Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey penned a “prayer” in the Washington Post expressing his sympathy for Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who resigned on Saturday after a week of pressure from the GOP following revelations he was arrested in June for disorderly conduct in a sex sting in a Minneapolis airport men’s room.
McGreevey, who says he narrowly escaped the same fate in his 20’s after being caught by a state trooper in a similar encounter at a New Jersey rest stop, attempts to get at the root of why some men search for gay sex furtively while the other half of their life screams ‘family values’:
“Why do grown men in their 20s, or their 60s, do such things? I can answer only for me. As a child, recognizing my difference from other kids, I went to the local public library to try to better understand my reality. Back then, many library card catalogues didn’t even list ‘homosexuality’ as a topic. I had to go to ‘sexuality, deviant’ to learn about myself, and the collected works were few and frightening: ‘Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,’ ‘Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure,” “Sexual Deviance & Sexual Deviants.’ If you haven’t experienced it, it may be hard to understand the sinking feeling most every gay boy or girl of my generation experienced upon coming across that section of the library. All I could do was slam the drawer closed and leave, steeped in hopelessness. No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a ‘mortal sin’ subject to damnation.”
McGreevey also warns of the dangers of excoriating gay people in general with regard to the Craig case: “Is it possible that we hold him to a different standard because a same-sex entanglement is involved? If being gay is, as I believe, a natural gift of the creator, what choice does a gay person have in being gay? If we condemn sin in an equal manner, so be it. But what if our condemnation tells to members of the next generation that they are to be shamed, repudiated and vilified inequitably for being gay?”
Incidentally, McGreevey is back to school today. He begins his studies to become an Episcopal priest at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Manhattan. According to Newsday, “As a student in the non-degree program at the seminary, McGreevey has up to a year to choose a course of study. In the meantime, he can choose a broad array of courses in theology, liturgy, ministry and related topics that are available to students who are unsure of their educational and vocational goals.”
A Prayer for Larry Craig [washington post]
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