Original subtitles

The date is 6 -11 -07 at 1228 hours.

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say can and will be used against you in court of law.

Do you understand each of these rights if I explain them to you? I do.

Do you wish to talk to us at this time? I do.

All right, so let's start from the beginning.

You went in the bathroom.

I went in the bathroom.

I got in a stall, sat down.

Your foot came toward mine. Mine came toward yours. Was that natural? I don't

know. Did we bump? Yes, I think we did.

The next thing I knew, under the bathroom divider comes a card that says

What about your hand?

What about my hand? I could see the gold light ring.

I could see that.

Have you been successful in these bathrooms here before?

No, absolutely not. I don't seek activity in bathrooms.

Well, you're not being truthful with me. I'm kind of disappointed in you,

Senator. I'm really disappointed right now.

Okay, sir.

We deal with people that lie to us every day.

Gentlemen, so do I. I'm sure you do.

I've never had to bring anybody to jail because everybody's been truthful to me.

I don't want you to take me to jail, and I think... I'm not going to take you to

jail. I don't want you to be cooperative, but I mean, people vote for

I'm a respectable person, and I don't do these kinds of... I'm going to respect

right now, though.

I am not gay. I don't do these kinds of things, and I don't do those things.

At its fundamental core, at its base, it is so profoundly unhealthy

because it goes back to that simple manifestation, that simple Shakespearean

quote, until the unknown self be true. You have to be true to yourself and

God willing, true to your loved ones, to your community, to your public.

Turning now to Washington, D .C., where the report of the arrest of Senator

Larry Craig is generating a massive media frenzy.

Breaking tonight, a Republican senator busted by police.

Craig's arrest was first reported about 24 hours or so ago. A day later, the

Idaho statesman published the story it had been holding. Republican Senator

Larry Craig from Idaho again, and we'll be having a news conference in 45

minutes. Thank you all very much for coming out today.

First...

Please let me apologize to my family, friends, and staff, and fellow

Idahoans for the cloud placed over Idaho.

I think

it's very sad.

This is somebody who has lived in the closet his whole life, has probably

cheated on his wife any number of times. You know, it's a twisted kind of...

psychological thing that happens when you're in the closet and living a double

life, it makes you do crazy things.

And for a United States senator to be soliciting sex in a public restroom is a

crazy thing.

You know, to understand his story and all of these stories, you have to

understand where the culture was.

In 1955, my newspaper reported on a gay sex scandal involving allegedly underage

men and powerful people in Boise.

Among the headlines on our editorial page was one that read, Crush the

the monster being homosexual perversity.

That was 1955.

Larry Craig was 10 years old.

And I imagine him thinking that that was an object lesson that he needed to

heed, that he couldn't aspire to be a United States senator and be gay at the

same time.

Every time he was up for election, The question was raised, will someone raise

the issue?

Good evening. The Capitol Hill investigation of sex and drugs, which

mainly in the congressional rumor mill, today took on the attributes of a

serious and spreading scandal.

The FBI formed a special squad to investigate allegations of homosexual

between congressmen and teenage pages.

One congressman came forward after rumors surfaced that he was involved in

case. I've always been aggressive and upfront with what I believe in. And when

have people telling me that a whole series of false accusations are made

my character, frankly, it makes me mad as hell.

Many of the people who are gay who are in public service seem to think that

they're immune from being exposed.

And they go out. They go to bars.

They go to clubs. They even go to bathhouses.

when I was really young in D .C. back in the 80s. One of my favorite places to

go back then was the Follies. There were a number of men I saw there from time

to time, and he was one of those.

He had taken notice of me, and then he said, well, let's go somewhere else, and

I proceeded to follow him to his house on Capitol Hill.

And there were...

pictures of family around and card that was addressed to suzanne craig we

then wound up performing oral sex on each other and then he wanted to me

once he had come uh it was everything to get me back out of there he grabbed me

by the shoulder and very boldly said remember you never saw me you've never

here and he Reached into his pocket, took out the $20 bill, shoved it in my

pocket with one finger, and said, just remember, I can buy and sell your ass a

thousand times.

Let me be clear.

I am not gay.

I never have been gay.

It's very often those self -hating gay people who, in the closet, are the most

vicious towards other gays and lesbians as a way to kind of deflect attention

from their own orientation.

There is not one civil rights law at the federal level that exists to protect

gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people.

There is absolutely not one law.

The fact that Senator Craig and those like him can engage in homosexual

one minute and then try to write us out of existence the next, there is no

punishment harsh enough as far as I'm concerned.

He was a powerful force on Senate committees, a solid family values

conservative. The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad

naughty boy. I'm going to speak out for the citizens of my state who, in the

majority, think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.

But in October 2006, eight months before the senator's arrest in Minneapolis, a

gay activist named Michael Rogers, who makes it his business to out

politicians,

wrote in his blog that he'd interviewed several men who'd claimed to have had

sex with Senator Larry Craig.

In October of 06, I outed Larry Craig. I know somebody who had sex with Larry

Craig in a restroom at Union Station.

That, to me, is the crux of the case right there.

And right now I have a number of open files of folks that I'm actively looking

at from a U .S. Cabinet official to offices of some pretty anti -gay members

Congress.

So I'm here. I'm getting ready to go on Hannity and Combs tonight at 9 o 'clock.

David's with me, helping me out on some of my talking points.

Say hi, David. Hello.

Can't let the right wing be the only ones with the flag.

I actually once had somebody ask me on Fox News, are you sure you want to wear

that flag?

Yeah, I am.

So, David, why don't you fire me a few questions, like how Hannity's going to

that? Mike, how is what you're doing different than McCarthy?

Well, first of all, first of all, Sean, McCarthy was a liar. McCarthy put out

false information about Americans.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, that's just a thought. I'm supposed to cut you off

there. That's just a thought.

Sean, Sean, Sean,

this is what happened. This is what happened to you.

I know, you messed up, but nothing will come out of it.

Breaking news tonight. Fox News has confirmed that Senator Larry Craig may

reconsidering his decision to resign.

Joining us now with reaction to this story is blogger Mike Rogers, who called

for an investigation into Craig last year. All right, from the beginning. Hi,

Sean, and good evening. Thank you for having me on. Larry Craig is a

He is an anti -gay, closeted individual who has sex with other men. I read what

you had, and apparently this tape of this one guy that the Idaho statesman

followed up on, it was an... Well, it's not one guy, Sean.

It was anonymous source. Why doesn't the guy go on the record?

Sean, it's not one guy. It's now three or four. There's absolutely no doubt in

my mind I have heard physical characteristics repeated to me from

individuals. I don't know about Senator Craig. I'm going to be honest. I don't

have the details. There is suspicion in my mind. Are there others in the same

category as Larry Craig whose names will be forthcoming because of your work?

