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AE: There are places in your memoir that read as though you are still campaigning. I wonder if you are you campaigning for a new role in public life?
JM: My interest is now working with the nonprofit community, particularly youth, working [with issues of] LGBT self-acceptance. I mean, gay youth have a suicide rate that is three times higher as a national average than straight youth. I would like that to be the focus for the next phase of my life. Also, I have to have the opportunity to follow my heart on some small way — hopefully, to help the next generation of gay youth to make the right decisions that I didn’t make. As I said to a group of students at the University of Pennsylvania, at their LGBT center, I’m the antihero, the anti-role model.

AE: In terms of the legacy you leave in New Jersey, do you fear that a Republican successor to the governorship — or even a fellow Democrat — might use the controversy arising from your tenure as a springboard to dismantle the accomplishments you achieved?
JM: No, I think that domestic partnership [benefits] will stand; stem cell research will stand; as will our investments in cancer research and children’s literacy. They will stand the test of time.

AE: Do you fear that fallout from your tenure will affect next month’s midterm elections?
JM: No. [Democratic US] Senator Corzine was elected as governor overwhelmingly [as my successor], and that was directly in the aftermath. I think that the political climate has acclimated itself.

AE: If you had it to do all over again — aside from the obvious issue of Mr. Cipel’s appointment — what might you do to chart a better course for New Jersey’s state government?
JM: I wish I’d had the courage to [come forward] with my inner truth, to accept myself, to reject the shame, and to tell my wife candidly and quietly about my truth. And then to go to the citizens of the State of New Jersey and say, “This is who I am.” But I didn’t have that strength, and I was wracked by fear. Life doesn’t always let you rewrite the script. I am here, I am where I’m at, and hopefully the story is, at long last, one of painfully embracing one’s truth.

AE: But also with abundant joy, as you have written in your book?
JM: Oh, yes. I am so much healthier and in a more spiritual place.

AE: If you had known the political cost of declining Louis Freeh’s offer to serve as a security advisor in the wake of 9/11, would you have done so done so even though you felt he would not have been able to give the post adequate time?
JM: By the way, that is a profound misnomer. If you mean [hire Freeh] for Cipel’s position … they were two entirely different positions.

AE: I think I understand that distinction, but recent articles in the press criticizing you for not hiring Mr. Freeh seem to blur the two jobs.
JM: Let me just be clear. Mr. Cipel was not in that position. Mr. Cipel was working in the governor’s office, as counsel to the governor. That’s separate and distinct from the Domestic Security and Preparedness Task Force. The attorney general serves that role; the chairmanship of the Domestic Security and Preparedness Task Force is the attorney general.

AE: Your book also addresses your reasons for appointing Charles Kushner to the post of head of New Jersey’s Port Authority, something else that your critics hammer on.
JM: Charlie Kushner provided extraordinary stewardship, but the concerns for his troubles were not [related to] his governmental responsibilities.

AE: Your book has answered all of the major criticisms of your governorship, and yet those same charges and criticisms continue to come up in the press.
JM: Yeah, that’s part of the process.

AE: Your faith is also a huge part of the story you tell in your memoir. How has the religious community received you over the last two years?
JM: The reception I have had has been very warm, loving and embracing. Many of my friends in the Catholic clergy have been wonderfully kind. An old Benedictine monk said to me, “Religion is what man does to God.”

AE: And your inner truth and the truths of your faith fit together now?
JM: Oh, yes. It’s as if I opened the Pandora’s box from the inside and turned it over and shook it all out. [My coming-out] was transformational. On a gut level, it was a form of grace. As my Irish grandmother would say, it’s all for a reason, and the path has been torturous and painful but also filled, now, with a quiet grace and acceptance. My life, in the most basic way, has just begun.

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