And yet the punditocracy is going to get it wrong, casting McGreevey's resignation not in this lineage of male sexual hypocrisy, but as part of the new debate over lesbian and gay rights. McGreevey was hoping for exactly that when he announced, "My truth is that I am a gay American." The Human Rights Campaign quickly echoed that line, when its spokesperson Steven Fisher said, "Coming out is a deeply personal journey, and Gov. McGreevey today showed enormous courage." Oh, please. Do we really have to line up behind this guy? If the gay and lesbian scuttlebutt is to be believed, McGreevey had a boyfriend even before he married his second and current wife, which means that for years, he's tried to have it both ways--the political mask of a wife and child, and the private comfort of secret paramours. How is this different from, say, Bob Barr, Newt Gingrich, or a gang of Kennedys?

Gays and lesbians should leave this guy dangling on his self-constructed gallows. We've worked hard over the past thirty years to make it possible--to make it legal--to live an out, honorable life. Backing McGreevey only gives ammunition to the religious right, which will spin his resignation like this: "See, gays really are breaking up the American family. Gay sex equals adultery, literally. Those homos really do want men to race irresponsibly off seeking gonadal bliss, rather than staying home and fulfilling their God-given duties to the wife and kids." No, let McGreevey clean up his own scandal, whether he's fleeing a lawsuit or blackmail or some other ugly consequence of sexual double-dealing. (E.J. Graff)