Absolutely. There are names in the folks in the Congress in high positions of

power who are leading a secret double life. And what I would say to Sean is,

Sean, where do you stand with Larry Craig? And will you stand in the same

position if other two -lived hypocrites are exposed? Because I can assure you

that there is no shortage.

My first very big case was this congressman in Virginia by the name of

Schrock.

A month later, I got a tip that there was a congressman who was gay and that

was using an interactive phone dating service to find what's maybe known as

InstaSex or, you know, to hook up with somebody for sex.

And the first thing I said to the person was, well, this is insane. I can't put

up that a congressman is using an interactive phone service without proof.

mean, that's a hell of a partial left. And he says, I have several recordings

the congressman.

Going on the phone line to meet a man for sex and they're very explicit and I

was like wow

So I took the recordings and went ahead and reported on Ed Schrock on my blog.

A case of the moral hunter becoming the moral hunted.

Congressman Edward Schrock, a Virginia Republican who once co -sponsored a bill

to ban same -sex marriage, dropped out of his bid for reelection last month.

He never admitted that they were him, but he resigned from his reelection.

There it is.

I'm going to tell people...

who these horrible traitors are. And they are traitors to their people. I

believe that. And I felt that it was time for me to start reporting that as

hypocrisy. Not outing people who are gay, but reporting on individuals who

working against the community that they then expect to protect.

...be waiting in front of 1600 Broadway.

That's perfect. Michael decided that they have been chasing us for years.

And what Michael represents is...

We're going to chase back.

Now, that upsets the rules because everyone knows the hounds chase the

Well, this fox is chasing the hounds, and it's got them all bent out of shape,

and I say more power to him.

I think outing is a fundamentally

wrong and dishonest thing to do. No

one can ever know or understand.

the personal journey that an individual takes to accepting the fact that they

are gay or lesbian.

I just feel sympathy when they are exposed that way.

I think every gay person knows what it's like to have your privacy ripped apart.

There is a right to privacy but not a right to hypocrisy. It is very important

that the people who make the law be subject to the law. People who are not

subject to laws...

will make harsh laws because they don't have to live with them.

Having the people who make the law be fully covered by the law is a safeguard

against unfairness. Well, that's a fundamental principle on which our

is in part built, that gay people who support homophobia are violating.

And now to Campaign 2006.

He's been the state's attorney general and education commissioner, and on

Tuesday, Charlie Crist hopes to be elected governor.

Charlie Crist, 50, single, no kids, doesn't own a home, wants to live in the

governor's mansion.

I'm a consistent conservative, and I continue to stand for the things that I

believe in. At a stop in Miami, the tone was urgent.

I need you to get out there. I need your vote. I need your heart. I need your

passion. Get out there. Get it done.

Viva Crist.

Let's win.

God bless you.

I believe that marriage is a sacred relationship between a man and a woman.

I've always felt that way, and I still believe that now.

Marriage is a relationship like my mother and father had, like I had before

got divorced.

It is one of those unique institutions, not only in America, but across the

world, where a man and a woman commit to one another.

Hi, Bruce. This is Bob Norman with New Times.

I am a journalist who works in the alternative realm, you know, and I do

story that the mainstream media doesn't do.

I had written about Mark Foley in 2003, and that had gotten a tremendous amount

of attention. That was what led to my involvement with Chris, in terms of

writing about Chris.

A source contacted me via email.

And this source was at a dinner party at a multimillion -dollar mansion in Fort

Lauderdale, and he was with a young staffer named Jason Wetherington.

Jason was a young Republican staffer working for Catherine Harris, the

famous masquerade queen of the 2000 election.

Jason said that he had met Charlie Crist, had a relationship with

him. the sexual relationship with him.

And he expected after Chris won the election, he would get an appointment to

Chris' administration and that he had hoped to continue the relationship.

I felt that this source was completely earnest and honest.

So I thought I was going to go see Jason Wetherington.

He was very, very uncomfortable with the line of questioning. That was obvious

that he...

Initially said that he hadn't said that at the dinner party.

Then he hedged that a bit.

Well, you know, I might have been drinking, you know, that kind of thing.

He was extremely upset and just said, you know, do what you have to do.

I know you've addressed this question once or twice before, the whisper

by your opponents about whether or not you're gay.

Now, I don't care whether you are or not, but in fact... The point is I'm

And in fact... So there's the answer. How do you like it? Not that there's

anything wrong with that, as they would say on Seinfeld, but I just happen not

to be.

Then I got another phone call, and it was from another friend of Jason

Wetherington's. There was a dinner party that was held at my home, and Jason was

at the party.

He began to allude that there was a relationship between Chris and him and

it was physical.

Now I've got two sources who are saying the exact same thing, who don't know

each other. It was revealed at night that Chris did have a partner where

was another man in his life.

It was Bruce Carlton Jordan.

He was friends with Jay Voss, a veteran Republican pilot.

Jay Voss' girlfriend, Dee Dee Hall.

I contacted Charlie on the phone and asked him directly about Jason

Weatherington and Bruce Carlton Jordan.

Charlie very smoothly denied that he knew or remembered knowing

either one of these people.

Governor -elect of the state of Florida.

Nearly 4 ,000 children are waiting to be adopted in Florida, but the state is

still turning away couples looking to adopt.

Why? Because they're gay.

Frank Gill is a gay foster parent who wants to make it permanent.

Gill and his partner have been foster parents for four years to these two

now four and eight years old. They were neglected and abandoned by their birth

parents. Florida's the only state in the country that bans gay adoption.

Governor Charlie Crist has supported the prohibition on gay adoption and tells

the Herald he has. has no second thoughts on that.

Welcome back. I'm Michelangelo Figuerelli on SiriusLQ 109. Mike Rogers,

feared man on Capitol Hill, according to the Washington Post, is now here in the

studio. He is the man who got the ball rolling on Larry Craig, the senator from

Idaho. Welcome to the show. I heard you're gay.

Are you going to out me now? That's what they say.

This is always a question that people put out there. Are you only focused on

Republicans or are there closeted Democrats doing damage and how come

not being exposed?

What I tell folks is the reason that 90 % of the cases or so are Republicans

says a lot more about the Republican Party than it does my work. And what

showing is it's the closet.

It's not homosexuality. It's the closet that breeds that kind of... And the

closet of hypocrisy. Absolutely. And it has given a lot of credibility to the

work you began a decade ago.

