April 29, 2007 | Sex & Society

McGreevey forced to censor nude art

A picture is worth a thousand words. And for Dina Matos McGreevey -- estranged wife of New Jersey's former out governor, James McGreevey -- one of those words is "lawsuit." According to the New York Post, Matos filed a motion in court last week seeking full custody of her 5-year-old daughter. Her argument? McGreevey is an unfit parent, evidenced by the large photo of a naked man hanging in his bedroom.

That poster hangs in the master bedroom that McGreevey shares with his partner at their home in Plainfield, N.J. It's a 50-by-60-inch print by respected New York photographer Richard Renaldi; it is part of a series titled "Naked Gay Friends" and it shows Renaldi's boyfriend, naked, on a Lake Michigan beach.

According to Matos -- whose tell-all book about her marriage, "Silent Partner," will be released May 1 -- it is inappropriate for her daughter, who visits her father just every other weekend, to be exposed to the photo. Also inappropriate, she says, is allowing the girl to sleep in the same bed as her father and his partner.

"It is one thing for children to sleep with a parent or parents," Matos wrote in a response to McGreevey's initial divorce filing. "It is quite another for children to sleep with a parent and a third party."



McGreevey, who has insinuated that his ex-wife is homophobic, has filed for joint custody of his daughter and said that he has taken down the photograph. Further, he has insisted that his daughter does not share a bed with he and his partner.

Renaldi, meanwhile, has called Matos's response to his photograph "an overreaction." According to Time Out New York, he has received death threats from nuts who insist his work has "brought shame" on the state of New Jersey.

The photo is sensual, but hardly shameful, and the premise that a child will somehow be perverted by such a picture is ridiculous. Much more likely to corrupt Ms. Matos's daughter? The mean-spirited attacks on her father!

• McG's gay poster boy [NY Post]
  
• Jim McGreevey's Gay Poster Boy revealed [Fleshbot]
• McGreevy poster-boy fallout [Time-Out New York]