In 2002, he shelved his stage name and used his given name, Jason Gontarek, as the director of communications for Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.
Current state Sen. Mike McLachlan, R-Danbury, was Boughton's chief of staff.
"So I uprooted from East Haven, moved to Danbury, bought a condo and two months into the job, my partner at the time, Oscar, made a really nice special piece of artwork for me and he wrote a message on the back," Page said. "It was something to the effect of, 'Love, Oscar.'
"One day the mayor's wife came in and looked at the back of the frame that was on my wall. It was a Friday. The following Monday they bring me in, the chief of staff, Mike McLachlan, and the mayor bring me in and proceed to essentially rip me a new one because I didn't tell them before I was hired that I was gay and they were like, 'We should never be finding out this way, what if we found out through the press? You should have told us before we hired you. ...'
"From that day until the day I left McLachlan was cold to me."
McLachlan issued a "no comment" through his office for this story. Boughton responded.
He said he thought he knew Page, or Gontarek, was gay and he called the conversation Page alluded to "complete nonsense."
Asked if he knew Gontarek was gay before he hired him, Boughton said: "It was nine years ago so I don't specifically recall exactly, but I was aware and I frankly didn't care. It wasn't relative to what kind of job he could do. We have other people who are gay that work for various parts of the administration. It wasn't an issue at all."
Got that jobseekers? Just let Boughton and McLachlan know whether you like guys or girls (or both) during the job interview, and everything will be fine!
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