Joe, Arianna Huffington, Gov McGreevy and Me
I received an email from my friend, Joe, my political opposite. The email was a copy of Arianna Huffington's reaction to our Governor's shocking press conference last Thursday when he announced to God and the world that he is a Gay American and that he has had an affair with a man. I know a little about the players in NJ politics and, believe me, he isn't the only gay serving us under the guise of a married straight man. I also didn't fall for his story. I responded to Joe, my friend, rather harshly. We had been going round and round about each other's politics, sending interesting arguments to each other backed by sources that the other of us considered not in the least bit credible. It got so ugly that we agreed to disagree and drop the hot button topics so that we could still meet once in a while for breakfast at the local diner and keep the friendship alive. It certainly was in jeopardy by the time of the agreement. Well, when I received his email with the following message, I had to respond in kind. I am just too tired to keep beating my head against this wall and neither of us will ever change our position and neither can understand that the other doesn't "get it." I wonder how many others are going through the same thing with their friends in this political environment. In any case, here's Arianna's column first and my response following it.
JIM MCGREEVEY: "I AM A GAY AMERICAN"
By Arianna Huffington
On Thursday, my day started at eight in the morning speaking together with New Jersey Senator John Corzine at a breakfast sponsored by ANGLE -- an organization consisting of the gay and lesbian leadership of Southern California and a magnet for political candidates running for office and raising funds. A couple of hours after I had left the breakfast, where I had been surrounded by successful gay men and women -- businesspeople, politicians, accountants, even a priest -- my phone started ringing off the hook. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey had just resigned and announced that he is gay, and it seemed as if the bookers from every television talk show in America -- from CNN's American Morning to ABC's Nightline -- had simultaneously had the exact same thought: "Let's get Arianna Huffington." I was the proverbial two birds being killed with onestone -- a political commentator whose ex-husband had come out as gay. As the day progressed, it became clear that this was a story unfolding on so many levels only a Shakespearean drama or a Verdi opera could do justice to it. There was the personal, the political, possibly the legal, and who knows what else to be revealed by the time we get to Act Five. But we are still in Act One. And in Act One the spotlight is on the nexus of the personal and the political. McGreevey's resignation announcement was undoubtedly the best political speech he's ever made. It was powerful, compelling, emotional, and in sharp contrast to the pre-packaged speechifying we are so accustomed to hearing from politicians. At this profound crisis point in his political and personal lives he sounded almost liberated. It's hard to resist playing armchair psychoanalyst and wondering: Did McGreevey unconsciously make certain choices -- like putting his lover on the government payroll in a high-profile position he was not qualified for -- in order to force upon himself Thursday's public announcement: "I am a gay American"?
We can't, of course, know what was going on in McGreevey's psyche, but hiring his lover, Golan Cipel -- an Israeli foreign national unable to obtain a federal security clearance to be the homeland security czar of New Jersey (and at a salary of $110,000 a year, no less) -- is the height of recklessness, and only makes sense as a taxpayer-funded cry for help.
Clearly no good could come of such an appointment -- unless the governor was unconsciously hoping that the appointment would eventually force his hand. Otherwise, he would not have flaunted his closeness to Cipel, leading him to self-destructive acts such as accompanying Cipel and a realtor on a walkthrough of a townhouse the newly arrived Israeli was about to rent a short distance from McGreevey's house. It's textbook human behavior: the harder you try to suppress the truth, the more inevitable it is that it will find a way to come out.
"Thinking that I was doing the right thing," he said, "I forced what I thought was an acceptable reality onto myself, a reality which is layered and layered with all the, quote, 'good things,' and all the, quote, 'right things' of typical adolescent and adult behavior." It's worth noting that McGreevey made this statement on the same day that the California Supreme Court annulled the state's 4000 same-sex marriages, raising the question: What if the world were a more welcoming place where gay people could have in their lives all the "good things" and the "right things" without having to pretend they're straight? After all, does anyone doubt that it's exponentially harder to attain elective office if you're openly gay? How else do you explain that we have no gay senators, only three gay members of Congress, and an openly gay governor of New Jersey only until Nov. 15? But even if Jim McGreevey did not want to hold public office, if he just wanted a marriage and children -- natural urges, perhaps as powerful as the sexual one -- the easiest (and indeed the only legal way) to do so remains opting for a heterosexual relationship. So the human costs we only got a glimpse of on Thursday -- a shattered marriage, the anguish inflicted on his parents, his wife, his daughters -- are not just the result of his personal choices but of the roadblocks society continues to place in the path of the complete acceptance of gay men and women.
By the time the curtain comes up on this drama's Act Five we could be in the middle of a serious political scandal that may force McGreevey to step down even before Nov. 15. Or we may be in the middle of his political resurrection, looking not at a tortured politician with a secret draining away precious energy but a free man fully -- and finally --accepting himself. Either way, he had to practically drive the car right off the cliff in order to put himself on the road to Thursday’s declaration. And that's an indictment of our society and our political culture wars. So until the final curtain falls, let's seize the moment to reaffirm, loudly and without reservation, that to be gay is to be normal-- whether you're a governor or a gardener, a public figure or a very private one.
My response now.
Of course you must imagine that we again have only to agree to disagree. And as for McGreevey personally, I couldn't care less about his private life. He's an especially corrupt politician without so much as a hair of concern for anyone but himself. The nerve it took for him to parade his anguished family in front of the media to show the public that they support him is beyond selfishness. The whole reason he allowed them the privilege to face this music on his behalf was so he could preempt the spin of the ugly sexual harassment lawsuit that he has known for some time was coming. No spine sighted here. There is nothing normal about his being gay and I will never agree that there is. McGreevey's using gayness to hijack support from the lesbian and gay politicos was calculated to soften the reality of his corrupt administration. The gay community (whatever that is) should feel used and dirty as a result. They played right into his hands.
