Jim McGreevey and Clay Aiken

Jim McGreevey and Clay Aiken really do have something in common. Too many people are just dying to deal not with who they are, but their sexuality instead. The ABC interviewer had McGreevey on what she hoped was a hot seat, pulling off some cheap-ass version of an inquisition. She relentlessly fired guilt loaded probes, baiting him to admit he was--or should have been--ashamed for being gay and a governor and for keeping his personal life a big secret. What the hell does she think a gay man ought to do, given the way the average voter looks at gays. The bitch was straight out of a McCarthy era witch trial.

Despite what you think of his politics, his marriages or his sexual exploits described in his book, exploits he was forced by society to find secret venues for, he’s still a worthwhile man who is trying to find his own separate peace.

As the former governor spoke, I felt empathy for him, realizing how the pressures of a straight Irish Catholic upbringing, a life in public office and the censure of the Republican Christian Right would twist a man into an emotional and inexplicable pretzel. I hid my own sexuality until it finally burst out of me, alien like, and I was able to relax, not giving a tinker’s damn who knew.

Now a man of only 49, he graduated Columbia University, Georgetown Law, and has earned a masters from Harvard, and as governor installed reading coaches in New Jersey’s public school system, and implemented environmental air and water reforms in a state where most people hold their noses as they drive through. He took on and beat the auto insurance companies who were screwing Jersey drivers. He began reforms of the state’s lending laws which were allowing usury, and cracked down on telemarketers. It is a shame his sexuality brought him down.

And poor Clay. Just close your eyes, listen to his angel’s voice, and either enjoy it--I very much do, or leave it alone. What diff does it make if he likes boyz or not? Some jackoff tabloid-type TV show promised before they started the show “Clay will finally come clean” about his sexuality. I fell asleep before I found out, but I don’t do little boys, and only his screaming girl fans would care. But if my livelihood depended on them, I’d hide my sexuality too.

I pray we aren’t returning to the awful days where wannabe witch hunters like Michelangelo Signorile were outing people with near religious zeal, all done to keep a career as a gay spokesman and legitimate columnist, but in fact to sensationalize and sell bar rags. The last thing we need is another Calvinist fag.