Paul Babeu and Lupe Valdez took far different paths to list of LGBT elected officials; Ariz. lawman’s case reminiscent of Mike Dupree in Dallas
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu (Associated Press)
It might be sort of an odd time to be bringing this up, but who knew until just recently we had two openly LGBT sheriffs in the country?
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund includes Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu’s name and picture on its website as an openly gay elected official, along with lesbian Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and some 500 other LGBT officials. As it happens, Babeu and Valdez are the only LGBT officials to hold the position of sheriff, as far as we now know, but there’s a whole slew of every other type of elected official identified.
Babeu apparently flew under the public’s radar until last month when his ex-lover, a Mexican national, alleged the sheriff threatened to get him deported if he talked publicly about their relationship. The Arizona sheriff acknowledged his sexual orientation while denying Jose Orozco’s claims.
In his public statement revealing his former romantic relationship with Orozco, Babeu vowed he would continue his bid for the 4th Congressional
District on the Republican ticket. He did, however, resign as co-chair of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, photos of Babeu with his hand inside Orozco’s shirt and one of the sheriff in his bikini underwear showed up online.
Then Babeu’s sister, Lucy Babeu, told a Phoenix TV news reporter her brother had dated a student when he was the headmaster of a Massachusetts boarding school.
In addition to the allegations of sexual impropriety involving a male student, the news station, KNXV-TV, reported that the boarding school disciplined male students by making them remove their clothes to wear only sheets in a bizarre practice known as “sheeting.”
In response, Babeu’s campaign issued a statement saying his sister was basically crazy, and a former male student of the boarding school denied ever having been sexually involved with the sheriff. The statement also denied any responsibility on Babeu’s part in determining disciplinary methods.
Now, Orozco has lawyered up and filed a notice of his intention to sue the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office for $1 million.
Babeu has claimed Orozco’s story has no merit in part because he understood the Mexican national was living legally in the U.S.
It’s hard to know what to make of all this, because the quasi-military environment of law enforcement agencies tends to be so closed to outsiders that everyone generally knows everybody else’s business. It seems implausible that Babeu could have hidden his sexual orientation from fellow law enforcement officials or that they would have accepted it without complaint.
In one of the media reports, Babeu noted that political enemies in the past had attempted to make an issue of his sexual orientation and the mainstream media had generally ignored it. Babeu, who was elected in 2008 and named Sheriff of the Year by the National Sheriff’s Association last year, is now president of the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association.
Some might say if he had been open about his sexual orientation, Babeu’s enemies might have had less inclination to go after him. But that certainly didn’t prove to be the case with Dallas County Constable Mike Dupree, whose fondness for Latino lovers apparently led to all kinds of trouble and his resignation to avoid jail in 2007 in connection with official misconduct charges. (For the record, Dupree continues to insist he was the victim of a conspiracy involving elected officials and disgruntled constable deputies, and that his name will one day be cleared.)
In contrast, the Babeu story appears to involve only a former lover. The whole Babeu story sort of smells like a relationship gone sour where one party feels used, abused and left behind.
That’s not to say Babeu didn’t exercise bad judgment. It’s not such a good idea for an elected official to allow pictures taken of him with his hand inside of a young man’s shirt, nor to appear in a photo in bikini underwear — no matter how good looking he might think he is.
I’m relatively sure there’s nothing out there like that to embarrass Dallas County’s Sheriff Valdez.
I was at a party one night a few years ago that she attended, and when a camera came out she quickly put her beer down on a table.
David Webb is a veteran journalist who has covered LGBT issues for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. Contact him at davidwaynewebb@hotmail.com.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 9, 2012.
Interesting take on it, although, Babeu was not elected as an out gay man, and never would have been in Pinal County as sheriff, he was forced out, had his ex not outed him, Paul Babeu would have never come out, he would have stayed in the closet, well, kind of since anyone who sends nude pics to strangers isn’t really in a closet. His career is over as the right wing area he lives in is as anti-gay as it is anti-Hispanic, which to me shows that he is not one to be trusted on anything as Paul Babeu is all about one thing, Paul Babeu the hypocrite, along with Jose who isn’t too much better, bedding a man who has made the lives of Hispanics here, straight, gay, legal or not a nightmare.
Your article should have been titled “A tale of an Arizona sheriff, and a paragraph on our Texas sheriff”!!!!! Why so much press on such a dismal role model, and only mention that Lupe Valdez put her beer down around a camera. We get more than our share of bad press from our foes,how about a little more info on such an upbeat story like the sucess of Lupe in a Red State!