I am sick of the cry of "I'm a victim and it's society's fault!" I long for the days when the majority's vote counted for something. I hate that the majority's opinion can be vetoed by any "victim" of society and I will be voting accordingly. I don't want to debate any of this however. This email tells me how you feel, not that I didn't already know. Arianna's opinion was news to me, however.
JIM MCGREEVEY: "I AM A GAY AMERICAN"
By Arianna Huffington
On Thursday, my day started at eight in the morning speaking together with New Jersey Senator John Corzine at a breakfast sponsored by ANGLE -- an organization consisting of the gay and lesbian leadership of Southern California and a magnet for political candidates running for office and raising funds. A couple of hours after I had left the breakfast, where I had been surrounded by successful gay men and women -- businesspeople, politicians, accountants, even a priest -- my phone started ringing off the hook. New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey had just resigned and announced that he is gay, and it seemed as if the bookers from every television talk show in America -- from CNN's American Morning to ABC's Nightline -- had simultaneously had the exact same thought: "Let's get Arianna Huffington." I was the proverbial two birds being killed with onestone -- a political commentator whose ex-husband had come out as gay. As the day progressed, it became clear that this was a story unfolding on so many levels only a Shakespearean drama or a Verdi opera could do justice to it. There was the personal, the political, possibly the legal, and who knows what else to be revealed by the time we get to Act Five. But we are still in Act One. And in Act One the spotlight is on the nexus of the personal and the political. McGreevey's resignation announcement was undoubtedly the best political speech he's ever made. It was powerful, compelling, emotional, and in sharp contrast to the pre-packaged speechifying we are so accustomed to hearing from politicians. At this profound crisis point in his political and personal lives he sounded almost liberated. It's hard to resist playing armchair psychoanalyst and wondering: Did McGreevey unconsciously make certain choices -- like putting his lover on the government payroll in a high-profile position he was not qualified for -- in order to force upon himself Thursday's public announcement: "I am a gay American"?
We can't, of course, know what was going on in McGreevey's psyche, but hiring his lover, Golan Cipel -- an Israeli foreign national unable to obtain a federal security clearance to be the homeland security czar of New Jersey (and at a salary of $110,000 a year, no less) -- is the height of recklessness, and only makes sense as a taxpayer-funded cry for help.
Clearly no good could come of such an appointment -- unless the governor was unconsciously hoping that the appointment would eventually force his hand. Otherwise, he would not have flaunted his closeness to Cipel, leading him to self-destructive acts such as accompanying Cipel and a realtor on a walkthrough of a townhouse the newly arrived Israeli was about to rent a short distance from McGreevey's house. It's textbook human behavior: the harder you try to suppress the truth, the more inevitable it is that it will find a way to come out.
"Thinking that I was doing the right thing," he said, "I forced what I thought was an acceptable reality onto myself, a reality which is layered and layered with all the, quote, 'good things,' and all the, quote, 'right things' of typical adolescent and adult behavior." It's worth noting that McGreevey made this statement on the same day that the California Supreme Court annulled the state's 4000 same-sex marriages, raising the question: What if the world were a more welcoming place where gay people could have in their lives all the "good things" and the "right things" without having to pretend they're straight? After all, does anyone doubt that it's exponentially harder to attain elective office if you're openly gay? How else do you explain that we have no gay senators, only three gay members of Congress, and an openly gay governor of New Jersey only until Nov. 15? But even if Jim McGreevey did not want to hold public office, if he just wanted a marriage and children -- natural urges, perhaps as powerful as the sexual one -- the easiest (and indeed the only legal way) to do so remains opting for a heterosexual relationship. So the human costs we only got a glimpse of on Thursday -- a shattered marriage, the anguish inflicted on his parents, his wife, his daughters -- are not just the result of his personal choices but of the roadblocks society continues to place in the path of the complete acceptance of gay men and women.
By the time the curtain comes up on this drama's Act Five we could be in the middle of a serious political scandal that may force McGreevey to step down even before Nov. 15. Or we may be in the middle of his political resurrection, looking not at a tortured politician with a secret draining away precious energy but a free man fully -- and finally --accepting himself. Either way, he had to practically drive the car right off the cliff in order to put himself on the road to Thursday’s declaration. And that's an indictment of our society and our political culture wars. So until the final curtain falls, let's seize the moment to reaffirm, loudly and without reservation, that to be gay is to be normal-- whether you're a governor or a gardener, a public figure or a very private one.
My response now.
Of course you must imagine that we again have only to agree to disagree. And as for McGreevey personally, I couldn't care less about his private life. He's an especially corrupt politician without so much as a hair of concern for anyone but himself. The nerve it took for him to parade his anguished family in front of the media to show the public that they support him is beyond selfishness. The whole reason he allowed them the privilege to face this music on his behalf was so he could preempt the spin of the ugly sexual harassment lawsuit that he has known for some time was coming. No spine sighted here. There is nothing normal about his being gay and I will never agree that there is. McGreevey's using gayness to hijack support from the lesbian and gay politicos was calculated to soften the reality of his corrupt administration. The gay community (whatever that is) should feel used and dirty as a result. They played right into his hands.
I am sick of the cry of "I'm a victim and it's society's fault!" I long for the days when the majority's vote counted for something. I hate that the majority's opinion can be vetoed by any "victim" of society and I will be voting accordingly. I don't want to debate any of this however. This email tells me how you feel, not that I didn't already know. Arianna's opinion was news to me, however.
posted by Hairpinandarrow_blog at
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