When Jim McGreevey came flying out of the closet in 2004, it was not a statement of independence as the first openly gay state governor, but a quickly-planned media onslaught designed to divert attention from news of a potential lawsuit from his former lover, Golan Cipel. Cipel, an Israeli who has been called a “poet” and “sailor” in the media, had been hired as a homeland security advisor for the state of New Jersey, which lost over 700 citizens in the attacks on 9/11 and is definitely in a vulnerable position with several major national ports on its shores. When criticism over his lack of credentials became too much, McGreevey asked him to resign. In retaliation, Cipel was preparing to file a sexual harrassment suit against McGreevey unless McGreevey agreed to pay him 50 million dollars. After McGreevey’s announcement and resignation from the position of governor, Golan did not file the suit.
Now, two years later, McGreevey has written his memoir, My Confession, an account of his position as an insider within the incredibly corrupt New Jersey political machine, and a closeted gay man in a position of authority, along with the more salacious details of his affair.
With the purple prose of a romance novel, McGreevey writes:
It was wrong to do…. But I took Golan by the hand and led him upstairs to my bed. He kissed me. It was the first time in my life that a kiss meant what it was supposed to mean – it sent me through the roof. I pulled him to the bed and we made love like I’d always dreamed: a boastful, passionate, whispering, masculine kind of love.
Without the involvement of a gay lover on the state payroll, there was nothing specifically shocking about McGreevey’s tenure, brief as it was. It wasn’t so different from any other governor. He was up to his ears in political favors owed to his campaign donors, and he had to manage one of the most powerful gubernatorial positions in the country. The state of New Jersey only elects a Governor. There is no other statewide election for any state officer aside from U.S. Senator – the governor has all the power. I’ve often compared it to being Southern in the sense of “state’s rights:” the state of New Jersey often exists immune and indifferent to new federal laws, since the state often has much more authority here than the federal government. It’s rather liberating, when you don’t like what the federal government is doing.
But with the secret gay lover, the press hounding him about the employment of said lover, and the secret gay lover, not to mention the secret lover who was Teh Gay, McGreevey’s political career was o-vah.
But with the relative sensation that his memoir has created, I have to ask: why is that? Is the book a curious hit because people want to read the naughty bits about gay sex in bookstalls and the garden of an abandoned synagoge? Did he include the salacious parts because that would make the book sell? Would it have sold without frank discussion of his actions as a closeted gay man?
And is his career over politically speaking because of his poor judgment in hiring Cipel and bragging about it to the media? Or is it over because he’s gay – not only gay but out, and literarily frank about what he did before he came out on national television? I confess to having something akin to tunnel vision when it comes to the scandal of being gay: I have absolutely no problem with it, and honestly am dumbfounded much of the time about why it upsets people so much.
Is the tawdry, gossipy tone used when discussing McGreevey’s memoirs, and the fact that his political career is over, related to the cause of the negativity and outrage surrounding the concept of male/male romance novels reviewed in The Romantic Times and Jan Butler’s demand that romance be defined for the RWA as one man and one woman? Is homosexuality tolerable so long as those who are gay do not reside in a position of power, whether that power is a favorable review or admission into a writer’s society, or governor of New Jersey? Is McGreevey subject to scrutiny and snideness because he came out after living a heterosexual life? Is it because he revealed that his life prior to coming out was disingenuous and therefore his credibility on the whole was suspect? Or is it, as Candy said, “wrong because it makes [people] so very, very uncomfortable?”
Well, without knowing more about it, I would say the scandal stems from nepotism, not gayness. I’d be unhappy with any decision that put someone in an important job who hadn’t earned it and wasn’t qualified, whether it was someone’s lover, wife, son, nephew, daughter, what have you.
That’s what’s so confusing to me. Nepotism, particularly in NJ state government, is nothing new. Neither is being an openly gay politician. So why was McGreevey so egregious?
Maybe because he had the bad taste to combine them? You can be gay or you can be corrupt, but if you’re both, hoo-boy! That smells like a double standard, though.
I have no problem with the guy being gay. I am somewhat bothered by the fact that he was actively carrying on an affair while in office (although I was not a constituent and really, I’m sure other people are doing same and haven’t been caught). I am, as Ana said somewhat bothered by him putting said lover in public office, despite a lack of qualifications. And I’m a little sad that his memoir seems – at this point – to be reveling a bit in the scandal, when he has a daughter who I’m sure loves hearing about all this. Certainly his daughter is aware he’s gay, and she probably figured that meant he had sex, but I’m not sure she needed everyone to be able to read about it. But perhaps the memoir isn’t explicit in the way the media seems to be implying, and it will help more than exploit.
