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New Jersey's gay
former governor once cruised truck stops

New Jersey's gay
former governor once cruised truck stops

Mcgreevey_20060522_0

James McGreevey, the gay former governor of New Jersey who resigned his position in 2004, writes in his soon-to-be-released memoir that he used to engage in casual sex at highway rest stops.

A much-anticipated memoir from the nation's first openly gay governor is due out this fall. But excerpts from the book by former New Jersey governor James McGreevey are already causing a small storm of media hype.

In the book, titled The Confession (ReganBooks), McGreevey reveals that he once resorted to anonymous sex at highway rest stops. McGreevey, who proclaimed himself "a gay American" in 2004 while announcing his impending resignation as governor, engaged in the secret encounters because he feared having a relationship with a man would ruin his chances of success as a politician.

"So instead I settled for the detached anonymity of bookstores and rest stops as a compromise, but one that was wholly unfulfilling and morally unsatisfactory," McGreevey writes in the book, according to the excerpts published Sunday in The [Newark, N.J.] Star-Ledger. The excerpts do not mention whether the activities took place during his tenure as governor.

According to the Associated Press, McGreevey, 48, is being paid up to $500,000 for the 384-page memoir. He made an appearance Saturday at BookExpo America in Washington, D.C., where he told The Star-Ledger that his book is "painfully honest.... A lot will resonate with readers."

The excerpts do not detail his two marriages or even the scandal, which became public knowledge during an August 2004 televised news conference in which McGreevey acknowledged a gay affair and declared, "My truth is that I am a gay American."

He resigned over the affair, with a man identified as Golan Cipel, an Israeli hired by the governor in 2002 to be state homeland security adviser despite having little experience. Cipel has steadfastly denied any involvement with McGreevey.

According to the excerpts, McGreevey said he also became "as avid a womanizer as anybody else on the New Jersey political scene." "I knew I would have to lie for the rest of my life, and I knew I was capable of it," McGreevey writes. "The knowledge gave me a feeling of terrible power." (The Advocate)

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