NY Times is reporting that the mayor of Spokane, Wash., James West (a Republican and outspoken opponent of gay rights), has been accused of molesting two young boys when he was a Scout Master, years ago.
West was married to a woman and insists that he is not gay, although he does admit to having sex with other adult men; apparently when he was filling out his gay.com profile (RightBi-Guy) he was “confused.”
Here’s someone who obviously bought into the Right’s version of how SSA people should deal with our sexuality (“for God’s sake, suppress it at all costs!”). This should be a reminder that lying to everyone about who you are doesn’t make the truth go away–it just drives the truth underground to a place where it festers and turns cancerous.
Instead, I have the feeling this episode will be taken as one more piece of evidence that happy, functional, monogamous, out gay people are unfit to be Scout leaders.
UPDATE: Steve Miller at the Independent Gay Forum just wrote the exact same post! Only better. Check it out.
I certainly hope that West gets convicted for his crimes. IMHO he needs to be made an example of in the harshest possible way, not only for his crimes, but for his hypocrisy.
I’ve read much of the original reporting on this story on the Spokesman Review online and came away with three conclusions:
1. He hasn’t been charged of any crime and there’s no ongoing investigation. The allegations seem incredibly weak. Maybe he did sexually abuse the kids, but for some reason this one seems a little fishy.
2. The paper is sleaze (maybe that’s why I’m suspicious of the abuse claim). They basically use the abuse claim to justify what they really did. They ran a sting on this guy to see if he was gay. And they actually posted the online chats. It was so classless (Ok, and so was I for reading a few of them).
3. West was no friend of our community. He actually supported a bill that would not allow gay people to teach or work for certain state jobs. And I have no sympathy for his predicament if he actually did hurt kids.
I do feel bad a bit, though, if he’s innocent of the charges. I’m not a big fan of outing. And it does seem, from the interview at least, that he was in the position of starting to come to terms with himself.
Timothy,
The paper might be a sleaze as you say, but it seems that the accusations have been made a long time before this story was written and it’s fishy as well that the other indivdual accused committed suicide right after the accusation.
Besides, even if he’s innocent of these acusations, it still doesn’t clear him from trying to impair the lives of well-balanced queers while secretly engaging in lustful and questionable behaviour.
As for outing antigay individuals in positions of influence and power, like I’ve stated before, I’m strongly for it. IMHO, not only is outing them righteously acceptable, I consider it a civil duty for all queer brethen in their own limited power, regardless whether they’re closeted or not.
Xeno,
he may be guilty as hell. I dunno. If so, I hope he is punished to the fullest.
However, I am really hesitant about outing. I can understand the point that these guys are hurting us and simultaneously taking advantage of what rights we fight for. I think it has to be very carefully weighed.
In the case of West, I’m conflicted. On one hand, I think I could be perfectly fine with this guy being outed. However, I prefer that it come from within our community.
Also, I think the standard of “hurting our community” is sometimes really low, and I dispise the gotcha politics that goes with outing some people.
Is “he’s a Republican” enough, or is “he only voted with my politics half the time” or “he only supports civil unions not marriage” a good enough excuse to out him? Or maybe it’s as little as “he works as a staffer for a conservative congressman”. I’ve seen all those excuses and think they stink.
But I can respect where you come from on this.
There are several issues that I think need to be addressed separately.
1. The newspaper
I agree that the Spokesman-Review designed the sting in a way that seems tawdry and beside-the-point: If the newspaper was concerned about possible teen molestation (and apparently it should have been) then why use “18-year-olds” and criticize the mayor for legal same-sex conduct, when the sting could use “17-year-olds” and nail the mayor for molestation or statutory rape?
2. Is the mayor “gay”?
He’s married, so… IF the allegations were true, then he would sound bisexual to me — or attracted to adult women and male children, which might make him a heterosexual pedophile/ephebophile.
But even if Jim West were at least partly attracted to adult men, whether he’d be “gay” depends on how you define gay, doesn’t it?
I define it to mean someone is same-sex-attracted for a prolonged period, regardless of whether one affirms same-sex behavior or adheres to any particular political view.
A lot of other people define “gay” to mean that one affirms same-sex behavior and is “proud” to be gay. They may disagree on which gay behaviors are acceptable, and which are not.
Still other people (both gay-left and antigay) try to reserve the word for progressives who pass a litmus test of political issues identified with the left of the Sixties and Seventies.
3. The outcome of the sting
Whatever the motives and reasoning of the newspaper might have been, the outcome thus far is positive: More people are coming forward with allegations of abuse that appear to be consistent and well-researched. And the city seems to be dealing calmly and responsibly with the charges.
4. Gay.com
Why is no one demanding that the web site be shut down for persistently hosting and facilitating statutory rape?