knows, the political enemies of the gay community use him, wrongfully, as an example of what voters could expect from gay elected officials.
So why do I see McGreevey turning up as a VIP guest of honor at big gay events and galas? Lambda Legal put a foul stain on its reputation by having the slime-ball to their dinner (though it might be that he just bought a ticket). Gay magazines have disgraced themselves by having him at their parties. Just what about him are they cheering? A brave soul who sleazily deflected criticism from all its sleaziness by announcing it was gay? And I mean a really big whoop-dee-doo that McGreevey got somebody to publish his book “The Confession,” and another big whoop-dee-doo that Oprah had him on her show. How many openly gay political figures has Oprah had on her show that she had to choose this one to represent gays to mainstream America, anyway?
If squalid Jim McGreevey had any genuine sense of obligation toward the gay community, any sense of doing all he could to further rather than to damage its well-being, he would stop associating himself with it so aggressively. As is, though, The New York Post has a field day mocking him, and sometimes includes anti-gay innuendo in the process. The Post, for instance, loved quoting from McGreevey’s ex-beard’s book, “Silent Partner,” where she said that his taste in home décor “showed a woman’s touch.” Anybody for reinforcing negative stereotypes?
I salute Richard Burns, Director of The LGBT Center, for telling McSleazy to take a hike when he wanted to speak at the Center’s annual Garden Party. I also salute the Empire State Pride Agenda for barring him from speaking at its dinner. In fact, I salute any gay person who blocks McGreevey from exploiting us as a cover for his illegal actions as governor. Every time a gay group champions McGreevey, it is giving The New York Post and its ilk another opportunity to make fun of us and to conclude that we do not deserve an equal and representational voice in politics.
Now we hear the news that McGreevey wants to become an Episcopalian priest and has signed up with a seminary in Chelsea. Like there aren’t seminaries in places other than Chelsea! And if McGreevey’s hearing a “calling” to be a priest does not in itself have you howling with laughter, what about the fact that Kean College in New Jersey let McGreevey teach a course in ethics during the past year?
It is a sorry spectacle when members of the gay community hail so poor a role model as McGreevey. We in fact are not so desperate for celebrities that we need to kneel down before every corrupt opportunist who comes down the pike. My opening question serves well as an ending to this column: Why would any self-respecting gay person choose to be associated with the slime-bag scum-ball Jim McGreevey?
Posted by Michael at May 29, 2007 12:35 PM