I had to hold on this article for a few hours more than I would have liked to. There was no sinister censorship plot to it. The story was moving so fast and there were obvious but unsubstantiated accusations I felt waiting for the news conference to start this morning would be a better time to write this than to speculate on how the questions might be answered. By the time I finish the article I assume the news conference will be over and I can assess that.

Now that I have given a build up to the story, let's get to it.

If you don't live in Arizona you might not of heard of Sheriff Paul Babeu. Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets the lion's share of the news in the state when it comes to a hard line stance on immigration and the border, but Babeu is making a name for himself on those same issues. Think of him as a younger, taller, balder and slightly less offensive version of Sheriff Joe. If you remember the “Fix the Dang Fence” commercials from the McCain 2008 campaign, he was walking along the border with Babeu. In October of 2011, Babeu announced he was setting up an exploritory committee to run for the US Congress. Recently he announced he was indeed going to run, and all indication was he would have won in the heavily Republican district he is in.

Well, that was before it has been alleged that he and/or his lawyer threatened to deport an alleged ex-lover.

Amazingly, this is the part of the story getting a good amount of attention but isn't the real hypocrisy happening to the sheriff. As the story goes, the ex-lover had access to Babeu's campaign website. The site was defamed and the ex-lover was considered as the culprit. The ex-lover says Babeu's lawyer communicated there should be a cease-and-desist and if not there could be consequences, such as deportation. I'm wording this to give both sides benefit of the doubt, and I can see where a threat from a lawyer could be exaggerated for publicity, but the allegation is in keeping with the kick the illegals out mentality of the region.

Now we get to the meaty part; the area which should be as murky as all get up but, by the evidence, seems very clear. The ex-lover isn't just a possible illegal Hispanic ex-lover. The ex-lover, as reported in the Phoenix New Times, has been given the name Jose. Yes, go ahead and let that sink into your head for a moment. A no nonsense, by the book, Sheriff Joe lite running for Congress as a Republican has a secret gay lover. Another part of the threat supposedly given by Babeu and/or his lawyer was that if Jose talked about the relationship it could be grounds for deportation. From what Jose said in the paper, the reason for the conflict occurred when the sheriff had posted an ad on a gay website when Jose believed they were in a committed relationship.

This story is very similar to the Weiner case, because, of course, there are pictures of a shirtless sheriff in a mirror taking a smartphone picture. There is another of the sheriff with Jose's face blurred, and because of the allegation the picture doesn't seem to be as innocent as it could be. There is even a picture of text messages from a smartphone, with the number identified as the sheriff's phone number, with the sheriff calling the ex-lover Papi.

The curious aspect of the incident so far have been the reaction by the sheriff and his attorney to the allegations. With the threat of being deported, the sheriff and his lawyer have been pretty head on in answering the questions. There are still some murky wiggle room as to if they said he would be deported, but they have been clear that their concern had been the breech of the website. They have even gone as far to say that Jose, as far as the website goes, was a professional relationship. The murky waters in that part of the issue was where the lawyer said the sheriff and Jose started off in a personal relationship that became a professional one.

The sticky question about how personal the relationship was, with the text messages and the photos, that's where things go off the rail. The sheriff and his lawyer have thrown up the “my personal life is off limits and look at my public record” wall. The photos would seem to be damaging enough, and they don't comment on those, on the text or on any other homosexual relationships the sheriff might have had. It must be said the sheriff is a 43 year old who has never been married, and in one interview the lawyer implied that his single status had made some jump to conclusions. I would argue what has made some people jump to conclusions would be the pictures, or the simple statement the sheriff could make that he isn't gay.

Understand, being gay or not isn't the issue I'm bringing up to skewer the sheriff. The sheriff is in a position, like Weiner, where he could get this part off the table by just addressing it head on. In light of Weiner, the denials only adds fuel to the fire, with some, that not only was he in a gay relationship he wished to keep secret, but we would do anything to get into Congress. That isn't going to happen in a strong family values Republican district if you are a homosexual.

The press conference is still going on and I have to admit I'm happily surprised by what happened. Sheriff Paul Babeu said he was gay. In the comments on the local news sites before he made the statement, the possibility of the sheriff being gay was met with some denials, but I have to say the folks that said this were more concerned about trashing the Phoenix New Times as a rag newspaper. Most people only saw one photo of the blurred out Jose but didn't bother going to the New Times to see the other images which left the impression of Weiner in my mind. It's still too early to gage what the local reaction to his revelation. It's comical to go on the sites now and see comments from a few hours ago with people thinking the story is a bunch of lies because the sheriff ISN'T gay. What will those folks have to say now?

The big takeaway I get from this story is I do believe public people should have a private life, but I have to give Babeu some points because when it broke, it took less than 24 hours, hell it was less than 18 hours, for him to come out, and come out. I agree with him and some other writers I have seen that his sexual orientation shouldn't be an issue in this campaign, however, as much as I admire what he did, I have a feeling this new revelation will hurt him more in the eyes of the public than the alleged deportation issue.