Friday, September 22, 2006

McGreevey Does Good

Michael and I watched Jim McGreevey's Oprah appearance last night (DVR heaven). We were both completely mesmerized by the whole thing and screaming at the television at various points, yet I don't want to go on and on about this. What I do want to say though is that I thought he did a wonderful job explaining himself -- and made me proud to be a Gay-American. And more importantly, I thought it was very revealing of society as a whole seeing how naive and unaware of the plight of gays and lesbians even somehow as well-rounded as Oprah is. "Why would you get married if you knew you were gay?" she wondered. I think the better question would be why wouldn't someone (particularly an Irish-Catholic born in the 1950s) get married if they knew they were gay. It's like society expects little gay boys and girls to grow up in a world that completely condemns everything we do -- and then many of our parents drag us to churches where we're being told we're going to hell for feeling the way we do -- yet we're supposed to be mature enough (as children, no less!) to know to just pick and choose which parts of it all to believe (FYI: it doesn't work that way).

As much as Oprah Winfrey emphathizes and tries to understand -- and she truly did as good a job as could be expected -- her obvious inability to truly comprehend the gay experience (even in theory, Gayle!) just goes to show that it must be just that much harder for the average person in Middle America -- who might not be as wealthy, liberal, open-minded, well-read, well-traveled and doesn't work in gay-friendly show business -- to "get it." (My sister said Rosie O'Donnell did a great job of "sticking up for" Jim on "The View" even as Elizabeth Hasselbeck yammered on and on about "the wife.")

Nice job, Jim!

  • Find out more about Jim McGreevey's book "The Confession"

  • 13 comments:

    Moncrief Speaks said...

    Very well said.

    Anonymous said...

    what McGreevey did was not an act of courage, it was an act of cowardice. He came out because he was being blackmailed and about to be outed. He installed his boyfriend in a state Homeland Security position, a position he was woefully unqualified for and legally could not hold given his status as a foreign national. McGreevey’s administration was plagued by scandals of kickbacks, bribes, influence peddling and office buying. He was under investigation and almost certainly would have been defeated in his re-election bid. In short, the man was a crook and it was finally catching up to him. To many of us in NJ, gay and straight, it looked like McGreevey, seeing the writing on the wall, took the easy way out.
    The McGreevey saga is a good example of what can happen when gay men try to pretend they are straight. But, as many gays and lesbians in NJ feel, Jim is no hero, no role model. He is an embarrassment.

    Anonymous said...

    Well put 7 said..

    Kenneth you question when Oprah wondered about his choice and ask why wouldn't someone get married if they knew they were gay? I am both an Irish-American man, born in the '50's, and to a very conservative NY political family. The reason is simple. I did not want to ruin my life, as well as that of a third party. I dated a woman who I easly could have married, but chose not to live a lie or drag her into the nightmare of being gay, instead coming out in 1980 at the age of 21.

    I knew either road I took would be hard, but I knew that the honest one was the way to go. I payed a heavy price, but looking at the mess that McGreevey left behind, only emphasizes that I made the correct choice. I don't care how much his daughter loves him now, he has hurt several people with his lies and lack of courage, himself included.

    While his ego may have driven his quest for the life he wanted, over the needs of his wife, or as he kept on bringing up, his Church and God, it is his arrogance that made him marry twice and continues to drive him today as a 'spokesman' for the gay community. He is speaking at the Community Center here in NYC next month.

    The other thing about the Oprah interview that stood out for me was when he would not give her an answer to a very clear question, which she asked several times and he skirted. What were you thinking when you were making love to these women? The fact that he could get off was not the point. He clearly says he knew he was gay at a young age, the same as I did.

    While I dated women and looked at Playboy with my buddies, I liked Penthouse more because they had photos of men with the women. There may be people who are bisexual, but McGreevey claims he was always gay. He did not wake up one morning and discover he liked dick.

    He was a self serving crook in the closet, now he is a self serving man living off the profits of his deceit.

    Anonymous said...

    Where are the clips, from both Oprah and The View? C'mon, I count on you for updates on gay-friendly daytime TV! Some of us haven't crossed the pearly gates into "DVR heaven"!

    Lavi Soloway said...

    I'm surprised, in an amused way, at your reaction to the Oprah interview. I thought that Oprah OBVIOUSLY knew the answer to the question, "Why would you get married..." but she was asking it for her audience's sake. In other words she correctly assessed that most people are so far behind understanding the phenomenon of the closet and homophobia that she has to ask questions like she is an idiot, which I don't think she is. As far as McGreevey goes, I am on the fence. I want to be "proud" that he is doing this coming out; but it is a book tour after all. There are moments that my stomach tells me that there maybe an aspect of self-serving cynicsm about his version of events. I want everything to go well for him, because none of us are perfect, especially not politicians, but we all deserve a chance at redemption. It's a sad saga all around. In the spirit of the (Jewish) New Year, I think we should stop throwing stones, because we all live in one massive glass house.

