Rantz: A whiff of gay-shaming Mayor Murray

We learned Monday on the Ron and Don Show that attorney Lincoln Beauregard is seeking to uncover what happened during a police incident at Mayor Ed Murray’s house last year.

This smells of gay-shaming.

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Now, we don’t have all the information. But Beauregard claims that a shirtless man was found on the mayor’s front yard. His wallet and shirt were allegedly inside the mayor’s home. The mayor allegedly contacted Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, who then dispatched police officers to his home to handle the disturbance. Because it was on an un-monitored line, the call wasn’t recorded for public record.

The mayor disputes the veracity of Beauregard’s claims, but, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume it’s true. My reaction: So what?

I suppose we can pretend this is about a potential cover-up where the mayor went through O’Toole to keep it quiet (as if we’d be shocked that the mayor would call someone directly and discreetly to try to keep a potentially embarrassing story from being turned into fodder), but I think the claim was made for a different purpose.

The bulk of the implication here is that the shirtless man was in the house during Gay Pride weekend, so he must have been doing something sexual with the mayor. Murray is being accused of raping an underage boy, so I imagine some people think that this is behavior that shows the mayor to be some kind of sexual deviant. That’s ridiculous, of course, and seems to be a ploy to shame the mayor for being gay.

The context that leads me to believe this? The law firm representing the accuser has a partner who, they admit, fights against transgender bathroom rights. It’s their right to do so, and they shouldn’t be shamed for engaging politically how they see fit, but we can’t just ignore that when a story like this comes forward.

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If that’s the case, it certainly is a risky strategy in gay-friendly Seattle. My co-host, on-air, indicated that this is no longer risky because of the allegations against the mayor and that we might be more apt to believe Murray is forever up to no good because of the rape allegations. Maybe. But my sense is that Seattlites are smart enough not to fall for a tactic that might be employed to shame a gay man for doing as he pleases, with whichever adult he pleases, in the privacy of his own home.

Is there more to the story? Probably. There’s always more to a story. We should learn more about what happened that night in case the mayor is using the SPD inappropriately (or illegally) to cover up whatever happened that night at his home.

But if the rape allegations didn’t exist, I doubt this would be as big of a story as some people think for fear that it’s just a means to shame a gay man having fun on Gay Pride weekend.

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