The Jersey anti-defamation league
: In the op-ed pages of The NY Times, Eric Denzenhall essentially accuses New Jersey of being homophobic:
Yet perhaps the most important variable sealing Mr. McGreevey’s fate was the setting for his drama. While New Jersey leans Democratic, these are not the Democrats of the Upper West Side or Malibu. These Democrats are still loyal to the “Three I’s” of Garden State politics – Ireland, Israel and Italy. These are the union boys, the tradesmen, the enlightened professionals who remember their parents cut stone in Newark and stirred great vats of soup at Campbell’s in Camden.
With the Three I’s, one can weather corruption charges, as Mr. McGreevey did until this week. In Jersey politics, rolling with the punches of graft has long been a shibboleth of manhood. Being gay, however, is not. It’s one thing for a governor to sell a political appointment. It’s another for him to have sex with the guy he appointed.
Crap. Look at the forum posts on NJ.com or the comments on this blog or listen to even the most neanderthal talk radio (i.e., NJ101.5) or listen to conversations around here and you will hear that people really do not object to McGreevey’s homosexuality. What they object to is the cardinal sin in this state, the sin of sins, the misstep that always kills governors here: Wasting taxpayer money. If all McGreevey had done was shtupped a guy named Golan Cipel, he would not have resigned. He resigned because this now explains why he put the guy on the state payroll at a high salary for a job he never should have filled. He wasted our money. Off with his head.
