Booker denied being gay in ’00, now says gay rumors are ‘wonderful’
[Guest post by Charles C. Johnson]
Although Mayor Cory Booker now refuses to say whether or not he’s gay and says gay rumors about him are “wonderful,” Booker told the New Jersey’s Star Ledger that he wasn’t gay in 2000.
“[Booker] keeps copies of fliers about him on his desk, street literature that denounces him as a carpetbagger and a liar. Broadsides that say the bachelor is gay,” wrote Bob Braun of the Star Ledger on February 2, 2000. “‘I’m not,’ he says.”
Is it too cynical to think that maybe the reason he didn’t want people to think he’s gay then is that he wanted to represent blacks in Newark?
The answer seems to be because Cory Booker has a bigoted view of blacks. Witness T. Bone, his fictitious drug dealer friend exposed over at National Review by Eliana Johnson.
Booker likely thought that a friendship with a street thug would play well in seedy Newark. He likely also thought that keeping his sexuality on the down low would play well, too.
Now that he doesn’t need the blacks he doesn’t have to worry and can play footsie around the closet.
But if he wants to be president, he has to play an Ed Koch by refusing to answer every question about himself except the one about his sexuality.
–Charles C. Johnson
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I don’t care if a politician is gay.
Time will tell whether that is Booker’s only issue, though.
UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO: Foo Bar points out in comments that Booker described himself as a “straight male” as recently as July 22. Without more, this seems like a non-issue to me.