Taking Time for McGreevey. I’m having trouble meeting all my commitments due to lack of time and energy. I have a full-time job that is very demanding; maintain a Simpler Spelling Word of the Day website that I have kept up faithfully since June 1st; try to add to this blog almost every day; have a household and garden to run, and cats (eight — or seven if Marjorie has gone off somewhere and died) and fish to take care of (two 20-gallon tanks, one of goldfish and the other of swordtails); and I’m recovering from reconstructive knee surgery nine weeks ago, so my energy levels are not what they should be, and if I forget something on one floor of my house (three stories plus basement), I may just leave it there until the next day! (Ahhhh. Poor baby! Yes, I know.)
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But I did get around to sending the following message to embattled New Jersey Governor McGreevey via feedback form at his website:

DID you know that the man who coined the term "Gay Pride" is a New Jerseyan? (I was living in New York at the time, 1970, but subsequently returned to New Jersey.) You have a heavy moral duty to retract your resignation and serve your full four years, not just for the sake of the principles you enunciated in running at the time, but also to save other gay men and boys from the confusions you suffered. Like it or not, you are now a role model for homosexual men, and you MUST NOT BETRAY US.
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Your work is not done. Your term is not done. LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE in a regular election, next time, if they want you to serve another term.
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Republicans are trying to disrupt the fundamental political structure of this country, in which fixed terms play a major role, by ousting elected officials before their time, most notoriously in California. Democrats must not play along.
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You made a mistake. Who hasn't? Correct the mistake and move on. Be the role model you have been forced to be, and serve honorably. Apologize to your wife and children, get a divorce, and live as an open gay man searching for happiness in honorable and aboveboard relationships. That way lies happiness and your best purpose in political life.
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The past, in your particular life, is indeed prolog. You have now arrived at the launchpad for a life of major importance that transcends local, even provincial politics. Perhaps you could be the first openly gay President of the United States! Let your ambitions steer you right this time. Rescind your resignation; fight the Republican Right; serve the people of New Jersey and the underserved, underrepresented, and often profoundly oppressed constituency you are part of: gay men. This is no time to run. Turn and FIGHT!

I sent copy of this message to some family members and friends and got this reaction from a friend in Brooklyn:

My opinion of the McGreevey mess:
He didn't really resign because he's gay - he resigned because, not only did he engage in an adulterous affair, he engaged in patronage by giving his lover a government job he wasn't qualified for. Of course, straight politicians have engaged in this type of shenanigans for years, but when they are caught, they are brought down by it.

I truly believe that McGreevey did gays a disservice by cloaking himself and his resignation in the mantle of gay matyrdom, when it's not his gayness but his political misbehavior that is causing him to resign. He's giving gays a bad name!

