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Closeted Sheriff Outed After Threatening to Deport Illegal Immigrant Boyfriend

Posted by on Feb 20, 2012 in U.S. | 17 comments

Republican Sheriff Paul Babeu says CHEESE for Adam4Adam.

We sat most of the week out on the gay blog benches because our server was lit up like Santa’s Christmas tree mounted to the front end of a spaceship – 213,000 visitors this weekend (Hurrah!) Server too overloaded to do any work (Double hurrah!). But if we had been able to log in to our site, boy oh boy would we have been all over THIS:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu — who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times.

The latest of the alleged threats were made through Babeu’s personal attorney, who’s also running the sheriff’s campaign for Congress in District 4, the ex-lover says.

Informed of the situation, Nancy-Jo Merritt, a longtime Phoenix immigration attorney, says such a threat would be indicative of an “atmosphere that’s been created politically in this state, so that if you get angry at someone who is Hispanic, you immediately jump down to the level of threatening to deport him.

Babeu, who has made a political career out of threatening to boot Mexican immigrants – when he’s not playing bellysticks with them, that is – has been a vocal supporter of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Could there possibly be a more powerful example of just how terrible the current GOP stances on gay rights and immigration are?

It should go without saying, but Sheriff Babeu is now the reigning coverboy of Gayhomophobe.com.

Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw gay, illegal immigrant bone.