In a stunning revelation, Bill Gates admitted to having a thirteen year long heterosexual relationship with a woman from Texas. Due to increasing media scrutiny, he has chosen to resign. They have three children together.
Stuff like this bothers me me.
Posted by Mendon at May 1, 2007 1:36 PMI can't believe that the article talks about the evidence, allegations, court documents, etc. Why do we keep pretending that being gay isn't a crime, when we obviously treat it like one?
Posted by: Kristen at May 1, 2007 2:35 PMif it bothers you why do you read it, and then pass it on?
Posted by: papa at May 1, 2007 4:58 PMUm, Lord Browne cocked up mightily and is lucky to be getting away with just resigning and losing his £50 million retirement.
The problem wasn't the gay affair; no one in the UK gives a rat's arse about homosexuality.
The problem is that Lord Browne didn't want anyone to find out that he met his gay lover by hiring him from a male prostitute service, which is still against the law.
Since Mark Chevalier was planning on printing this in the newspaper - because it was true - Lord Browne then did a number of things:
1. Sued to prevent the printing. This led to a court case.
2. Under oath in court he denied that he had met Mark Chevalier by hiring him from a prostitute service. This is perjury, one of Britain's most serious crimes, far more serious in the U.K. than burglary or mugging someone or selling drugs.
3. He then smeared Mark Chevalier by saying that Mark Chevalier was an alcoholic and a coke addict and a general all around lousy guy. These turned out to be false, too, but this wasn't perjury because he didn't say it in court. Instead, it was slander. Also illegal.
So, here's the situation, we have a slanderous, perjurous man who hires prostitutes (oops, sorry, I mean "Escorts"). Yeah, as a BP shareholder I'm grateful to him for guiding the company forward, but I'm concerned about the allegations that he used BP money (my money - I'm a shareholder) to help Mark Chevalier start his own company that in no way benefited BP.
If he stayed on, BP share values would fall because he now can't be trusted. We (the shareholders) voted to hire him because we thought we could trust him to raise the share price. Now we can't. That means he needs to go.
If Mark Chevalier had published his piece and Lord Browne had said: "Yeah, I hired an escort and had sex with him. Then we were together for four years. It started a bit dodgy but held together for a while. It ended badly; I'm sorry for Mark, but hey, all is fair in love and war." then no one would have cared.
There was absolutely no gay bashing in the hang 'em high attitude that Britain has towards Lord Browne. The real problem is that he's a liar.
Posted by: Nathan Dornbrook at May 9, 2007 3:16 PM