The Challenge to Understand Some People

TRENTON, New Jersey Once publicly opposed to gay marriage, former New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey now says he spoke out against the idea as a way to keep his homosexuality hidden. “I did not want to be identified as being gay, and it was the safe place to be,” McGreevey said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “I wanted to embrace the antagonist. I wanted to be against it. That’s the absurdity.” [...]

Aside from his hiring of Cipel, McGreevey’s admission about his position on gay marriage appears to be the most glaring example of his then-covert sexual identity affecting his political decision-making.

“I was proud to be against gay marriage because that’s where I thought a majority of New Jerseyans were,” McGreevey said. “That’s successful politics.”

In the AP interview, the former governor said he now supports same-sex unions. (source)

Actually, I saw the interview with McGreevey on Oprah. He stated that he now fully supports gay marriage and nothing less, not even civil unions. I suppose that since it’s now known that he is gay, he really has nothing to lose anymore. So why not go all out for something that he now wants for himself, since he is now involved with a man he is interested in marrying?

McGreevey states, “I was proud to be against gay marriage because that’s where I thought a majority of New Jerseyans were. That’s successful politics.”

That’s a lie. McGreevey was proud to be against gay marriage because by endorsing marriage equality for gay couples, he was afraid that people would put two and two together and come up with four. He stated exactly that on Oprah.

The whole thing is testing my tolerance for people who care nothing for other people other than themselves. I can forgive people for past misdeeds. But what McGreevey did actually hurt people, using the power of his office to do so. I don’t know if you can just dismiss that by saying, “...I was an oppressed homosexual... I hated myself.... I didn’t think that the life is was living was ‘Godly’ (his word)...”. He went on to say that if he hadn’t been under threat of blackmail from some fling that he hired to be on his staff, he probably never would have had the courage to come out.

These are things he said in the interview. It made me sick to watch it. I can understand what the closet can do to people. That’s why I left it when I could. But never once did I inflict harm on others to hide what I am. This is the difference between people like me and McGreevey. I’m sure I disappointed people when they found out I was gay. I certainly lost friends and I suffered physical abuse because of it. But I’m the one who has had to deal with all the issues with being gay, not them. And I did, and now I’m in a much better place for it.

Perhaps that is what McGreevey is trying to get too. But listening to him talk about how he was putting gays down for being a threat to marriage, all the while thinking to himself (he said) that he should be among the gays knowing that he was one.... well, I turned the damn TV off. It was too much for me. It only goes to show you that, gay or straight, a politician these days would sell their own mother for a few votes.

Shameless. I don’t forgive McGreevey for what he did while in office, but I do hope that he comes to a place of peace in his life. And ironically, if his state of New Jersey rules that gay couples can marry, a ruling that is expected in the near future, the governor who was so against gays being able to marry, just might be able to get married himself.

And another opinion....

Where we stand: New Jerseyans should remember that it was the former governor's terrible appointments and mountain of scandals that drove him from office, not his homosexuality.

When James E. McGreevey was elected governor of New Jersey in 2001, he promised to end "business as usual" in Trenton. He said he'd clean up state government and make it more ethical.

In that task, our former governor failed miserably and completely. His administration was so scandal-plagued and devoid of ethical standards that by the time McGreevey left office less than three years into his four-year term, he had given new meaning to the term "business as usual."

And that's something no New Jerseyan should forget as McGreevey makes the talk show rounds to promote his new book, The Confession.

Yes, it was shocking when McGreevey famously admitted during his resignation speech that he was a "gay American."

Scandals

But that surprising confession wasn't the true reason why McGreevey left office in disgrace. He quit because the scandals involving him and those close to him were at an apex and his ability to govern, even with a state Senate and Assembly controlled by his party, had been compromised and was probably beyond repair. (source)