Kruger's vote on gay marriage, protests by activists, and the need for scrutiny

In Media Runs With Kruger Gay Stories: Activists' charge indicted anti-equality senator is closeted finally surface, Gay City News reports on the mainstream media's willingness--for the Times, tentative, for the Post, certain--to finally look closely at some evidence that seemed to have been staring at them in the face:

Shortly after Brooklyn State Senator Carl Kruger joined seven other Democrats in voting against New York’s marriage equality bill in December 2009 –– dooming it to a 38-24 loss –– a busload of LGBT activists descended on two homes blocks apart where Kruger either claimed to live or in fact resided, with some picketers loudly decrying him for being closeted.

In the wake of Kruger’s indictment March 10 on federal charges of taking more than $1 million in bribes in exchange for political favors, the story of Kruger’s homosexuality –– indeed accounts that he is lovers with the son of a woman who was often his companion in public –– have made it into the mainstream press.

A March 11 New York Times story recounts the gay rights protest at Kruger’s residences, noting that the senator has denied being gay. The newspaper also notes that while neighbors of 73-year-old Dorothy Turano's staggeringly gaudy house in Mill Basin described her and the senator as a couple, “it was the oldest son, Michael, to whom Mr. Kruger was closest, and they forged a relationship in which they ‘supported and relied on one another,’” according to the federal indictment.

Michael Turano, a 49-year-old gynecologist, was indicted for helping Kruger to launder his alleged illegal gains.

Both the Times and the New York Post make clear that Kruger was not living in his legal residence in Georgetown, where his sister lives, but with the two Turanos and “Dottie’s” other son, Gerard, who is 47.

The Post is more definitive in its characterization of the relationship between Kruger and Michael Turano, describing the senator as “closeted” and the younger man as his “beau” and “secret longtime companion.”

Kruger and Michael Turano were in near daily contact, according to the U.S. Attorney. Maybe if the protests in 2009 had been taken more seriously, and Kruger's living arrangements scrutinized--if not his companionship, at least the outlandish luxury in which he apparently lived--the press would have been ahead of the feds.