No time to give this a thoughtful answer now (and I do have some thoughts), but I came across this while looking for something else this morning. Nice twist to the issue, methinks.
Also, I wonder why he said, “It was wrong to do” – was he married at the time? My recollection of the whole thing is a bit fuzzy just now and I just wanted to confirm he wasn’t condemning himself for the affair, or more specifically, the gay aspect of it.
Barney Frank has survived scandal to continue serving in the US Congress, and I believe he’s still the only openly gay member of the House. So no, being gay in and of itself no longer means your political career is over.
However, the NJ situation involved corruption, allegations of nepotism in a big way, extortion, adultery and more. If McGreevey’s lover had been a woman who claimed she was sexually harrassed, who got her important and high paying job ‘cause she was screwing the governor, was involved in him committing adultery and tried to extort money from him, I believe his career would still be over.
It’s one thing to have a quiet affair on the side, no matter what gender. McGreevey’s offenses and those of his partner went far beyond that.
I blame the entertainment industry. In books and films, how many times do you see the gay best friend who is honest, compassionate, tender, and wise? They’re portrayed as doulas of the soul or something, delivering a woman to a higher state of personal understanding. So when you encounter a real gay man who fucked up and made some piss-poor choices, maybe people are just more shocked because gay men are seen as more ethical, more enlightened?
Just a random thought.
I’m not sure if this is a sign of cynicism or conditioning from society or what, but I tend to expect certain men to be having affairs.
1. Musicians
2. Politicians
3. Freakishly wealthy
4. Cops
I think I’m more surprised to find out if one of them is actually true to their spouse.
And whenever it comes out that one of the above is cheating and the spouse is upset, a part of me thinks, “C’MON! What did you expect?!? You married a musician/politician/freakishly wealthy guy/cop!!!”
And I’m prettys sure I’ve read a book where the hero was all four.
I’m thinking it’s because there’s a certain faction who leap at every chance to squeal, “See? I TOLD you gay people were evil!” and ignore the fact that straight people have just as much corruption capacity.
He screwed up, he should be punished. Agreed. But his sexual orientation shouldn’t be one of the things he’s punished for.
Didn’t Law and Order do an episode about this?
I remember this when the news broke. I thought the govenor was going to the press to expose the extortion. I read the article fiveandfour linked for us.
There looks like there is plenty of mud to be smeared/slung in this case. I don’t thing sexual orientation has as much to do with it as the salaciousnes of a politics, sex, scandal, and corruption.
However, I did have one thought when I read SB Sarah’s post. Maybe he is revealing all to:
1. sell books
2. so no one else can blackmail him…all the dirty laundry is out
3. he can run for office again
Stranger things have happened.
I think it’s the ‘naughty’ factor that sells this book- whether the political angles or the bookstall sex, any book that promises an expose’ usually sells pretty well.
And again, as your conservative Republican Christian bitch, I will say: I will vote for anyone I think can do the job; gay, straight, man, woman, theist, atheist, Republican or Democrat or Independent. My beef with McGreevey is the fact that he cheated on his wife. I don’t forgive adultery easily.
With regards to Ana’s comment below… One of my NJ friends said that it was basically a case of, and I quote, “In New Jersey politics, you can be gay or you can be corrupt, but you can’t be gay and corrupt.”
Kind of a sad way of looking at the whole issue—and clearly too trite—but I don’t think it is an unrealistic assesment from a general public POV.
Amen, sister! Preach on!
I think that adulterers are the lowest of the low. If you can’t trust someone to keep a VOW for crying out loud, how can you trust them at all?
I suspect the fuss is because a) gay scandals are almost the only thing that gets much attention, and b) McGreevey is a Democrat.
Back in February of 2005 there was a quickly-hushed scandal when a “reporter” who called himself Gannon—a man without any genuine credentials, who had basically been an administration shill at press conferences, was revealed to be a male prostitute (with sawdust for brains—at the time he was outed, he still had a website that touted his skills as a macho military dom.) The website came down pretty quickly, but not before several folks saved it.
