CHARLES CRIST is an IN THE CLOSET HOMOSEXUAL

The following appears in the online material of the Insurance Journal (www.insurancejournal.com/comments),
as a 9/16/06 posting of Beverly S. Hill of Tallahassee, Florida:



'CHARLES CRIST is an ’IN THE CLOSET HOMOSEXUAL.’



The fact that he is GAY means nothing.



The fact that he is IN THE CLOSET and represents a party that hates GAYS means
everything. This kind of hypocrisy is grotesque and cannot be tolerated. I hope
we can all help Charlie ‘COME OUT’ before the election.'



Let’s take a look at Crist’s biography. This perpetually tan (at least from
the neck up), handsome, 50-year old bachelor was born on June 24, 1956 in
Altoona, PA.. Half of Greek origin, half Scots-Irish, his Greek dad, Charles
Crist, Sr., M.D., changed the family name in 1949, from Christodoulos, dropping
the 'h' and the 'doulos.'



The second oldest of 4 children and the only son, the family moved to Atlanta
when young Charlie was 6 weeks old, and where his dad went to medical school. In
1960, then Dr. Crist got a job at Bayfront Medical Center and the family moved
to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1966, Dr. Crist won election to the Pinellas
County School Board.



From 1970-74, presumably, Charlie attended St. Petersburg High School where his
dad was football team doctor, and where Crist was said to have played
quarterback until 'his playing career was cut short by a knee injury his senior
year.'



At the Crist home on Snell Isle, Charlie was said to play catch with the boy
next door, Felix Fudge, who 'was four years younger.'



Apparently, in the fall of 1974, Charlie decided to go to Wake Forest University
in North Carolina, because, despite his high school knee injury, he, according
to an 8/27/06 St. Petersburg Times’ news article, 'hoped to extend his
football career at a small university …. *** (B)ut he was a walk-on, a bench
warmer who played in junior varsity games but never took a snap in a varsity
contest.' Of course, Crist’s official state bio merely says he “attended
Wake Forest University, where he played quarterback ….”



Now unlike AWOL George W. Bush, there’s not a word anywhere that I’ve seen
about Charlie’s draft status in 1975 as the war was ending in Vietnam, and the
draft as well, and no indication that he served a single day in the military.
'After his sophomore year at Wake Forest, a homesick Crist gave up on football
and *** decided to transfer to Florida State University,' presumably in the fall
of 1976. After graduating from FSU in June, 1978 (?), Crist apparently, in the
fall of 1978, entered Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama.



In the summer of 1979, Crist, while attending law school in Alabama, entered his
one and only brief marriage to a woman, Amanda Morrow. During the 1979 holiday
season, Crist’s sister Catherine Kennedy said his 'head was down and his
shoulders were slumped.' Crist was the one who filed for divorce only some 6
months after the marriage and it was dissolved on 2/15/80. 'Like Crist, Morrow
did not marry again.' In the Miami Herald 8/24/06 commentary 'Naked Politics”
(www.miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics), 'Bruce' posted 'What’s this about
Charlie’s ex-wife, Amanda Morrow, being a lesbian? Does the press know that
she has lived with her partner for years? Is this why Charlie’s marriage
failed? Is this why Mr. Crist is for Civil Union for gays? Does this mean that
their marriage was a sham?' Presumably, Crist graduated from the Alabama law
school in June, 1981.



Crist’s reported chronology from 1981 until his 1992 election to the state
senate is inexact at best. As far as I can glean it, he twice failed the bar
exam before passing it on the third try.



While struggling with the bar exam, he apparently 'interned' with the State
Attorney’s Office (in Pinellas?). (It helps to have a Republican medical
doctor daddy.) Presumably in 1982, he got a 5-year job as ‘general counsel'
for the St. Petersburg-based National Association of Professional Baseball
Players, the 'controlling body' for minor-league baseball in the US, Canada,
Mexico and the Dominican Republic.



Given time off for various months at end during the 5 years, he unsuccessfully
ran for the state senate in 1986. Then, supposedly in 1987, he joined his
brother-in-law’s, J. Emery Wood’s, one-man law firm.



In 1988, Connie Mack won US Senate election, and Crist worked for a year as
Mack’s state director. He returned, for a couple of years apparently, to his
brother-in-law’s law practice, and Charlie was then elected himself to the
state senate in 1992 where he served for 4 years until 1996. In 1997, who knows
what he did? In 1998, Crist ran unsuccessfully for US Senate against Bob Graham.
In 1999, Jeb Bush appointed him Deputy Director for the Florida Department of
Business & Professional Regulation and he then won election as Florida
Education Commissioner where he served from January 2001 to January 2003. From
January 2003 to date, Crist won election and has served as Florida’s Attorney
General.



One might sarcastically suggest that a person with an undistinguished academic
career, an almost non-existent private sector career, who’s tan, handsome and
articulate and has a fairly rich Republican daddy, certainly deserves to be on
the public dole as Florida’s Education Commissioner and Attorney General. Now,
of course, Crist is the Republican nominee to be Florida Governor.

One should note that, while Education Commissioner in 2001, Crist was
reported as condemning a play with a gay theme that 'offended Christians' (see
May, 2001 newsletter, www.transfamily.org).



For the past year, as Crist’s quest to be governor developed, Charlie has
supposedly been 'dating' Kathryn 'Katie' Pemble, executive vice-president of the
Bank of St. Petersburg. Pemble is 41 years of age, divorced, and has a 7-year
old daughter. As to possible marriage with Pemble, Crist says 'I haven’t
thought about it.' In mid-September, 2006, 'millionaire Reform Party
gubernatorial candidate Max Linn '… 'insist(ed) that Charlie Crist is gay”
… 'on Orlando radio station WFLA-AM 540' … to talk show 'host Bud Hedlinger
….' Linn said 'he would ‘put my hand on a stack of Bibles’ to say Crist is
gay.' His sexual preference is not to women ….’(See www.blogd.tampabay.com/buzz.)



As to Crist’s being gay, 'Linn claimed to know this because he and Crist were
in the same 1985 class of Leadership St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce program.
‘We discussed it,’ Linn said. Linn … said if Crist were to win, he would
be subject to extortion and blackmail. In the next breath, Linn said he would
avoid mudslinging but that Crist’s personal life is a special case because
it’s about integrity.”