Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Thursday, August 19, 2004

by Wayne Besen

The TV blared in my Florida home as breathless weather windbags warned that Hurricane Charley and Tropical Storm Bonnie were rapidly approaching with the ferocity of Bonnie and Clyde.

Suddenly, the deadly Category 4 windstorm was upstaged by a Category 5 political storm known as Hurricane McGreevey. With his stoic wife and shell-shocked parents by his side, New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey announced that he was a "gay American" and that he would resign. The press conference quickly cut a bizarre swath of confession, confusion, possible corruption and destruction like no one had ever seen before.

McGreevey didn't leave office because he is gay. He resigned because Golan Cipel, a self-proclaimed heterosexual poet, threatened to sue him for sexual harassment. McGreevey - who says the affair was consensual - had previously given the unqualified Cipel a job for $110,000 a year as a homeland security advisor.

What on earth was McGreevey thinking? In a post 9-11 world you don't give your sexy boyfriend or girlfriend a job in homeland security! Maybe you offer Cipel a $200,000 a year job collecting change in New Jersey's ubiquitous tollbooths. Maybe you even pay him to be captain of the Hoboken ferry. But NOT homeland security!

Incredibly, McGreevey's political future rose from the dead on Monday when a Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll found that his overall approval rating actually went up two points. Whoever thought coming out, admitting an affair and giving your joy boy a homeland security job would be a political boon?

The implications are frightening! If George W. Bush continues to plummet in swing state polls, might a desperate Karl Rove try to win back suburban Soccer Moms by having W. stage a coming out while announcing a fake affair with Colin Powell?

I'm guessing that McGreevey's popularity went up because the famously sterile politician was humanized. In an age of "Reality TV", it was shocking to see television that was so real. Although McGreevey was on center stage, the emotions weren't staged. Sure, he may have been blackmailed into telling the truth. But he still had to tell his family and stand in front of the cameras and own up to his mistakes, and that counts for something.

While this drama will one day make a great movie of the week, it wasn't necessarily a major step forward for the gay rights movement. A true advance is a gay governor giving an acceptance speech, not a resignation speech. But on a positive note for equality, the episode did show that New Jersey's gay politicians are just as corrupt as their heterosexual counterparts.

For this event to have lasting impact, Americans will have to look at the pain caused to McGreevey's family and ask: Will continuing to coerce a gay person to have sex with someone he is not attracted to or marrying a person he/she doesn't love produce anything but hell and heartbreak? Aren't healthy, stable gay marriages better for society than creating disastrous marriages between gay and straight spouses?

"A shattered marriage, the anguish inflicted on his parents, his wife, his daughters - are not just the result of his personal choices, but roadblocks society continues to place in the path of the complete acceptance of gay men and women," wrote columnist Arianna Huffington, whose ex-husband Michael Huffington also came out as gay.

Indeed, leading political analysts openly discuss these roadblocks.

"He wouldn't have been a viable nominee," Republican political consultant Ed Rollins told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Maybe for a state Senate seat, but not as governor."

Like all young people, gay and lesbian teenagers have hopes and dreams. As they reach adulthood, however, they are often told that these aspirations conflict with their sexuality. They are given the awful message that they must make a crushing choice: lie or give up their dreams. This process is psychologically devastating for countless gay Americans and leads many to drug abuse, sham marriages and even suicide.

Fortunately, things are getting better and more gay people are coming out and shattering glass ceilings every day. But there are still people who blindly insist that homosexuality is a choice. Sure, I suppose we can choose to marry heterosexually and recreate the tragedy of Hurricane McGreevey. But I have yet to hear gay rights opponents rationally explain how entering miserable, doomed marriages based on lies is consistent with their claim to be pro-family.

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