Mayor made dates with young men he met on Gay.com
May 13th
In normally placid Spokane, which some here call "the world's biggest small town" and where a road sign proclaims there have been zero traffic fatalities this year, the shocking questions about the mayor and the local newspaper just keep coming.
Is Mayor Jim West a *********, as two men alleged to the paper last week? Did he offer young men jobs and perks in a bid to have sex with them? Is he a hypocrite, announcing he is homosexual after a 25-year public career -including a stint as the state Senate majority leader - in which he opposed gay rights? Should he resign? Or be recalled?
And was the Spokane Spokesman-Review justified in lying in a bid to get at the truth? The paper hired a forensic computer expert to pose as a 17-year-old boy who conducted an online relationship with the mayor. West has admitted to using screen aliases such as "RightBi-Guy" and "Cobra82nd," an apparent reference to his service as a paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne division.
Sordid details emerge every day in what newspaper headlines as an ongoing "investigative report" on the Republican mayor's alleged misuse of office. Did he once tell a councilwoman that he had masturbated in his City Hall office? Did he offer a young man, whom he later appointed to the city's human rights commission, $300 to go swimming naked with him?
Certainly, some here are willing to reserve judgment on the most serious allegations - made by two men who are currently in jail, one for burglary and the other for drug use - that West molested them in the 1970s and early '80s, when he was in law enforcement and also serving as a Boy Scout leader. The mayor has denied their accusations.
But there is a widespread sense that West is a hypocrite. Until last week, he was a closeted gay man who once sponsored legislation to bar gays and lesbians from teaching in the public schools. He also voted to prohibit the state from distributing pamphlets telling people how to protect themselves against AIDS during sexual activity, denouncing the information as "something people go buy at dirty bookstores." (FULL STORY)
What do you guys think about this? Is he getting what he deserves for being closeted and publicly anti-Gay or should all of us have the same right not to be publicly persecuted for our private sex lives, as long as they're legal? It seems a paper might have posed as a 17 year old on Gay.com and they have transcripts of some sort allegedly.. it will be interesting to see how this turns out. What do you think will happen?
