Portland's openly gay mayor, Sam Adams,
was asked to resign by a representative from the Portland Police
Association over the revelation that he covered up a sexual affair
with a teenage boy during his mayoral campaign.
Adams, 45, humbled himself and asked
for forgiveness at a Tuesday press conference, where he admitted that
his long-standing denial of having a sexual relationship with
18-year-old Beau Breedlove was not true.
“I want to apologize to the people of
Portland for my dishonesty,” Adams said. “I made a mistake.
This was clearly an error. I clearly messed this one one up.”
A representative from the Portland
Police Association asked for Adams to resign, saying that his actions
had left him at risk of “blackmail,” reports The Oregonian.
“Had they attempted to blackmail me,
I would have taken the appropriate steps,” Adams responded.
Rumors of the affair surfaced in 2007
during the mayoral campaign. Adams' long-standing response has been
to dismiss those reports as a “nasty smear.”
In a Thursday interview with a reporter
from the Willamette Week, the mayor was confronted with
evidence the newspaper had gathered over several months concerning
the affair, including statements from several of Breedlove's friends
who said the young man had confided in them that the two shared an
intimate relationship. Adams remained steadfast in his denial.
But Monday, during a telephone
conversation with the newspaper, he acknowledged the affair saying:
“I want to publicly acknowledge I made a mistake and apologize for
it. In the past, I've characterized my relationship with Beau
Breedlove as purely non-sexual and that is not true.”
During the press conference, Adams
admitted to sleeping with Bleedlove as soon as three weeks after he
turned 18 and the two dated for “maybe two months.”
Adams made contradictory statements,
saying he would not resign over the affair, then 20 minutes later
said he would if it “was in the city's best interest.”
The mayor met Breedlove in 2005 when
the former legislative intern was 17.
Adams became the first openly gay mayor
to run one of the 30 largest cities in the United States when he took
office on January 1.