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05/11/2005: "My Totally Gay Boy Scout Leader"

Mark Morford, a columnist with SF Gate, used to be a cub scout (though he claims "Boy Scout", but Boy Scouts don't have Pinewood Derby's), and Jim West was one of his scout leaders. His latest column is about his experiences with Spokane's embattled mayor.

And someone should really do a national, once-and-for-all study to back up what everyone already knows -- which is, of course, that the more repressed and sanctimonious and uptight you are about sex and love and gender and religion, the more likely you are to be involved in secret kink, in deep perversion, illegal perversion, perversion that crosses the line from healthy and slippery and delicious to degrading and morally reprehensible and Karl Rove. Just ask -- did I say this already? -- the Catholic Church.

Which brings up one more tidbit. A twisted kicker. Spokane, my staid, homogeneous, uneventful, wildly uninteresting (well, until now) hometown with the not-so-secretly gay and possible pedophilic Republican hypocrite mayor, is also the home of only the third Roman Catholic archdiocese in the nation (after Portland and Tucson) to file for bankruptcy protection. Because of all the lawsuits. Dozens of lawsuits, all against Spokane's archdiocese. Lawsuits over, you guessed it, sex scandals.

Pedophilia. Sexual abuse of young boys. About $76 million worth of lawsuits, to be exact, most stemming from allegations against one Spokane priest, Patrick O'Donnell, who admitted molesting young boys from the time he was in the seminary. Coincidence? Something in the Spokane water? Karmic connection with West?