You know, I went to journalism school, left, thought I was going to get this

great serious news job, and wound up working for a PR firm that specialized

gossip. And it was in that world, in the 80s... that I saw how the gossip world

would glamorize heterosexuality. But anything about any celebrity who was

secretly gay, we would help them cover.

It was the one area where they didn't demand the truth.

Everywhere else, they wanted to know who was dating who. But when it came to gay

celebrities, it was accepted and understood that you covered for them and

actually put out lies.

I started to write a column called Gossip Watch.

It was a watch of the gossip columns. It was a look at how the gossip columns,

which are read by more people than any other forum in the media, are completely

constructed and created to glamorize heterosexuality and keep homosexuality

invisible.

Malcolm Ford, the multimillionaire publisher of Forbes magazine, died.

And the media immediately, in all of his obituaries, held him up as a

very successful capitalist who was dating Elizabeth Taylor for years.

And yet, they left out the fact that he was gay.

It took years, in fact, for the New York Times to finally say that Malcolm

Forbes was gay, and I felt that the historical record had to be corrected

immediately.

Michelangelo Signorilli is his name, and he's the one who outed Malcolm Forbes

after his death, writing that Forbes, the very symbol of establishment

capitalism, secretly was gay.

I'm certainly not doing anything wrong. And I think in 20 years from now, we're

all going to look back and say, what the hell was all the big deal about?

Welcome back. 11 minutes before the hour, I'm Michelangelo Signorelli. I'm

with Mike Rogers in studio, and we're taking your call. You're on the

Michelangelo Signorelli Show. What happens when you guys expose all of the

closeted people in the conservative movement? Get all the closeted people,

the hypocrites out of there. What have you got left but just the solid, non

-hypocritical... festival of hate it's a fair question uh mike what do you think

thanks for that greg well in most cases when somebody is reported on they become

a pro -gay legislator but is there a backlash which is what he's asking what

happens when you leave justice core of hate well barney frank puts it best the

reason people hate gay people is because their leaders tell them to and i think

that each one of these outings puts a little chink in the armor of the anti

so -called family values movement.

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of

President of the United States.

That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United

The election of Ronald Reagan brought a fairly large number of high -placed but

closeted gay men in the Republican administration who failed to adequately

address the epidemic of AIDS.

The president of the United States would not even say the word AIDS publicly

as late as 1987.

Reagan had been elected on the...

fundamentalist conservative role in America, led by the National

Political Action Committee. The president of NCHPAC was Terry Dolan.

dancing at Flamingo on the weekend in New York and propping up the most right

-wing homophobes in America by day. This is the man who's raising money to kill

off Terry Dolan.

And I went to a cocktail party in Washington, and there he was.

And I threw a drink in his face.

I said, how dare you come to a party of gay people after what you're doing to

us?

Richard Crosby, the head of the NIH, in charge of all the infectious diseases at

the time at the Advent of AIDS, would not do anything that was required by the

situation, anything at all, simply because he was afraid he'd spend his

career trying not to be identified with us.

Everyone knows Richard Gay. He's got pictures of boyfriends on his dresser at

home. So that closet can kill other people, and it has.

Before AIDS, we were concerned with privacy.

After AIDS, that was collusion with genocide.

Being silent, being invisible, particularly an elected or appointed

particularly an elected or appointed official, whose responsibility it is to

respond to this public health crisis, and they didn't because they were

closeted.

Of Broadway.

Ed Koch was mayor of New York City, and he didn't want to lift a hand to help

gay people. He would not do anything that was required by the situation.

Fuck you.

San Francisco AIDS Organization was getting money from their mayor in huge

amounts. We weren't getting anything.

And it pissed me off more and more and more because we all knew he was gay.

Now, Ed Koch had always consistently in his public life refused to answer.

any questions about his sexuality.

When Ed's third or fourth term was coming up, I was asked then by press

to acknowledge that Richard Nathan was Ed's former lover.

And so I stonewalled the press during that primary race because I didn't want

be the voice that outed a candidate.

About 74, 75, when he was in Congress, Ed Koch was planning to run from there,

and he started having Sunday night potluck suppers at his apartment in the

village. And one night, Richard and I were at Ed's house, and as we were

departing, Ed said, oh, Richard, stay.

And Richard said, no, Ed, I have to go. I'll call you later.

So as we were walking across Washington Square Park, I said, what was that all

about? You and the congressman. And he said, we're having a relationship.

And I said, you mean like a relationship?

And he said, yeah.

And I said, you know, why?

You're a nice -looking young man. He's an older, not terribly attractive man.

And he said, it's a real aphrodisiac when you get a call from Congress and

I'm coming in.

Let's have dinner Friday night.

The day Ed Katz was inaugurated, there was a private party, and we watched Ed

come in with this.

clutching their pinkies.

And Richard said, I'm out of here. It's been made clear to me that I have to

leave town, or at least not be in the picture. And he said, so I've decided to

move to California.

About a year or two after I got to know Dick, he said he had something he wanted

me to know.

Over the course of a couple of years, he had been lovers of Ed Koch.

And after they broke up, Ed had made it impossible for him to work in New York.

No instance of homophobia hurt him more than the treatment by the man he was in

love with.

I was at a fundraising event in Los Angeles in 81.

A man came up to me and he said, I'm Dick Nathan.

And he proceeded to tell me about his affair with Ed Koch and what a pig he

and that he was prepared finally to come and announce publicly that Ed Koch was

gay, which was what we needed.

So he came to New York and, oh boy, we were beside ourselves.

And Dick Nathan came and said, I'm sorry, I can't do it.

Dick was worried about his safety. And Dick did feel that if he went public,

he would suffer.

Dick was threatened, physically threatened and financially threatened.

came and he was terrified in the middle of the night, leaving the city.

I first met Jim McCreary in the fall of 1975 at the Sigma Nu Fraternity House.

I knew from the moment we met that he was interested, and it was the next

summer, during summer school, that it began.

The moment I spoke to Gary, I knew he was telling the truth.

But nonetheless, for his own protection and for the protection of the magazine,

we wanted to source it as though the New York Times was doing it.

So we found several people who also had sexual relationships with Jim McCreary,

who had signed legal affidavits.

Jim has, you know, seven years my senior.

He would just appear at the fraternity house from time, you know, his annual

pilgrimage, so to speak, in the fall.

Jim used the fraternity house as his gay bar.

And he would find young men who he thought he had a good chance at having a

sexual relationship with.

Jim would come into my room at nighttime, kind of touch me a little

inappropriately at times.

And he was my first sexual relationship, as he was a number of my fraternity

brothers.

McCreary was ambitious to the point where he would make moral compromises.

But what happens when the moral compromising is about your own identity?

The Jim I had, and everyone had always known, had been an atheist.

