Politics really does make for strange bedfellows.
In what has to be the weirdest development yet in the race for mayor, the wife of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio issued a statement yesterday, explaining that she was a lesbian before marrying her husband in 1994.
Chirlane McCray felt compelled to discuss her past sexual preferences after it was reported that she wrote a front-page article in the September 1979 issue of Essence magazine entitled, “I am a Lesbian.”
De Blasio, who is white, has made a point of featuring his wife, who is black, in his campaign for City Hall.
But most people in politics weren’t aware of her past sexual orientation until she disclosed it when the blog Politicker dug up the 33-year-old article and posted it on its Web site.
“In the 1970s, I identified as a lesbian and wrote about it,” McCray said in the unusual statement. “In 1991, I met the love of my life, married him and together we’ve raised two amazing kids. I am reminded every day how lucky I am to have met my soul mate.”
She and de Blasio met while they both worked at City Hall during the David Dinkins administration.
In the seven-page article in Essence, McCray, then 24, wrote about the difficulty of “coming out” publicly.
“Since I don’t look or dress like the typical bulldagger, I have a choice as to whether my sexual preference is known . . . I have also been fortunate because I discovered my preference for women early, before getting locked into a traditional marriage and having children.”
She recalled her first lesbian experience as a college student at age 17.
“Although both of us had slept with men, neither of us had been intimate with a woman before,” she said. “We didn’t even known any lesbians.”
De Blasio and McCray have played her sexual history close to the vest. In a magazine article the two wrote last year celebrating the passage of same-sex marriage, they mentioned their experience as an interracial couple but never brought up McCray’s lesbian past.
Political insiders had a hard time figuring out what it all meant — including whether this was a political hit intended to injure de Blasio among more conservative voters.
“This doesn’t help him,” offered one political consultant.
De Blasio has been positioning himself as the most progressive candidate in the Democratic field, which includes City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is openly gay and recently married.