I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man.
Being gay is a fundamental part of my being - the core of who I've always been, and the thing that I had repressed and run from all my life.
We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.
I kept a steel wall around my moral and sexual instincts - protecting them, I thought, from the threats of the real world. This gave me a tremendous advantage in politics, if not in my soul. The true me, my spiritual core, slipped further and further from reach.
When I first ran for public office, it was with the passion and idealism of a young man who believed that government could help make our lives better, that public service was a calling and that citizenship demanded responsibilities. There was a greater good.
There is no more fundamental obligation of a government than to protect those who cannot protect themselves -- namely, our children. The failure of government in this instance to safeguard the health and welfare of these children is beyond excuse, it is sickening,