And he had given speeches about his lack of belief.

He was a Democrat, very liberal, had no problem, say,

in his opinion, on the immorality of the sodomy laws and things like that.

When a group of backers came to him and decided that he was going to be their

candidate, he changed his party and then went down and joined the church that

had the biggest columns for him to have his campaign pictures taken in front of.

and ran as the right -wing Christian Coalition candidate.

He became a totally different person.

I'm Johnette McCreary. I believe my husband Jim is the kind of person we

Congress today.

He's good -hearted, but he's not soft -hearted.

He's sensitive without being foolish.

In 1992,

Jim came to my house, spent the night.

And we have facts.

We never discussed his political platform or what he believed in. We just

facts. Bottom line, Jim's a good husband, a good father, and a good

He gets my vote.

Would you please give him yours on Election Day?

To be able to live this kind of a lie, this has gone on now for 17, 18, 20

years. That's the main thing that attracted me to Mitt Romney was his

sense of personal commitment to his wife, his family, to his values.

It's not something he just talks about. It's something he lives.

The closest thing to a turning point, though, was when I went to the grave of

Sigma Nu brother that died of AIDS.

Jim knew him well, one of my best friends.

And standing over that grave did a lot.

It let me know that I had to do it. I had to do it.

There was some attention in the national media.

Very, very little on a local level.

The non -gay press saw it as sort of distasteful. They didn't cover gay life

all, except maybe the most dramatic elements of it.

It was Gary that reaped all the havoc from this.

He was shunned by the community.

His parents received all sorts of hate mail.

And Jim, nothing happened to Jim.

He was elevated even higher.

Jim is retiring from a great congressional career.

Thousands and thousands of honors and awards.

How many of those would he have gotten if he had been true to himself?

What I feel that I'm doing in this outing work, it's not about anybody

alive today. It's about tomorrow's generation and the one after and the one

after. Because this hate, this vitriol, it's generational for these anti -gay

people. My personal experience of the good activists, it is all driven by

righteous indignation. People are suffering and dying because some self

-promoting asshole is telling a lie.

Activism is about anger.

Activism is about responding to something that you know is wrong and you

like it.

I'll get it recorded here.

We're here for the consideration of H .J. Rez 106 proposing an amendment to

Constitution of the United States relating to marriage, as well as H .R.

Dreyer's voting is a matter of record.

It is without question somewhat hostile to gays. And in fact, he is a frontline

member of a political party where a considerable wing of that political

openly hostile to gays.

David Dreyer officially still denies being gay, despite lots of evidence to

contrary. You could hear in the newsroom just occasionally when a story would

come up that Dreyer was, quote, what I realized before long, it was code words.

Confirmed bachelor, conservative bachelor, dapper bachelor.

One of the big tips I got was, check out the boyfriend.

I'm like, who's the boyfriend? The chief is deaf. I'm like, ooh, that's

interesting. So then we initiated a whole investigation.

I go down to the Capitol and I copy every travel record of Brad Smith, who's

chief of staff, and David Dreyer, who's the congressman. And what's fascinating,

they said, oh, well, he travels with them. I'm like, well, these are

dates.

One day apart on all the trips.

If there was a congressman who traveled with his chief of staff continuously

around the world, traveling one day before, or one day after, that would be

the newspaper.

But because he's sleeping with a man, because it's two dicks instead of one,

that's their problem.

We're not asking Dreyer what position he likes, how many lovers he's had, where

he likes to get it on. These aren't the questions we want to put to Dreyer. The

questions that should be put to Dreyer are, this is your voting record, this is

your party's platform, its plank, its positions, and it seems to run

contradictory to the way you've lived your personal life.

When he came on my program during the Republican convention, I asked him

straight out. There have been a lot of rumors that you yourself are gay, and

people feel it's hypocritical of you to not speak up in favor of sex marriage.

Are you saying you're heterosexual?

You know, I am not going to talk about this issue. That's really not what I'm

here about.

A straight guy, there's no way he's going to answer that question with,

I'm not really here to talk about that. He's going to say, yeah, I'm straight.

So what? Would you think it's hypocritical if a gay politician were

against gay people?

You know, I will tell you, I'm voting for all the American people.

You know, I happen to like David Dreyer's political and policy work on

fronts. And he lost out in being the new Republican leader.

inside a caucus, inside a Republican community, because of the gay identity

issue. Did you expect to get the job that Roy Blunt got?

No, this is not something that I pursued. I mean, yes, I was talked to

this, and frankly, I said no, that I didn't want to do it. Now, who talked to

you about it?

You know, I don't want to get into that, Charlie.

The evangelical conservative wing of the party came in and said, not for one

minute, not on your life. David Dreyer is a closeted gay. This is a huge

for us, and it's not going to happen.

And I think it was a real sad thing that the country lost someone like David

Dreyer moving into Republican leadership over being gay.

The ultimate irony? I believe if David Dreyer called a press conference

and announced, this is my truth, 30 years in coming, but this is my truth,

I think he'd probably be reelected.

If he decides to eventually come out, he'll do so when he decides to retire

the House.

That's a tragedy.

It's much better to have someone of David Dreyer's really brilliant

skill in the House of Representatives finally coming out of his own volition.

is there an effort?

Probably. Has he moved? No.

Lesbian and gay issues are under -reported and under -covered in the

sometimes because our allies in the media are trying to be sensitive to not

-ending somebody.

All of my straight friends in the media handle this issue badly, because I think

it's discomforting. They don't know what to do about it. Right after the break,

we're going to interview Eric.

Hawaiian mayor who climbed the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest.

But he's gay. I mean, he's gay, excuse me, he's blind.

So we'll hear about that coming up. People will write about my religion,

will write about my height, they will write about my schooling, they will

about a whole range of things.

If they won't write about my sexuality, they're in effect saying the poor so

-and -so, that is such a terrible fact we have to keep it secret.

Journalists are in the business of telling the truth.

And they should be constantly re -evaluating what they're doing and

why they treat homosexuality and heterosexuality differently.

My family jokes that when they watch the news with me, like, that reporter's

gay. Because it permeates the media here.

All the reporters are gay.

You know, CNN and Fox.

And the same ones who are covering the story.

They're part of the Washington culture too. So for them to be ambitious, they

don't talk about their sexual orientation. Haven't for years.

Live from New York, this is the Fox Report with Shepard Smith.

J -Lo's new song, Jenny from the Block, all about Lopez Root, about how she's

still a neighborhood gal at heart.

But folks from the Bronx section sound more likely to give her a curb job than

blowjob or a block party.

We're sorry about that slip up there.

I have no idea how that happened, but it won't happen again.