I don’t have time to track down all the articles, but this guy had a permanent security pass in and out of the White House. Sometimes he was there when Rove was there, other times not. George W was always there when Mr Gannon/Guckert came to visit. There was a brief flutter about this in the press, and then it vanished without much of a trace—certainly not the uproar you’d expect when a man with no qualifications was cleared by Homeland Security to waltz in and out of the White House. Here are a couple of the stories I was able to track down. I think SFGate’s Mark Morford did a detailed article, but I can’t find it and I have to go get some dinner together.
http://journal.maine.com/op-ed/hightower/20050228000048B.html
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/02/int05009.html
If Ken Starr and his zipper-sniffers turned a stupid but consensual affair into impeachment, this should have blown the lid off the White-washed house. But it didn’t. I don’t suppose that had anything to do with the fact that 95% of our media are owned by GOP supporters.
And folks, I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The people in power now are not conservative and they have thrown out the old Republican idea of personal privacy. I don’t mean to start a political argument and don’t intend to respond to anything more in this thread, but it’s damned difficult to see how this S&M whore who should never have been given a security clearance got whisked away, and the entire affair hushed up, unless it was a political matter.
And I’d really like to know who’s paying Cipel to make unprovable allegations. He’s got a whole lot less credibility than Anita Hill, and look what the jackals did to her.
Let me preface what I’m about to say with this: cheating on somebody is wrong. I strongly believe this to be true. Cheating is a shitty, shitty thing to do.
But. BUT. When it comes to deeply closeted gay people who finally snap and cheat on their spouses—well, I have sympathy for them. Cultural acceptance of open homosexuality is a pretty recent phenomenon, and it’s certainly not prevalent in many, many parts of this country—or most places in the world. I feel bad for McGreevey’s family, but I also feel bad for McGreevey feeling the need to hide that aspect of his self. If I had to pretend I was into girls all my life and I finally met a hot boy who was willing to mess around with me, would I snap? Probably. I feel sadness, not necessarily condemnation, for gay people who marry and end up cheating on their spouses. I’ve known a couple of people who went that route, and all of them had grown up in much more conservative times and/or places, and though I think they made poor choices, I can also understand how they made what they thought were necessary choices at the time.
And now on to whether cheating on somebody indicates that they’re irredeemable and completely untrustworthy:
I’m not convinced this is the case. It’s easy to extrapolate (“Once a liar, always a liar!” or “If he lies about this, can you imagine all the other ways he’s lying?” etc. etc.), but again, when it comes to sex and love, people do crazy, irrational things that they might never, ever, ever bring to bear in other parts of their lives. I’ve seen infidelity happen to my friends, where they were sometimes the cheater, and sometimes the cheated upon; I’ve been party to cheating, too—once when I was completely unaware that the guy had a girlfriend, and once when I was aware he was already taken, but too worked up and stupid and in love to care. One of my exes came thisclose to cheating on me, and let me tell you, that near miss hurt like a motherfucker. So from my experience, there are all sorts of reasons why people cheat, and infidelity doesn’t always = evil person. Weak? Sure. Untrustworthy in certain ways? Yeah, I’ll give you that. Iredeemable? I’m not so certain about that; I’d need a lot more context and information before being able to judge, and really, when it comes down to it, it’s a personal matter, and I don’t really have the right to those details if they don’t concern me.
There are two aspects to McGreevey’s case, but only one of them really makes me see red and think of him as completely untrustworthy, and that’s giving his lover a job and security clearance that he shouldn’t have had. He compromised his job and political duties when he did that, and he deserves to be taken to task for that by everyone. What he did to his marriage, though? That’s between him and his family, and I feel that the only persons who have a right to kick his ass soundly over that are his wife and kids.
OK, I thought over the hundreds of words I wrote up there, and I think I can summarize it this way: people’s private lives are none of our business, and the sexual pecadilloes they get into with other consenting persons are a poor basis for judging their ability to do their jobs. However, if the sexual pecadilloes start affecting their job, as they sometimes do, that provides a much more sound basis for saying “He’s a shitty leader.”
I agree with everything Candy said. I wanted to address the “cheaters are the lowest of the low, irredeemable” remarks but she said it better than I could.
I generally have little patience for all sorts of overstated concern, anguish and drama over the personal lives of public figures.
However, in this case, I couldn’t care less that McGreevey’s gay, cheating on his wife, closeted, whatever. Golan Cipel, however, was a political figure, not just McGreevey’s lover. He has political positions, he was formerly employed at the Israeli consulate in NY, as a representative of Israel in the US; he was encourage to come back to the US from Israel by McGreevey, who met him on a campaign trip to Israel while he was running for governor. Which, dandy, but – he was first nominated to be the head of Homeland Security in NJ until that position was denied him due to lack of security clearance because he was a non-citizen; he was then employed in a very high-paying job as a “homeland security advisor.” Sure, corruption happens, but I don’t care for it when it’s done by straight monogamous politicians, either.
