On Sam Adams and Cesar Chavez Boulevard.

Dear Readers,
Portland has the first openly gay mayor of a top 40 city, Mayor Sam Adams.
It has recently come out that our Mayor had a relationship with an 18 year old man in 2005.
He lied about it during the election. So did the young man.

SO. WHAT.

The Oregonian and Just Out (two local papers, one of which is Gay, take a guess) have both called for his resignation.
To them i say Shame On You.

It does not matter to me, as a voter and a citizen, whether or not my Mayor has had sex with an 18 year old.

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

His lying about it? Also DOESN'T MATTER.

The Honorable Mayor Sam Adams has demonstrated 20 years of competent public service. This has nothing to do with his sex life. I do not care if he tells the truth about his sex life. It is none of my business.

How many elected officials lie about their sex lives? How many are closeted?
What if they are so good at lying about their sex lives that You Don't Even Know They're Lying? Does it make a difference in their sustainability plan for the city? For their workings with legislation? The budget? NO!

Portland is truly a land of passive aggression and manipulation.

People are saying
"It's not that i care about his sex life, it's just that i won't be able to trust him or see him the same after this."
That's a choice you're making.
It is not a given. You can actually still trust him after this. Look at his record, look at the reasons you voted for him, and make the DECISION as a human being with FREE WILL to see him the same and to MOVE ON.

I want to take a moment and mention something that happened last year. My synopsis.
Some people wanted to rename Interstate Avenue. They wanted to call it Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
The Latin American community of our city was behind this. It almost got passed. Some (and i'm going to make a leap here) WHITE stick in the mud people who otherwise do not have an active role in local politics (i say this because they weren't active enough to have heard about this name change before it was within an inch of passing) found out that this was happening and totally BLOCKED IT!
There were giant community meetings where, I kid you not, people said things like "I can't even pronounce that! How can we name a street that? "
Literally I heard this on a talk radio show .
Did people in Portland come out and say "Change is Scary" or "We are Racist" ?
No.
They said "we can't change the street name because..... um... because then all the businesses on the street will have to change their STATIONERY and SIGNAGE! you'll be hurting small business! That's the only reason we're blocking it!"
give.
me.
a.
break.
Also, "Welllll, we're not RACIST, it's just about a technicality! We really really care about the technical process of street naming here. SUPER IMPORTANT. .... we weren't involved in the process! So we're going to punish you by blocking your efforts! So that next time we can be part of the process! Even if the process is to do something cool with a street that is named INTERSTATE, which happens to be the most uninspired street name of all time.... !"

What am I saying?

I'm saying that people are being homophobic about the Mayor.
I'm saying that Beau Breedlove (the 18 year old) had agency in this situation and was a willing participant in a relationship with a public official.

I'm saying that the blocking of Cesar Chavez Avenue was racist.

And I'm saying this in order to stick up for the Mayor.

As always,
send me your problems.

Sincerely,

Nicole J. Georges