    Anonymous said...

    I cannot agree more with the posts of "7" and "Anonymous." Like the latter, I was raised in the same kind of household as McGreevey in the 1950s. I'm no angel, but I knew instinctively, as a child no less than as an adult, that there were no rewards for a man who defies his nature and misleads some unsuspecting woman into a marriage of deception. McGreevey can't blame American society or the Catholic Church (about which I personally have very little else good to say) for heading a corrupt administration, bedding an employee while his wife was giving birth to his child, or rejecting gay marriage as public policy until he wanted that benefit for himself. Nor does he enlighten that society very much by cashing in with "confessions" about all of the above on a book tour. No, McGreevey doesn't do good. McGreevey does bad!

    Anonymous said...

    McGreevey was a corrupt politician who put his lover on the public payroll in a job for which he wasn't qualified. When questions were asked, McGreevey muscled some of his politicos to find his lover a job in the private sector.

    Bottom line: McGreevey is no hero, like Barney Frank. McGreevey was an ambitious jerk who knew he was gay and married a woman, cheating her out of a loving relationship, to further his career. As another said, McGreevey was under investigation when he resigned.

    Sticking up for McGreevey, who is now hustling his sordid story, does a diservice to honest politicians, closeted gays who struggle with their sexuality, and Americans in general.

    Anonymous said...

    Really now. What's it like to be so wonderful?

    Anonymous said...

    Okay, it’s very easy to turn a conversation like this on its head and throw sarcasm on a person who has expressed an honest opinion grounded in experience. The reader told us his decision not to fuck over others and himself as he went through life and that he holds no admiration for public figures who have made the other choice. Sarcasm has no place in responding to that comment. Whatever can be said about McGreevey, at least he doesn’t scorn his critics for giving him his deserved heapin’ helpin’ of honesty.

    Anonymous said...

    Who is being sarcastic? Apparently some of us are above being flawed and others are not.

    Anonymous said...

    Gary,

    This isn't about normal human flaws. McGreevey was a corrupt politician. Why should he be celebrated as some heroic figure? If a straight man put his mistress on the public payroll he would be the subject of public derision. Moreover, McGreevey's wife at the time of the scandal was his SECOND wife. He used her.

    There's a difference between Joe Blow who gets married and realizes that he's gay versus a politician who is using another person to achieve his goals. Everyone laughs at Tom Cruise, believing that he is gay and using Katie Holmes. Why doesn't McGreevey deserve to be held to the same light?

    Anonymous said...

    All I can say is that when I read the GQ article about him (in the Josh Hartnett issue), in which he shared a meal or two with the writer, he seemed like a self-centered jerk and a bit of a tool.

    Anonymous said...

    Sadly, this is what comes of the crooked closet case who throws a Madonna-style book tour remarketing himself as a professional homosexual:

    From Towleroad.com

    "Jim McGreevey's Latest Chapter
    Former New Jersey Governor and gay American James McGreevey was expected to read the Top Ten on tonight's Late Show with David Letterman but never showed despite attempts by Letterman's staff to get in touch with him, according to CBS.

    Said Letterman: "We had invited the governor to be here, he said he would be here, we were all very excited that he was going to be here and then he stopped calling. They just stopped calling. They left us numbers that were unplugged, we couldn't get a hold of him. He said, 'Oh no, we're coming, don't worry, we're coming,' and that's the last we heard of him…I hope he's okay."

    After the jump, tonight's Top Ten List, "Chapter Titles in Jim McGreevey's Book"

    10. "The Day I Got Caught Governing Myself"
    9. "How to Pretend to Like Girls for 47 Years"
    8. "From Schwarzenegger to Pataki: Governors I'd Like to Oil Up"
    7. "Another Confession – I Can't Resist Entenmann's Pound Cake"
    6. "At First I Just Thought I Was Bipartisan"
    5. "The New Jersey Budget Crisis – What Would Judy Garland Do?"
    4. "A Look at the Governor's Balls"
    3. "Politicians Who Left a Bad Taste in My Mouth"
    2. "How to Push Through a Bill – Or a Steve or a Larry…"
    1. "Why I Don't Like Bush"

    A fitting tribute to arrogance unleashed, IMHO.