My current Congressman is Jim Kolbe. He is an 11 term moderate Republican who is also gay. It’s sort of a don’t ask don’t tell kind of thing. It’s no secret but nobody makes anything of it. He’s not running for reelection, having decided to return to private life. He’s highly regarded around town (Tucson) and I respect him even though he is not of my political persuasion. I moved here from TX 4 years ago and let me tell you, instead of unremarkable, a gay congressman would have been extremely remarkable.
I share the opinion of Michelle & Robyn. IMO the main concern is that any politician, or person in authority, with a Big Sneaking Around Secret, puts themself at serious risk for blackmail or other manipulation (isn’t this what the lover attempted?), because somebody always finds out the Big Secret.
And sometimes it has nothing to do with sex or love, but rather filling an emotional void. Is that the healthiest way to fill it? No. Does it even work? Hell no. But I had to learn that the hard way. I’ve cheated on my husband. While that may mean I have issues I need to deal with, it doesn’t make me a bad person in general.
Maybe people judge him (those who do anyway) on his not being able to have the strength of his convictions right away and living a lie for so long? Maybe folks despise him for that? I dunno. But I look at it from a good distance (French Canadian living in Germany…yeah, it’s far baby) and all I see is the same old, same old. Big Time Politician With Secret Lover. Replace the politician, replace the ID of the lover, replace the state/nation/province/planet and it’s all the same story over and over. No? And yeah, I do think they put the salacious bits to get more ooh la la for their publishing bucks and get people talking.
I can’t help a big shiver at the person who asked if people were shocked because he was gay and was it the same crowd whose panties knotted over the RT “accepting†same sex love as romance…that bit makes me SO uncomfortable. I mean, are there, really, really, people who view same sex love as anything BUT love? Deep down, I mean, do they really?
Corner one for me and ask, would you? 🙂
What bugs me is how he lied to his wife for so many years. Okay, sure, “he couldn’t admit it to himself” or whatever. But to cheat on your wife with another man, and then have the gall to expect her to support you when you admit that to the press…makes me ill.
Gay or not gay, hiring your unqualified lover to do an important security job is shameful (and very, very different from having an unqualified reporter at a press conference). Expecting your wife—not to mention your young daughter—to act like this is great is selfish and immature.
Let’s not get so focused on the gay thing that we forget this is a man who publicly humiliated his wife and daughter, and hasn’t even had the grace to pretend to be sorry about it, instead acting like everyone’s just mad because he’s gay and he can’t help what he did because he just needed the c*ck so bad.
I could really care less if he’s gay, straight or if he has crossdressing underwater sex with his barnyard friends (except for the fact that the afforementioned is probably illegal).
He was STUPID. He opened himself up for blackmail. He hired his secret lover. He gave him security clearance. Then, to top it all off, when the situation got too messy, he told on himself and played the “I’m gay and couldn’t help myself” card.
Being gay probably isn’t the easiest road to walk even in this day and age, but I’d think that living under the stigma of being blackmailed by your secret gay lover would be a bit much to handle. Or you could just sell a bunch of books about it and line your pockets.
Simple answer: don’t put yourself in that position.
What really gets me is the same thing that pissed me off about the whole President Clinton thing. It just seems that these folks aren’t sorry AT ALL for what they did; they’re just sorry that they got caught.
Had this business with Governor McWhatsHisName not gotten too hot (*snerk*) for him to handle himself, methinks he’d still be cheating.
While I was perhaps a bit harsh in my earlier comments, let me just say that I don’t believe that a person who knowledgeably and willingly cheats is irredeemable; I just think it speaks to their character that they did what they did.
For me, it comes down to this. If you really want to dip your wick in pot or pot-ette B while you’re married to pot or pot-ette A, be straight up about it. Be honest. Be fair to the one(S) you’re in a relationship with.
I never thought I’d say this out loud, but there are some things more important than sex, namely fidelity, honor, character. Personally, I can’t be with someone whom I don’t respect. And I can’t respect someone I can’t trust. And I can’t trust someone who cheats, at least not for the time being. It’s gonna be a very long, hard road back to trust, I can tell you that.
And, furthermore, if it wasn’t “wrong”, they’d not be embarrassed about being found out. Each one of us has this little thing called a conscience that gives a little “DING DING DING” when we do something wrong. You can choose to heed your conscience’s warning or ignore it. Just understand that if you ignore it over and over again, your alarm either gets more and more faint or stops going off altogether.