I was at a bar in New York, a gay piano bar on the Upper East Side called

Brandy's. And we sat down next to this guy, and it was Shepard Smith from Fox

News. And he started chatting me up and buying me drinks, and he

asked me if I'd come back to his apartment at 3 o 'clock in the morning.

And a year went by, and he started getting a lot of exposure as the new

star of cable TV news, and he was...

granting interviews to reporters and being profiled in the New York Times and

was being more than coy about his sexual orientation because it was asked and he

was either lying or dodging the question.

And it was at that point that I said, okay, time to come out. I think it to

day remains the most popular column that I've ever written.

Everyone loves a good outing.

The town is full of gay people.

I remember when I first moved here, thinking how gay it was.

Sometimes I think Washington's more gay than San Francisco is.

Capitol Hill is packed with gay staffers. There are so many of them.

You can't swing a dead cat.

without hitting a gay staffer. There's a running joke that actually gay men make

Capitol Hill run on time.

They don't have a wife or children to go home to, so they can work really long

hours. I mean, I think if they tried to fire gay staff like they do booting

people out of the military, the legislative process would screech to a

this day, I have not seen any place like it. So it is probably the most gay

place. Unfortunately, it's probably still the most closeted place.

There are scores of closeted...

Republicans and Democrats, I might add, who just because of their life journey,

because of their generational experience, because of their desire not

vulnerable in terms of getting reelected, have chosen to stay in the

Yeah. From the day I first got elected to public office in 1972, I was closeted

for the first 15 of those years. My original view was that I could be

kind of,

There were lots of rumors that have been around, and I was always concerned

about what kinds of things would come up in a campaign or what things might be

said. So...

you know, there was that kind of thing that gnaws at you. It's just there. It's

sitting on your shoulder like a little Tweety bird sitting on your shoulder

there about to chirp at you, and you never know when it's going to do that.

you are a lesbian deeply in the closet and you're having a conversation

about, you know, who you share your life with, you either have to lie and

say,

he rather than she in referring to your partner. But alternatively, using

genderless pronouns.

We had a good weekend and, you know, just sort of avoiding

it. And really, that takes a lot of energy to do to make sure your story is

straight, so to speak.

When you're living in the closet, the fear is that someone's going to expose

for their political gain to take you down.

And so you're always wondering, is this the conversation?

Is this the person? Is this the situation?

When I ran for mayor the first time, I received threat letters and threat phone

calls. And I've saved the letters. And one of them said, we're coming to the

public forum and we're going to expose you. So all your supporters will know

that you're really... A gay man.

For anyone to know that you're gay, to be the gay anything, would be the worst

thing in the world to happen to you.

You could lose your family, you could lose your job, you could lose your power

political position, you could lose your seat in Congress.

I've had members of Congress crying in my arms because they don't know how to

come out.

When you try to compartmentalize all of these parts of your life, and if you try

to shove your sexual orientation into a box and keep it from your constituents.

that it has very deadly consequences.

Good afternoon.

Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I

am.

As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself, in fact,

From the first words out of his mouth this afternoon, it was clear Jim

the governor of New Jersey, was making very big news indeed.

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of

one's soul and decide one's unique truth.

And beyond the facts and allegations and anguish immediately surrounding his

story, what the governor said today also becomes part of a larger story at a

turning point for the country.

And so my truth is that I am a gay American.

Another boundary of American politics has been crossed today. With his wife by

his side, the governor announced that he is gay, that he had an affair with a

man, and that he would resign.

His announcement makes him the highest -ranking American politician.

I began to understand that, even in grammar school, that somehow I was

profoundly different.

No one comes up to you and tells you that you're African American or Jewish

American or Irish American.

I mean, you discover you're gay by yourself.

And I was going to the public library and looking for what is homosexuality

what are its origins and how it's described.

Well, it was all horrific. It was all apocalyptic. It was a curse.

I accepted all those messages of shame and messages of...

of hate, messages of ignorance, but you realize it's intrinsic.

It's who and what you are.

And so you deny this thing, but what happens is it comes out.

And it comes out in dark places.

You begin to believe that it is shameful because you're acting, for me, in

shameful ways.

I mean, where am I having sex? I'm having sex in back alleys of abandoned

synagogues. I'm having sex in unrest stops. Well, the fact is my straight

friends were, you know, picking up their girlfriends in bars and at parties and

doing it wherever.

I didn't have that opportunity to do it in public ways that were...

that we're safe and that we're accepted.

And so by doing it in secret, closeted ways, I believe it is unhealthy for the

psychology, it is unhealthy for the being, and it was unhealthy for my soul.

All right, so we're starting to begin.

I went in the bathroom.

I went in the bathroom. I got in a stall, sat down.

I started to go to the bathroom.

Did our feet come together? Apparently they did bump.

Let me be clear.

I am not gay.

I never have been gay. He doesn't think he's gay. And you know what? He's not

gay. Maybe he's homosexual or something. I don't know. Not gay as in identified

politically with our tribe.

Who knows if Larry Craig is gay or not, but whatever he is, it's possible that

he's actually part of us.

We don't want him, but it's possible he's actually part of our community.

i think there are a lot of people especially in his generation and it's

possible in young generations for people to be so terrified internally of their

own sexual orientation they literally just suppress it to such an extent they

can't even acknowledge it while acting as it are you technically

not a homosexual is it possible you're bisexual it's no to both the other

question is do you think it would be something that would be awful In other

words, do you view it as something that would be awful to have to admit that you

were gay?

I don't agree with the lifestyle.

And I've said so by my votes over the years. I think that for a lot of gay

people who may harbor some very, very deep, you know, internalized homophobia.

One of the ways that they feel better about themselves is by aligning

with the forces that might actually want to do harm to them.

As a teenager, I was labeled a fag. And what I would do in order to

battle that and fight that was I would join up with the other guys who would

bash other gay boys.

to prove that, hey, I'm not a fag. I'll even beat up one.

And that going back is really what we see today in so many people who are

in Congress voting against gay people.

Same thing I was doing as a teenager.

They are bashing other gay people in order to prove that they're not gay.

I've never seen anything in history that where deeply anti - or homophobic

activities haven't been at some level perpetuated or fostered by people who

gay. Look at McCarthyism and the witch hunts led by a closeted gay, Roy Cohn, a

true evil bastard.

The target groups of witch hunts and prosecution

were communists and queers.

Roy Cohn supported lots of really dreadful people who were completely

homophobic, and in some ways was himself, you know, homophobic. I mean,

lot of sort of negative feelings about out gay people.

Roy Cohn is not a homosexual.

Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with

guys. You know, I had to take my best shot at trying to figure out how that

of cognitive dissonance is navigated inside of somebody, and I feel like I

pretty good job of it. I mean, the scene that everybody loves best is when he's

diagnosed with AIDS and he says to his doctor, I'm not a gay man.

Now, to someone who does not understand it, homosexual is what I am because I

have sex with men.

But really, this is wrong.

Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men.

Homosexuals are men who, in 15 years of trying, cannot pass a pissant anti

-discrimination bill through city council.

Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows, who have zero clout.

The rationale goes something like this, because it took me a while to figure it

out, but it was sort of like, Rich, you are a weak gay because you came out.

I'm a stronger person.

Because I remain not part of a gay, liberal community.

I am still a conservative and I am everything I want. I don't push my

anyone. And straights don't push their sexual lives. Why should we?

And it's very, I've heard this a million times.

It's very warped.

But it was sort of like you couldn't have the stamina to stay in the closet.

They're very careful. It's like a Broadway show.

Politics is like a Broadway show to them in that everything is staged,

everything is planned, every word that comes out of somebody's mouth is

scripted. Today is a special day in my life.

It's not just Valentine's Day.

It happens to be the anniversary of the first date I had with my wife, Suzanne.

Am I a romantic?

Well, maybe just a little bit.

Even after the Craigs got married.

and he adopted her three children from a previous marriage.

The rumors about her husband persisted. They were saying that it was a marriage

of convenience.

To cover a gay lifestyle. Oh, give me a break.

And I know what they have to say in public, and I actually kind of admire

for being able to give that performance, and I'm sure I couldn't.

But that's some weird shit.

People know me and know that I would never do that.

That's almost like selling your soul for something. No. Where do you find the

spouses of these people who stick with them?

I mean, that is so bizarre.

How do you stand next to your husband after he's been in a stall?

I mean, I would have been going to, I'd headed to a shower for a Silkwood scrub

down or certainly to an STD clinic. I wouldn't be at the Whistle Stop Cafe

standing by him. Is she insane?

What interests me more, and I think what is more common, are these straight

women who are married to closeted gay men who don't love.

I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my

bonds of matrimony.

I dated Jim for four years before we were married, so I thought I knew him.

People always say, oh, there had to be signs, they had to know, you know, this

was an arranged marriage.

With our sex life or relationship, there was nothing, or intimacy, there was

nothing to indicate that there was a problem.

You know, I had never been married before, so I couldn't compare it to

marriage, but from talking to friends and family, it was a normal

If you're keeping a double ledger from the second of your morning breath to the

time you go to bed at night, it's like, you know, a bad Star Trek episode, and

you have to discern which foot is in which universe at any given time.

You're playing in a parallel universe, but it's not integrated. It's not

It's not wholesome, and it's not transparent None of that was real you

of those feelings of those emotions were real from his perspective. It was all

an act What part of my life and my marriage was real you know with that

real with that vacation real? What was what what about it was authentic?

If your husband leaves you for another woman or your wife leaves you for

man, at some point you had feelings for each other.

So at some point there was love.

In my case, I don't think he ever felt that for me.

There were moments of passion.

But at that point, I wasn't ready to accept even who and what I am.

So to be... totally open with her, I would have had to accept myself and then

share it with somebody I loved.

You know, to a certain point, they are the victim, but they made their own

choices about how they were going to live their lives.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve and keep

Well, I think it had to be torture for him to go through life, you know, trying

to live as someone he clearly wasn't comfortable.

But he didn't have to destroy my life or my daughter's life or anybody else's

life. It was wrong.

It was foolish. It was inexcusable.

And for this, I ask the forgiveness and the grace of my wife.

She has been extraordinary throughout this ordeal.

I've been privileged to serve people of this great state we call Florida.

She is the state with the prettiest name, and I love her.

Testing, testing, one, two, three.

At first glance, Kelly Crosby -Heinegger seems like a typical suburban mom, but

what makes her unique is the company she keeps. Here.

A great guy.

A lot of fun. He's real.

He wants to make a difference.

He is Florida Governor Charlie Crist.

Kelly was set up on a date with him for a charity event on Jupiter Island

several months ago.

You'd actually want rumors.

I mean, I'd go to go -go bars with my buddies.

I mean, my gay friends afterwards, like, what did you do for those hours?

We have a good relationship. I enjoy his company.

And I think he enjoys mine, too, but...

I don't like to project.

I would sort of parse words when people would confront me. Oh, you know, I hear

rumors that you're gay. And I'm like, oh, that's crazy.

You're a homosexual.

I said, well, that's absurd.

I mean, there's rumors about everybody in politics.

I mean, so you'd be dismissive.

Charlie, let me ask you this question. Are you a homo?

No, man. Okay, I didn't think at all. Charlie, let me ask you this.

I love women. I know. You know what? And I can attest, because I've seen you

with some great -looking women, and I go... Yeah, well, fortunately, I have...

I'm very blessed.

Rumors that Chris is gay have been printed in alternative newspapers and

He denies it, and Kelly doesn't give that speculation a second thought.

say stuff to you about that?

They do, but, you know, when you put yourself in front of the public eye,

someone is always going to have something negative to say, whether it be

not.

The closet for me in the context of power politics is actually quite

I think it deeply convolutes your perspective on what's right and what's

I think it makes you less genuine.

I think people who are closeted and involved in politics are interested in

continually covering up who they are and what they are, which I think delivers

very negative public policy.

You know, in 1976, Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter were about even on gay rights.

Since then, the Democrats have gotten better, and the Republicans, with the

capture by the right wing, have gotten worse.

Starting in the early 70s, Joe Coors and a number of people paid Justice Lewis

Powell, before he was on the Supreme Court, to write what we call the Powell

Manifesto. Now, it was basically a concrete business plan on how to

free enterprise in perpetuity. And with what we call the nine families, the

Bradleys, the Scaves, the Owens, the Coors, this huge machine was built.

Media monitors and judicial watches and elegant leadership development programs

and think tanks that come up with issues that will pander to certain voters.

And what popped up for them like a gift was gay marriage.

And they went, Eureka. This is what we'll use.

God, as California goes, so goes the nation.

A confrontation between light and darkness will happen this November.

A battle to save the very sanctity of marriage. To the victor goes the soul of

the nation.

This is what homosexuals can do.

They don't really care about how much they destroy. We should not let 2 % of

population determine.

to change the definition of marriage that has been supported by every single

culture and every single religion for 5 ,000 years. Right now, the Republican

Party and the religious right are in an unholy alliance politically, and I think

their unholy alliance has been largely focused on this notion of being

homophobic. In America, the only marriage to be recognized is a marriage

a man and a woman.

