This Mayor Says This Drag Queen Is Just His Roommate

Mulberry, Florida mayor Julian Mullis had an altercation in his home with a drunken drag queen named Eugene Ornelas, 29, into which the local police had to be called. When Officer Teddy Sanders wrote in his report that the two "live together as a family unit and are in a relationship," the local paper picked it up and the mayor went apeshit. "People have a roommate and that's in the paper?" the very same paper quoted him as saying. According to everyone involved, the ruckus happened when Ornelas, a drag queen who Twittered obsessively about trying to get on RuPaul's Drag Race reality show competition, came home around 5 am Friday morning, drunk and with some guy. Mullis began arguing with Ornelas because his two young children also live in the house and he didn't want Ornelas bringing home some rando where they were sleeping. Seems reasonable. A look at Ornelas' Twitter account reveals that the two had a domestic life together, washing dishes and looking after Mullis' kids, but it's difficult to tell whether it was romantic or not--except for the fact that straight dudes don't normally shack up with drag queens. Of course, Mullis could be gay and still just be friends with Ornelas. Which is the bigger issue here: Is this yet another case of a public figure refusing to come out of the closet because it might hurt his career?

"This will be the laughingstock of my family, and we've been here for generations," Mullis told the local paper. "I can take it. But my parents, and my children ..."

Hopefully not. We've already seen what that can do to the political careers of guys like former Florida Congressman Mark Foley, former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey and former homosexual Pastor Ted Haggard. They've all got former in front of their names. Some would say they could never have achieved all they had if they were out, but after their fall from grace, was it really worth it?

Mulberry Mayor Threatens to Resign [The Ledger, via]