There’s a little tidbit that’s been lost in the hoopla over last week’s
State Supreme Court decision (which Mayor Bloomberg is appealing) that
the New York city clerk must start issuing marriage licenses to gay
couples. The gay-marriage-phobic clerk (and the defendant in the State
Supreme Court case)
happens to be Victor Robles, the ex-councilman who, it turns out, is no
stranger to gay controversy. Nothing came of it, but there was a probe into
Robles in ’96. Here are some excerpts from a 1996 Village Voice
article about it by Edward Borges:
“Brooklyn councilman Victor Robles is the subject of an ethics probe,
sources say. The City Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee is
investigating whether Robles, chairman of the council’s Youth Services
Committee, sexually harassed a male employee, according to several
councilmembers and staffers who asked not to be identified. . . The councilman refused to discuss the substance of the charges filed against him. ‘If there is an investigation, then in fairness, I don’t believe I should be discussing it,’ said Robles. But when
specifically asked whether he had had a relationship with a male
employee that might be perceived as sexual harassment, Robles answered,
‘No comment.’
“Robles’s wife, Daisy Parilla Robles, who works for the Housing
Authority, said she did not know about the charges against her husband.
The councilman and his wife have been separated for nearly a year.”
I guess that marriage definitely shouldn’t have been OK’d.
A rep at the City Council had no information as to the upshot of the probe.