I saw it coming.

In the fall of 2003, you know, with the Massachusetts court ruling, with a

closed election, I saw it coming.

I remember the day that President Bush got up and held the news conference

announcing his support for the amendment.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious, and natural roots.

Seeing the president announcing that one of his top priorities in Congress...

was to prevent me and my partner from having, you know, a legitimate

relationship. That was a powerful thing. It's a very surreal experience to watch

the State of the Union address and have the President of the United States

attack you and demonize you in that speech that's being watched by the

world. It just made you sick.

It really, in many ways, was a gut check for me, and I think it was for a lot of

other gay Republicans, too.

I was just furious. I mean, I felt betrayed. I felt angry.

I guess if I believed that it was a sincere personal conviction, I might

felt differently about it. But to just use that to get more votes.

This was just raw politics. The president didn't need to do this to get

reelected. I think the federal marriage amendment was the most violent attack

upon gay people and their rights in this country explicitly that's ever

happened.

I cannot think of a better good that this body may pursue than to promote and

defend the idea that every child deserves both a father and a mother.

of violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people usually

with some form of very visible and very loud defamation.

Anywhere in the world today, you can wake somebody up in the middle of the

night, you pick them, and say, excuse me, wake up just a second, what is a

marriage?

And they'll say a union between a man and a woman.

So you have these anti -gay leaders that are spewing all this hatred about gay

and lesbian people, and people who aren't really engaged and don't really

what's going on and don't follow it that much have a general same viewpoint as

them, and they just sort of copy it and they mirror it. And that's how it

transforms.

A charred truck, threats, I'll be back, and in bigger writing for everyone to

see, gay must go.

22 -year -old James Nicola, who goes by Janine, says he was the victim of a hate

crime. He says the attackers the whole time were yelling, we want you out of

neighborhood. San Jose, California.

Bill Kiley suffered repeated harassment from a young neighbor.

This is video of Neve in the hospital just a few days after he was brutally

attacked. He spent several days in strong hospital with a fractured skull,

upper jaw, and eye socket.

On May 29th, the 18 -year -old victim's body is discovered in the woods behind

his family's woodlawn home.

Police say Stephen Parrish had joined a blood gang and was killed by two members

of his own group.

Court documents say it's because they thought he was gay. That was four days

before his graduation from Randallstown High School.

Students marched in Oxnard, California in memory of Lawrence Larry King, a 15

-year -old student police say was gunned down by a classmate because he was

openly gay.

14 -year -old Brandon McInerney allegedly shot King in the head in the

computer lab. It's over. It's over.

King was pronounced brain dead at a local hospital. His body was kept alive

his organs could be donated.

Today I call upon the Congress to promptly pass.

and to send to the states for ratification, an amendment to our

defining and protecting marriage as a union of a man and woman, as husband and

wife. Directly underneath the 2004 strategy around, you know, anti -gay

of the Bush campaign, you will find a cadre of gay people. The 2004 election

a very anti -gay, you know, it was a party.

And Ken Melman was like the emcee. Lifestyle issues.

Gay marriage. Is that an issue in this campaign?

I think it's an issue in many races, obviously.

It was hard because there wasn't the kind of evidence with Ken Melman that

was with other people, but it was relatively known.

And nobody would even ask.

A lot of the chiefs of staff, the people who really run the underpinnings of the

Republican Party, are gay.

I don't want to mention names, but I will Friday night.

You will, Friday night? Well, there's a couple of big people who I think

everyone in Washington knows who run the Republican... You will name them. Well,

I wouldn't be the first.

I'd get sued if I was the first, but, you know, Ken Millman, okay, there's one

think people have talked about. I don't think he's denied it when he's been,

people have suggested he doesn't say, I'm not. I'm walking around in a bar.

I never, Ken Millman, I never heard that. But the question is. Maybe you

go to the same bathhouse I do, Larry.

I'd get sued if I was the first, but the question is. Maybe you don't go to the

same bathhouse I do, Larry. Why would someone who is gay take public anti -gay

positions?

Why would you, why would you do that?

because, Larry, hating yourself is the greatest love of all.

Ken Melman was the guy that ran the campaign that was sending out these

that was baiting people, that was, I mean, particularly in Ohio, you know, in

all these battleground states where it was all about, you know, let's get

to vote for Bush by this gay thing, led by the gay guy, you know, and funded by

the gay guy, and politically directed by the gay guy, you know. And I think

people deserve to know that.

I think Mary Cheney's outing.

was effective.

Oh, I'm appalled by the Cheneys. You know, I felt extremely disheartened that

they were as supportive of the anti -gay policies as they were.

We always thought we had some protection because of the vice president's

daughter. If your father was not the vice president, and you were a gay woman

a gay relationship in the United States in 2004, 2000, would you have voted for

this ticket?

Yes, I would have.

If she were stripped of her father's title, she would be subjected to the

gratuitous discrimination that affects so many gays and lesbians in this

country. She is protected by her position and her money.

And you have a partner. I do. Gay couples cannot file jointly for federal

Is that true?

That is true. And your feelings about that? I think it's wrong.

I think they should be able to. Did you talk to your father about this?

We have many conversations about different issues.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe I'm wondering if people would rather you had

talked about it during the campaign as opposed to after the campaign's waiting

and putting it in the book. Would it have been more effective to talk about

then? I honestly don't think it would have been.

I'm completely unimpressed that she doesn't agree with President Bush or her

father, Dick Cheney, when in fact she worked. She was a paid operative to get

them elected and then reelected.

You know, Mary Cheney's job before her father ran for president was to be the

gay and lesbian liaison for Coors Beer.

He made her living figuring out how to dissect the gay community into niche

markets and sell them Coors Beer.

But she wasn't inquisitive enough and didn't care enough to dissect the

Republican Party and the elite of that party.

to figure out how to get basic rights passed.

There is probably not a better example of someone who is so steeped

in hypocrisy. She could have made a huge difference and did not.

Got a call from a good friend of mine who told me that there was a gay

who was going to start a blog and was going to start outing Republicans.

Now, during this time, I was the national field director of the

National Committee, and one of the big responsibilities that I had was helping

to oversee a direct mail program.

I was the first one to get a pamphlet.

from an Arkansas reader of my blog that said that the Democrats were going to

ban their Bible and turn states into bastions of homosexuality. And they were

sending this to church pew rosters around the country.

It was sent by the Republican National Committee, and they didn't even try to

hide it.

Dan Gurley, who had ultimate authority over these...

Unbelievable flyers. He had a profile on gay .com that was stashed full of a

bunch of his pictures, and he was seeking multiple partners for sex.

