I voted for Sam originally because of his interest in, and in-depth policy knowledge of, transportation and planning issues, among other things. I thought his city restructuring plan in the first week of his term was well crafted. Sustainability should be the new focus of planning and Sam gets that.

At issue here is whether or not even bringing up this type of accusation/story is informative/worthwhile. Think about it.. the circumstances don’t appear to indicate any form of “abuse”. While the law is clear – have sex with someone a day under 18 and it’s illegal versus one day later and it’s legal. Is there some mysterious change in consciousness that makes someone who just turns 18 more intelligent about his/her sexual decisions than a day prior? The law says 18 because it’s the age that the vast majority of teenagers have reached maturity. Most reach it much earlier and can therefore make decisions about their sex lives without any more regret than someone who’s 30 regrets his/her decisions regarding sex. Just because the relationship occurred when Beau was still a teenager doesn’t make it any less appropriate than if Beau was in his early 20’s. (As an aside, I made better decisions about sex when I was 17 and 18 because I didn’t drink back then.) Similarly, it was inappropriate for me to receive oral sex from another man in the midst of a recent relationship I had. Inappropriate of me, yes. Do I no longer deserve to have a job or am I no longer able to make important decisions about issues I’m most experienced with? – no. Inappropriate or not, I come back to my reasons for voting for Sam – none of which included “appropriateness” of his sexual relationships (none of which included me).

Now to the lying part. This is what some people appear to be hung up over. I’ve been in situations where I chose to lie about an “inappropriate” sexual relationship and others when I chose to tell the truth. From my experiences, I would say I’d choose to lie more often than not in the future. Some people just can’t handle, nor want to know about, my inappropriate sexual relationships. Does this make me a bad employee/leader? No. Does this make me a bad partner? Yes, but what do you care? – I’m not dating you. In conclusion, I’m not dating Sam, so I don’t care about his sex life either.

But if Sam didn’t really have sex with a minor and only chose to lie about it, yes, I wish he’d have done differently, but come on, what politician DOESN’T lie?!?

My guess is this — if he resigns, it’s because he’s worried that the REAL truth will come out. If he stays put, he’s just going to need to work hard to get everyone to forget that he got caught in a little lie that pretty much any other politician would have told. If he is a good mayor, then the voters won’t hold it against him, but he might not be able to run for higher office for some time.

I didn’t watch the Mayor’s race that closely and considered Sam a shoe in. What margin did he win by? If he had just come out and said, “here’s the kids drivers license, we had sex on these dates, he was legal and I was willing and it’s really none of your business who I have sex with” then we could have actually done something for promoting honesty in politics. Would it really have cost him the race or would the majority of Portland voters say, “who cares which adults he has sex with?”

But there is another, more difficult issue at play — Sam was Beau’s “mentor” and is this really the proper thing for a mentor to be doing with the people he is mentoring? Do we think bosses should sleep with their employees? Should professors sleep with students? Or maybe what people really want to say is that these are exactly the types of relationships that SHOULD NOT be sexual because later on it is much harder to understand why a mentor has made a certain choice introduction, or why an employee received a promotion or raise, or why a student got a high grade. Unfortunately, you don’t have to be be rightwing to view this as an abuse of trust by an individual in a position of power. This is something that I think IS troubling people about this “scandal.” But like most things, the media wants to focus the story in a way that catches attention “Mayor sleep with much younger man, news at 11…”

Time will tell…

It seems to me that Sam’s apologists don’t want to hear the truth about their candidate. Sam himself invited the media into his bedroom, not the other way around. He did so by publically dating a 17 year old, raising suspicions of illegal sexual activity. Why shouldn’t that have been of concern to the authorities?

Whn Sam was confronted with the issue, he lied and engaged in an elaborate cover-up and a campaign to discredit Bob Ball, to the point where Ball was intimidated from running by Randy Leonard.

These are the real issues here and Sam’s supporters refuse to see this. Sam engaged in willful deceit, unethical behaviour and abuse of political power.

Since Sam himself has admitted to so many lies, it’s only fair to ask Sam to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence regarding sex with a minor. How can we believe hin otherwise? He’s an admitted liar, and at the expense of so many people.

First understand that this is a news blog and without question will have opinion in nearly every piece. The opinions reflect my own and any other folks who contribute to this blog.

Because Marc’s comments were not what you wanted to hear, you immediately call it “propaganda” when in fact it’s merely an opinion that I share.

You asking Sam to take a lie detector test about a situation fueled by rumor, speculation, hearsay and a writer at the Willamette Week on a mission for a second Pulitzer Prize for exposing a sex scandal is absurd.

Nigel at Willamette Week never should have started question with “Did you have a sexual relationship with Beau Breedlove”. The only question that should have ever been asked is, “Did you have a sexual relationship with a minor named Beau Breedlove”. The answer would have been no and the story would have been dead – or should have been dead.

What exactly do you know about Ball? All I’ve read is what’s been reported in the media based on Sam’s denials, which turned out to be lies. If you have some real facts, please share them.

Beau is apparently more honest and mature than Sam – he apologized to Ball (according to the media) for the damage caused be their lies.

In any case, Sam could end this right now by offering to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence in breaking the law. That would solve his major problem.