Op-Ed: Jersey City Pride starts tomorrow. Calling out McGreevey should start now

In an editorial, Jersey City’s David Guirgis weighs in on why mayoral candidate Jim McGreevey’s track record needs to be examined during Pride Month.

If elected, Jim McGreevey would make history as the first openly gay mayor of Jersey City. Ordinarily, such a prospect would thrill me — I’m a lifelong Jersey City resident and was, rather memorably, one of the only kids in my high school class who was out.

But it is because of my love for Jersey City and for my community that I want Jim McGreevey as far away from public office as physically possible.

Consider, for example, if Jim McGreevey had received the same treatment as Kevin Spacey. In 2017, when actor Anthony Rapp came out with his story of Spacey forcing himself on him, Spacey responded by, well, coming out.

This was immediately panned worldwide as a PR ploy for sympathy from the disgraced actor, who’s since largely vanished.

But it’s worth pointing out that, in 2004, when he resigned from Governor amid allegations of corruption and sexual misconduct, Jim McGreevey did the exact same thing.

According to his former aide, Golan Cipel, McGreevey repeatedly pressed him for unwanted sexual advances while awarding him senior-level jobs he wasn’t qualified for and couldn’t do. ”I got to a point where I was afraid to stay with him alone,” Cipel, an Israeli national and heterosexual, told Israeli papers.

And when McGreevey was caught, he saved face by coming out, resigning, and disappearing from public life — essentially throwing the queer community under the bus by exploiting our stories and our struggles to cover up for his own bad behavior.

In other words, Jim McGreevey didn’t sexually harass aides and rig the state hiring process because he’s gay. He did it because he thought he was exempt from the rules.

Now, with this campaign for Mayor of my city, McGreevey has essentially decided that his time-out is over. But if Kevin Spacey is still a pariah in public life, as he rightfully should be, why isn’t Jim McGreevey?

After all, when you consider that Jim McGreevey takes donations from the worst crooks and fraudsters in Donald Trump’s orbit, as was exposed in the New York Post in April, it’s clear that his values still aren’t in alignment with his words.

When you consider that those donors include the type to support bigoted, anti-LGBTQ+ policies, it’s clear that he still views his own queer identity as a means to an end — not a membership to a community that demands solidarity.

And when you consider that Jim McGreevey donated to the comeback mayoral campaign of fellow ex-governor (and sexual predator) Andrew Cuomo, who lost his primary in humiliating fashion, the way he views his own sexual improprieties are even more clear.

Jersey City deserves so much better than this. We’ve seen what four years of wheeling and dealing corruption can do to the soul of a city. Just take a look across the river at New York, where its mayor sold out his office just to avoid jail time from Trump.

Do folks really think that Jim McGreevey, the guy swimming in Trump’s cash, would ever stand up to him?

Do you think the guy taking money from every Trump-aligned developer in America would do anything to lower the cost of housing in, say, Ward C — the ward we both live in, and the ward where at least 12 skyscrapers have gone up in a decade with not a single unit of affordable housing in them?

We should know the answer by now.

David Sabry Guirgis, LMSW is a social worker, seasoned political operative, and a senior adviser to Jersey City Councilmember James Solomon.

For almost a decade, he has scored progressive victories across federal, statewide, local, and issues-based campaigns. He is a Jersey City resident from childhood and holds degrees from Northwestern University and Columbia University.