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A P.E. teacher at an all-boys' grammar school in the U.K. resigned last week, just one month after students stumbled upon nude photos of him on a gay sex site.
“I didn’t pose for anything pornographic,” Sam Handley told the press in September. “I was just holding it.”
Holding it — stroking it. Reclining on a sofa playing with himself. All that and more, in fact. Needless to say, Handley was suspended and subsequently quit. And it got ... [us] reminiscing about some of the biggest stories involving sex, lies, and unemployment.
The following are a string of men who rose to celebrity after being punished for murder, posing for porn, “sexting” interns, or just for being gay.
Gay-porn star Kurt Wild was working with a different type of footlong — as a Subway sandwich shop employee near St. Louis — when, in 2008, a customer recognized the then-22-year-old adult entertainer and threatened to boycott the store. Wild claims he was fired solely for his involvement in gay porn
“If a girl did what we do it would probably be OK, and if a guy does straight porn he is bragged about,” Wild wrote, in an e-mail to his fans. “When I do gay porn, I feel a bit lynched for the rest of my life. Not right.”
Ted Haggard, better known as Pastor Ted, was the founder and pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Preaching to more than 10,000 parishioners weekly and named one of Time magazine’s most influential evangelicals in 2005, Haggard was an icon among conservative Christians.
Then, in November 2006, prostitute and masseur Mike Jones claimed the pastor had solicited Jones for sex and methamphetamine. After initially denying knowing Jones, Haggard admitted to committing “sexual immorality” and resigned his posts with the church and the evangelical group.
Despite the scandal, Haggard and his wife, Gayle Alcorn, remain married.
One month after the Ted Haggard scandal, Paul Barnes resigned as senior minister of the evangelical church Grace Chapel in Douglas County, Colo. Barnes had founded the megachurch, which boasted a membership of 2,100 people at the time of his departure.
Barnes filmed a message to his congregation declaring that he had been “struggling with homosexuality” since the age of 5 and that counseling had not helped. The religious leader decided to come clean about his sexuality after an anonymous caller alerted the church that he would soon go public with Barnes’s secret.
Char, Barnes’s wife, reported having no idea that her husband and the father of their two daughters was having such struggles. The pair said they would seek counseling.
Eagle Scout James Dale was serving as an assistant scoutmaster for a New Jersey Boy Scout troop until he identified himself as gay during an interview with a local newspaper in 1990. The Boy Scouts of America expelled Dale on the grounds that his sexuality was inconsistent with the values of the organization.
Dale, represented by gay rights activist Evan Wolfson, sued the BSA for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. While the New Jersey supreme court ruled against the Boy Scouts, in a 2000 appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the BSA.
The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, claimed that the court could “not justify the State’s effort to compel the organization to accept members in derogation of the organization's expressive message."
Larry Craig spent 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before serving 18 years as a senator from Idaho. The Republican politician and member of the board of directors of the National Rifle Association was beloved by conservatives ... until he decided to play footsie in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men’s room.
The senator was arrested on a charge of lewd conduct on June 11, 2007, after tapping his foot and making hand gestures to an undercover officer in the adjacent bathroom stall. Craig claimed innocence. He justified his actions by saying he had a “wide stance” and was picking up a piece of paper.
After pleading guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct, Craig said he would resign his Senate seat in September 2007. Then, in October, he released a statement saying he would retain his position. Craig’s tenure in the Senate finally ended following the 2008 election — he was not up for reelection.
Following the arrest, several men came forward claiming to have been propositioned by Craig. One of the eight men was Mike Jones, the escort who claimed to have been solicited by former pastor Ted Haggard. Craig maintains that he is not gay.
On January 24, 2007, Bryan Charles Kocis, the founder of gay-porn film studio Cobra Video, was found murdered in his Pennsylvania home. Kocis had been stabbed 28 times, and his home was then set ablaze.
Two other porn producers, Harlow Cuadra (pictured) and Joseph Kerekes, who also ran an escort service in Virginia, were arrested in May 2007 and charged with Kocis’s murder. On December 8, 2008, Kerekes pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, theft, tampering with evidence, and criminal conspiracy, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In February 2009, Cuadra’s trial began. Among the witnesses who testified for the prosecution was Sean Lockhart, more commonly known by his porn pseudonym, Brent Corrigan. Lockhart had recorded conversations with Cuadra and Kerekes while on a nude beach in San Diego a few months after the murder. The conversation about Kocis resulted in Cuadra being found guilty on all counts. The murderous escort was also sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Jim McGreevey was sworn in as governor of New Jersey in January 2002. Soon after entering office, McGreevey faced mounting criticism for appointing Golan Cipel as the state’s homeland security adviser. Cipel was a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces and not a U.S. citizen.
Rumors began to swirl about the pair after the governor gave an interview to The Record, a New Jersey newspaper. In the article, McGreevey was described as having a close friendship with Cipel, whom the governor characterized as a poet.
Cipel stepped down from his position in August 2002, but in 2004 the Israeli "poet" threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment. Before the lawsuit went public, the governor held a press conference to announce his resignation.
With his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, beside him, McGreevey announced, “My truth is that I am a gay American.” The pair officially divorced in 2008.
Mark Foley was elected to Congress from Florida’s 16th district in 1994. During his tenure, Foley served on the highly influential House Ways and Means Committee, and the unmarried politician eventually became deputy majority whip.
In September 2006, ABC’s Brian Ross revealed that Foley had sent e-mail messages to a 16-year-old male former congressional page, asking the teenager to send a picture of himself. During the course of one chat, Foley asked the youth how he liked to masturbate, shared his fetish for steam rooms, and instructed the teen to “get a ruler and measure it for me.”
After the initial report, more pages surfaced with allegations that the congressman had sent them suggestive e-mails and sexually explicit instant messages.
Foley resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006. The FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the House Ethics Committee all conducted investigations into the incident.
The text-happy legislator later blamed a drinking problem for the explicit communications and entered rehab in October 2006. While Foley never admitted to being gay, his lawyer, David Roth, confirmed Foley’s same-sex orientation.
Portland, Ore.'s Sam Adams made history in 2008 when he became the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city. But the biggest headlines about his political career came a few months later.
In January 2009, Portland's Willamette Week newspaper launched an investigation of Adams, claiming he’d had had a sexual relationship with a former legislative intern when the intern was a minor. The intern, Beau Breedlove, came forward, and the two said that while they’d met while he was a minor, they didn’t have sex until he’d turned 18.
Adams managed to hold on to his job, and Breedlove found a new career — as a cover model for Unzipped, which is owned by the same parent company as The Advocate. |
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