Video: Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu on coming out

We don’t really know what went down between Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and his ex-boyfriend Jose Orozco.

But Babeu tells CNN’s Don Lemon he is confident he will be exonerated once an investigation is complete: “I’m fully confident that I’ll be exonerated because I know how this ends – I know the truth.”

In watching this interview, I must say Babeu does not behave like a man who has anything to hide at this point:  ‘I’m gay, I’m a sheriff and I’m a conservative.’

He regrets that it was the scandal that led him to come out publicly rather than doing so on his own terms.

‘I was [not] out to the public and it was used as a weapon to harm me,’ he says. ‘Now I’m dealing with it. … I’ve always been honest about it [with family and friends]. I never lied about it. I wish, in retrospect, that I shared it with the public.’

So why did he remain silent?

‘To be quite honest, I was a little bit afraid of how people would react and I think people can understand that,’ he says. ‘… I come to find out, a lot of people say it doesn’t matter.’

Read more over at Gay Star News!