What do you think?
-Michelle

I replied,

ALAS, McGreevey did resign because of sexual issues, and attempts by Republicans to distract people from this are as disingenuous as the claims they made that the Clinton scandal wasn't about sex but lying and betraying the public trust — except that Congress had no right to inquire into any President's sex life, and Clinton had every right to lie to anyone and everyone about his sex life — tho he should just have told them all to take a flying leap, mind their own sex lives, and keep out of his.
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McGreevey didn't do that, but 'fessed up and said he didn't want to put the state of New Jersey thru anything like what the country went thru with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Oddly, both these affairs involved Christian men with Jewish partners. Not every 'mixed marriage' works out. Other similarities between the Clinton and McGreevey affairs exist, the main DIFFERENCE being that Clinton's affair was heterosexual, McGreevey's homosexual; Clinton dared to brazen it out, while McGreevey is still mired in the shame and guilt that have burdened his life, as it has burdened many men's lives.
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I'm more than a little disgusted with him, inasmuch as when I coined "Gay Pride" and we put together the first annual march to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, little Jimmy McGreevey was only 13 years old! I guess he didn't get the memo. His parents were also, I am told by someone who has worked closely with him, tuf as nails and pushed him hard. His own ambition for high public office did the rest.
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What matters now is what he salvages, not just of his life but of his political life and mission. He has done amazing things in his few short years as Governor, closing a $5 BILLION budget deficit without the kinds of painful dislocations Bloomberg has put New Yorkers thru, and something like tripling the number of affordable housing units started as against the prior, Republican administration.
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A certain number of jobs in our political system are "patronage" positions that a governor, or President, is free to distribute as he wishes in payment for favors past or anticipated. At the federal level, a host of big contributors are assigned ambassadorships and such. At the state level, any governor has a bunch of posts he can fill for any reason he wants, with anyone he wants, whether they are qualified or not. Everyone's in on it, so posturing that it is a scandal is fraudulent. Republicans do it as much as Democrats.
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In the case of Golan Cipel's appointment to an anti-terrorism position, however, that was properly challenged and stopped. He was then given some other government job for awhile, but left that for whatever reason and took a job in the private sector. Then he apparently tried to blackmail the Governor to the tune of $5 million! and that's when McGreevey called the FBI and decided to resign because it promised to become a tangled mess. All needless. Have the blackmailing bastard arrested and deported. New Jersey has quite enuf homegrown thugs without importing any.

Another of the people I sent to commented,

He has more problems [politically speaking] than "just" being gay and cheating on his wife; as I understand it, he's being charged with sexual harassment. He probably won't make it to the next regular election, whether he resigns or not.

I replied,

THE charge of sexual harassment has not been made, and will probably never be made because a judge and jury are likely to go very hard on the accuser in such murky circumstances, and [the threatened lawsuit] was apparently part of a BLACKMAIL plot in which McGreevey's accuser/boyfriend demanded as much as $5 million to keep quiet about their affair or he would ruin McGreevey. Nice fella, huh? Israelis are like that, eager to show their gratitude for all we do for them.
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Besides, sexual harassment is not a felony, so even if true would not disqualify McGreevey from retaining office. And it's certainly not true. A man doesn't come 6,000 miles to take a $110,000 a year job in a state GOVERNMENT of a country of which he is not a citizen without some kind of 'understanding' between him and the guy who offers him such an arrangement. Any man can defend himself from homosexual passes simply by saying "No!" and following up with "If you don't leave me alone, I'm going public, buddy. What will that do to your career, and your marriage?" He doesn't have to demand MONEY to keep quiet, and when his demand for millions is refused, he doesn't hesitate to file a lawsuit — if he has clean hands and can face a jury. Unlike "sexual harassment", which if it constituted only verbal approaches is probably an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech and association, blackmail IS a FELONY.

I have just finished sending, via feedback form at HIS website, the following message to New Jersey's senior U.S. Senator, Jon Corzine, to urge him to stick to his announced intention NOT to seek the governorship, but ask him to urge McGreevey to stay in office his full term. I intend to follow up on paper and can hand-deliver one copy to his Newark office, which is on the other half of one of the floors my firm occupies, and mail the other to his Washington office.

[After reminding him that we sort-of met at a function at my firm, I said]
I saw on News 12 New Jersey Wednesday nite that you have said you are not interested in running for Governor in a special election, and I urge you to stand by that decision.
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I have, by feedback form to his website Thursday, urged Governor McGreevey to rescind his resignation and stay to fight the good fight for all the causes he has to date championed, plus one more of great personal importance to himself: [I inserted the text of my message to McGreevey given in the first indented quote shown toward the top of this blog entry. I then continued:]
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Senator, if you have any influence with Governor McGreevey, please urge him to stay in office his full term.
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And please stay in the Senate. We cannot risk losing your seat in November, nor in having you distracted from your efforts for Democratic Senate candidates more generally. Your work is cut out for you this election: winning the Senate back for progressives. The New Jersey governorship is not your concern right now. We have a good man there already. Let’s keep him there.

That should do it!
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:34 AM