Author Archives: Tin Man

My Governor Comes Out

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So, my governor just came out of the closet, he admitted to cheating on his wife with a man, and he’s resigning effective November 15. I’m a New Jersey state employee, and a bunch of us started hearing the rumors around 3:00. Our office was all abuzz and we watched the speech on TV at around 4:30.

“My truth is that I am a gay American,” he said. (And great headline there — “N.J. governor is outta closet, and job.”)

(Here’s the speech text.)

As a gay man in New Jersey, I can tell you that there have long been rumors about McGreevey’s orientation, since well before he was governor, and I’d heard rumors about the relationship as well. The other man’s name is Golan Cipel, he’s an Israeli citizen, he’s a McGreevey aide, and among other things, McGreevey unsuccessfully tried to get a him a position with the state Homeland Security agency. I think the relationship started before he became an aide of the governor, though.

Some points:

1) Why resign? There seems to be more going on here under the surface — probably some not-very-good details. One rumor is that there was blackmail involved.

2) We’re not sure why his resignation isn’t effective until November. We think it’s because if he resigns before then, there’s a special gubernatorial election (ordinarily it wouldn’t happen until November 2005), but if he waits, the leader of the State Senate, a fellow Democrat, Richard Codey, will get to take over the position.

3) I really liked the governor’s speech. It was incredibly personal, and he talked about feeling different ever since he was a kid, and so on. He said that he was resigning because of the affair itself, but I wish he’d been more explicit that it was not because of being gay per se. At any rate, after all the rumors, it was so strange — and so nice — to hear him actually come out.

There are updates at this New Jersey weblog.

There’s an article posted on The Advocate.

ABC News says Cipel “is filing a sexual misconduct lawsuit against the governor in a New Jersey court this afternoon.”

More blog reaction (and blog links) at Boi From Troy.

Metafilter thread.

Choire at Gawker: “We don’t care about anything else today. All over Manhattan, the boys are busy fantasizing that they’re Jim McGreevey’s gay fucktoy.” and “finally, someone from Jersey that I’d totally do.”

California High Court Voids Gay Marriages

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So, the California Supreme Court has voided all the same-sex marriages that Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed in San Francisco last February. The court did not rule on the ultimate constitutionality of same-sex marriage (that issue is working its way through the lower courts and the state Supreme Court is not expected to address it before next year), but rather ruled on the issue of whether Mayor Newsom could legally ignore existing state law. The court unanimously found that he could not, and ruled 5-2 to void all of the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages that had been performed.

I think this was the right decision. While Newsom’s actions were wonderfully inspiring, effective in humanizing the issue of same-sex marriage, and absolutely correct on principle, a mayor can’t just decide which state laws he will or won’t enforce. It’s not a city official’s job to interpret the state constitution.

That said, it was a heartwarming act of civil disobedience that put a human face (or rather, many human faces) on what many people see as an abstract issue. It’s one thing to think about gay marriage in theory, but — I hope — it’s another thing to have seen all those photos and footage of happy couples streaming out of San Francisco’s City Hall last February and March.

Here’s hoping all 4,000 of those couples will someday soon be able to get legally married. They, and we, deserve no less.