I have no interest in following the details of anyone’s love life UNTIL said love life interferes with one’s ability to do the job for which they were hired.
*steps down off soap box*
Thanks for listening, even if you don’t agree.
Well said Michelle.
People make mistakes, we’re human. But our saving grace lies in our ability to feel remorse and to repent (that’s not sposed to sound a biblical as it does).
I would have a very hard time forgiving adultery, but my liklihood of doing so would likely increase with the level of offending party’s remorse.
I don’t get a sense of remorse from McGreevy, nor did I from Clinton. I feel no obligation to feel compassion either of them, regardless the sexual orientation.
He was STUPID. He opened himself up for blackmail. He hired his secret lover. He gave him security clearance. Then, to top it all off, when the situation got too messy, he told on himself and played the “I’m gay and couldn’t help myself†card.
Exactly.
This is slightly off-topic. Michelle, the Diva said in part
I have to disagree. Very often we are embarrassed because society or our families or our religion drums into us that we must be, and not because we ourselves feel that we should. A rather innocuous example would be the shame many romance readers feel about their reading material.
I didn’t mean to say that the ONLY reason we get embarrassed is due to conscience. Sorry if it read that way.
*sigh* I wish I was more eloquent…
Life is very seldom black and white, although who have not seen complications or difficulties might see it that way. Not everyone is so lucky. More often, there are shades of gray in terms of choices.
If you were married to a man who was a good father and a good provider, but you knew he fooled around, would you choose to leave him, no matter how much it hurt your children? Maybe you’d choose to stay until the kids were grown, sacrificing for their sake. And if, over the course of the years, you met someone you loved, would you deny yourself a bit of happiness because it was “wrong”? Would your children understand why you left their dad, even though dad was fooling around first?
Things are seldom cut and dried.
Rosemary, you left off “actor” and “alpha-male businessman” from your list. 😉
I imagine the salacious bits of McGreevey’s book were included by the ghostwriter on editorial orders. It’s not much of a seller if you don’t tell the readers about Teh Gay Seks!
Political corruption is common and boring. Details about Real Gay Sex is harder to come by. (Sheesh. None of those puns were intended.) That is, it’s easy to find fiction about gay sex, or even nonfiction, but it’s only respectable to be seen reading it if you are gay, or if you are reading it in private on the internet. McGreevey’s book is “legitimate non-fiction” that even “regular folks” can be seen reading.
Sad, so sad.
For me, the problem with McGreevey’s action was the nepotism, and it’s extra bad because it was his lover as opposed to, say, his brother. It’s extra-extra bad because the specifics put him at risk for blackmail (Teh Gay and Teh Extramarital are potentially more scandalous than a heterosexual, non-affair situation).
I’m glad he defused the blackmail by coming out—it’s a great statement of “the only shame here is that society forces people to live in closets”—but he should have known better than to put his lover on the payroll.
People don’t think, sometimes. Sheesh.
I haven’t read the book, but I saw him on Oprah yesterday and I think he came off as pretty sincere. Granted, I glance at the news surrounding this scandal and think, yawn. Maybe I am inured or desensitized or really, really cynical, after all the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was certainly more riveting (that whole business with the cigar, transcripts that could be down loaded from the web… those were the days where even watching major news anchors giving us the latest whilst trying to keep a straight face was must see TV).
Still, everything he had to say about his kids, his wife’s anger seemed truly regretful. He did play the God card a lot. I don’t know if he’s really a man of faith or just he’s trying to do what he can to make this thing seem as relatable as possible—you know, man of faith makes a mistake and now repents. Certainly a situation a whole lot of the country can cop to.
I think what most have said here or implied about the complexity of who he was pretending to be and what he’s done to rectify that situation is true: the affair, the struggle with his sexuality, his relationship with his partner, wife and kids—all are too layered to make any blanket statements about.
The nepotism does seem to be the only area where anyone can point to him being empirically unconscionable. Although…my mom did give me my first job in her department when I was 15.
Let’s not forget that, for all his many faults as a governor, McGreevey’s responsible for bringing us the phrase “gay American.” Probably the most amusing memory I’ll have of my years living and voting in NJ is listening to his resignation speech with a passel of coworkers. Reactions to the news were varied, but it sure was a fun event. I want more of these real-time happenings that have lots of pathos but no death. Yes, I am totally shallow.