In Portland, you only have to be 18 to have a Sam Adams
Ok, I bit the headline from a commenter on Queerty, who in turn found it somewhere even Google couldn’t track.
I was made aware of this story on January 20th, but I didn’t want to take part in the muck-raking during our spectacular inaguration. That and I may have had a few drinks at breakfast….
The Willamette Weekly has been covering the long-dead sex life of the openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon. Sam Adams was elected as their mayor in May of 2008, and was sworn in on January 1st. During his campaign, allegations were raised by one of his challengers that he had sex with the aptly named Beau Breedlove, a man who was 17 when they met in 2005. At the time, Adams denied the allegations.
Pressed with mounting evidence that Adams was romantically involved with Breedlove, Adams confessed to lying during his general election. He admitted to having sexual relations with Breedlove after he turned 18 (the legal age of consent in Oregon). Adams indicated he lied to avoid the wild speculation that he had sex with Breedlove before he was of age, citing stereotypes that gay men are attracted to underage children.
Since then the media has thrown a giant fit reminiscent of the Clinton-Lewinsky years. And I’ll clarify now, I was 12 years old when that happened, and even then I knew it wasn’t a big deal. And I still thought girls had cooties.
Journalists all over are calling for Adams to resign. Just Out, Portland’s largest gay paper, is out for blood. Seattle’s own alt-weekly (aka gay weekly) The Stranger has differing opinions within its ranks. Erica C. Barnett called for a resignation based solely on the fact that he lied to reporters, while sex advice columnist Dan Savage defends Adams rights to privacy and to stay in office.
Savage is also attending a rally tomorrow outside the Portland’s City Hall (Friday, 1/23 at 5:30 PM PST). The Facebook group Support Sam Adams currently has 1,083 members and is growing.
My take? I almost resisted blogging about this because it shouldn’t be news. Who cares. This is nothing more than a sex-negative witch hunt. While it’s comforting for members of the press to hide their outrage behind the allegations of lying, this is nothing but a facade. All politicians lie. Obama lied about Gay Marriage. And, in all honesty, I lied. Obama doesn’t actually read this blog. Yet.
What it comes down to is a populace ready to devour a politician for being human. My disdain for age of consent laws aside, this has nothing to do with his ability to be the mayor of a city. This doesn’t affect his years of public service.
Let it go journalists. This isn’t a story. And if you’re in the Portland area, show some solidarity for your mayor. After all, what a DILF.
Tags: Mayor, Queer, sex-negative
Your post is too god damn long. I have serious ADHD. Anyway, without reading more than the first two sentences, I can say that — normally — I would be like, WHAT EV’ but he was in a position of power over this person, in a supervisory capacity, and that’s wrong. If he wanted to stalk his former intern by posting crazy shit on his blog and IM’ing him every few minutes at all times of the night (oops, I’ve said too much), that would be wrong too. What really creeps me out is that Adams kissed the intern when he was 17, before they got into the sack together.