I got a call from him at home one Sunday night saying, you know, you're the one,

you're going to be next.

He pointedly asked me if I was a gay man, and I told him that I was.

He immediately then started to question me about, did I not have a conscience?

Did I not feel some sort of remorse or regret for working for a political

party, working to help elect a president that did not support equal rights for

gay Americans?

I basically just said, you know, you do what you feel like you think you have to

do.

I was in line for a presidential appointment, in all likelihood in some

role somewhere.

But once Rogers did this posting about me, that opportunity evaporated.

Recently, I get an email.

Dan Gurley is on the board of North Carolina Equality.

And I'm like, what? And I went to the website, I looked it about, and I'm

this is hot.

This is why I started BlogActive.

He's an out gay man, and he's proud, and he's on the board of a statewide

national gay group. This man is using his skill for secure gay rights.

What could be better, and what better effect could I have as an individual?

When you come out, I guarantee you the experience will be better than you ever

dreamed it would be.

In a sense, I came out, I guess you might say, in stages.

I left a marriage back in 1991, and that was a big step for me. I recognized

myself and to her what the feelings that I had.

July of 96 was when we had a vote on what was called DOMA, the Defense of

Marriage Act.

And I voted for that. At that time, the Advocate magazine decided they would

write an article and approached me about it and told me they were going to do so

and name me as one who was gay.

basically just said, well, I thought that was wrong for them to do that.

I said, I'll beat you to the punch here, and I just did it myself.

It was probably the most lifting experience I've ever had. I had this

unbelievable, indescribable sense of peace and calm come over me, and

I could literally, literally feel 40 years just lifting off of my shoulder.

I'll never forget when I did my announcement speech. My mother had found

prayer cards for my grandmother, for whom I was very close to.

And I remember going into the bathroom just outside the governor's office

and praying to

my grandmother and saying to her,

At long last, this is who

God made me.

And this is a good thing.

I always remember John McCain.

When I started just to say, John, there's something I really want to talk

about and tell you about, he just put up his hand and said, never mind, Jim, I

know. He said, it doesn't make any difference. You're a good legislator.

You've always been, and you're always going to be my friend.

And I remember walking away from that conversation thinking, gosh, that was

pretty easy. That wasn't very tough to do that. And so each one was kind of

that. And so it got so I couldn't wait to pick up the phone to make the next

call.

I think in the case of a member of Congress, they do change their voting

Because once you're out of the closet, your delusional thinking falls by the

wayside.

Gentleman is recognized for three minutes.

Mr. Speaker.

We have not used the amending process to limit the rights of citizens.

From the First Amendment to the 14th, the original framers in the Congress

followed have sought to expand to protect the rights of citizens.

This would be a unique amendment in that it takes away rights from one group

while specifically conferring it upon another.

Try to find another provision in the Constitution that does this. You will

in vain.

Mr. Speaker, this Congress and those after it should be about protecting and

expanding freedoms.

This proposed amendment to our Constitution is about discrimination.

It is about fear. It is unnecessary.

It is unwarranted. And it should be soundly defeated.

Amendment 2 does only one thing.

Defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman. That's it.

When you vote, say yes to pass life to the next generation.

Vote yes to keep marriage one man, one woman.

That's it. No one loses benefit.

Please vote yes on Amendment 2.

A big political announcement out of Florida tonight.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has picked up a major

I don't think anybody would do better than the man who stands next to me,

Senator John McCain.

Governor Chris, just real quickly, are they chatting with you about a possible

VP slot for you? Come on, be shameless.

Tell us. We're chatting about working hard for Florida.

Chris has obviously coveted the vice presidential spot on the Republican

Should I get married?

Is that what we're hearing this week? Is this part of the excitement and the

buildup to running for VP or what? What's going on here?

You know, if your wife can't help you in a campaign, who can?

The state's most eligible bachelor is officially off the market this 4th of

July. Governor Charlie Crist is engaged.

He popped the question yesterday to his girlfriend of nine months. Her name is

Carol Rome.

Let me start by asking you, what made you decide to pop the question when you

didn't, you know?

Well, I mean, I think you pop the question like that when you're in love,

am. And so that's why I did it.

And thank God she said yes, and we couldn't be happier.

I tell them to never lie, that if they get the question, they should be

to answer the question honestly and do nothing but answer the question

What's your reaction to some people's preoccupation, and I'm not talking about

the marriage, with your sexuality?

Both the rumors of, well, the various rumors that have been around.

Sure. Well, you know, I mean, when you're in the public eye, I mean, being

governor of Florida, that's inevitable.

And, you know, I just, I don't really focus on it.

I'm just, you know, damn glad to have found such a wonderful lady.

The sad thing about the closet is, you know, it does in part give you skills

that you can apply as a politician.

Because so much of politics today is, you know, positioning and spinning and

being able to pirouette on issue.

One aspect is that you're gay. The other one is that you're a serial

philandering heterosexual.

Does that bother you?

Well, lack of truth always would be disturbing to somebody. But I'm just

that I found happiness.

I've watched decent people struggle with coming out and being unable to do so.

The closet, particularly in the midst of a cultural war, suffocates the

integrity of decent people.

For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his

wife, and they will become one flesh for God's design.

On November 4th, vote yes on Amendment 2.

With laws already on the books to ban same -sex marriage in Florida, voters

added that ban to the state constitution.

Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt, the governor of Florida could have

the outcome of that election had he not tilted to the right and decided to take

the position that he did.

Yeah, without a doubt.

You know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions because you think

you're doing the right thing and damn it.

You know what the right value is? The right value is truthfulness. The right

value is honesty.

The right value isn't living somebody else's truth.

It's living your truth.

We don't have rights.

Gay people do not have rights.

Don't tell me that we do.

That's why it's so important that we know about these personal relationships.

in people's lives. It affects government. It affects everything.

This whole issue really does impact the public policy arena. It affects some of

our nation's most significant and powerful individuals.

And it's why, you know, my hope is that this next generation of young American

leaders doesn't have to be suffocated in the midst of a culture war that

hopefully has ended by the time they reach Washington, D .C.

I really do believe, and I've always felt this, that the most important thing

gay person can do with respect to the social justice issues around

is simply to be out.

And it staggers me today that so many are not.

If every gay person would come out of the closet, the gay rights movement

be over.

That's the sleeping giant of the movement, is all the people who are in

closet coming out en masse, and it would be done.

If every gay person in this state...

came out, came out to their family, their friends, we would win.

But that means that every gay person must come out to their families so their

family doesn't vote against them, to their friends if they are indeed their

friends, to their relatives, to the people where they work, and to their

-door neighbors, nobody else. If that happened across the state, we win.