Mc Greevey: A scandal for New Jersey... or America?

"In the years ahead, we must build our community from common values... we must draw our strength from our diversity... we must forge our future from common aspirations."

That statement, made by Governor James McGreevey shortly after he took his oath of office in 2002, incorporates both the justification of his resignation and a surprisingly prescient statement about the current - and impending - spit upon which the he will be roasted by fellow politicians and by extension, the media, in the wake of his announcement of August 12th. Already the issues have blurred. And this nation, fixated by the latest political scandal, needs to remember the critical facts.

McGreevey resigned because he admitted to an extramarital affair. He disclosed his sexual orientation in the course of that announcement - but he did not imply that his homosexuality was in any way a cause for his decision. His actual self-proclaimed weakness was one so ordinary, so endemic, that our last president survived impeachment on the same charge. Yet the words on the lips of the American public are not those describing another infidelity in the ranks of our elected leaders; no, folks, if you call your mother she'll ask you, "Did you hear about that governor who resigned because he had an affair with a man?"

The distinction is fundamental; gay politicians are uncommon, their numbers significantly and persistently failing to subscribe to the "one in ten" rule. Fewer than thirty of them are documented as holding office today, and the great majority, such as Rhode Island's Mike Pesaturo and Needham's Cheryl Jacques, were elected after coming out. Either the political echelon marks a skewed microcosm of society's diversity... or there are a significant number of closeted individuals in the machine.

In fact, but a few of our elected officials have come out while in office... the better known are Arizona representative Jim Kolbe, who came out via public statement in 1996... Maryland congressman Robert Bauman, who admitted to "homosexual tendencies" and was defeated in his re-election bid of1980 after eight years in Congress... former Massachusetts representative Gerry Studds, who acknowledged his orientation in 1983 after it was discovered he had had a relationship with a congressional page... and the respected Massachusetts representative Barney Frank, who came out in an interview with the Boston Globe in 1987.

Conventional wisdom in Capitol circles, similar to the Hollywood star sensibility, indicates that coming out in office invites professional suicide. It is a perception not likely to be tested by the publicly timid or politically green; and current indications emanating from New Jersey suggest that Governor McGreevey's resignation will be emotionally aligned not with his common indiscretion, but rather with his sexual identity.

Why, then, did McGreevey include this secondary disclosure to his announcement?

Most likely, he was pushed to the revelation courtesy of the impending accusations by his former homeland security adviser Golan Cipel, made public at a news conference in New York. In the wake of certain knowledge that the complaint would be served, McGreevey had to choose between denial or brutal honesty. It's not a choice unfamiliar to his circle of peers, the ramifications of either option usually differing only in the consequences of the official's private life; McGreevey knew that political survival is a game of headlines more than policy, and the ravenous appetite of the competitive media would be pouncing on the story the moment Cipel released his accusations. And in the new world of politics, there is nary a line to be drawn between those officiating in the Oval Office and those in the lower branches of civic duty.

McGreevey states his case plainly. He said of his decision: "I realize the fact of this affair and my own sexuality if kept secret leaves me, and most importantly the governor's office, vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure." He deliberately denounced any effort to characterize his sexuality as a valid impetus for leaving office. "It makes little difference that as governor I am gay," he stated. "In fact, having the ability to truthfully set forth my identity might have enabled me to be more forthright in fulfilling and discharging my constitutional obligations."

But ask yourself if Clinton could have survived his impeachment had he been blown by a male underling rather than Monica Lewinski. Is being gay a crippling factor in a political career?

Ask Barney Frank. In 1989, he was implicated in a prostitution ring scandal invented by Steve Gobie, a callboy Frank had hired. Frank had to navigate the same perilous waters that McGreevey now finds pooling about his ankles.

"I had this dilemma," Frank recalled in 2003 to MetroWeekly. "Almost everything he said wasn't true. But there was one core of truth there -- I had paid him for sex. And the only way I could convincingly deny the things that were false was to admit the one thing that was true."

It's a sensibility that may have informed the current conditions in New Jersey, although the truth may not be known until an indeterminate time in the future, if ever. But the opportunistic gains of outing a public figure include those benefits we as a society revere as the underpinnings of the American Dream: fame, wealth, power. And the sexuality of an individual - in office or not - is far too easy to exploit as long as the public persists in their domesticated beliefs that one's personal sexual identification, when it remains private and does not align to their own, is, like infidelity, a lie.

It is not. Coming out is a private decision, and in this country we claim to respect freedom of choice. The very nature of McGreevey's announcement is dangerous in the inevitable headlines it has already generated, underscored and justified via the uniquely American point of view that we should hold our elected leaders to higher moral and ethical standards than we hold ourselves, our neighbors, our friends, even our own family. Why? Because we want our leaders to portray the ultimate image of what we believe to be "good" and "decent" about our society, and fear the world's perception that a weakness at the top implies an imperfect population under their leadership. We created this fear, and we have enslaved ourselves to it. Deep inside, the larger portion of our nation is embarrassed and horrified by the larger scandal that our country is not as homogenized in culture and intent as we would have the world believe.

McGreevey is correct: there is strength in our diversity. And in cities and towns across America, we write laws and dedicate tremendous social efforts to harnessing that strength. Too bad, isn't it, that we would sacrifice the lives of any who would expose our own scandalous truth: most of us don't actually believe it's true.