SAN JUAN—A Puerto Rican senator who had strongly opposed gay marriage was forced to resign Monday after several naked photos of him surfaced on a gay sex app.
The senator, Roberto Arango, decided “the right thing for him and his family was to resign,” Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz said Monday in a statement announcing the decision.
“This will end the controversy, which has become a target of ridicule and sarcasm to the point of humiliation,” he said.
In recent days local media had reported that Arango had published several nude photos on Grindr, a gay and bisexual hook-up application for mobile phones.
Arango initially dismissed the allegations as “nonsense,” but later told WAPA television: “I don’t remember taking these photos, but that does not mean I did not take them.”
He added that he had taken several pictures of himself recently to see the effects of a diet.
Arango was known for his strong backing of “Resolution 99,” which seeks to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The scandal recalled that of US Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, who was pushed to resign in June after posting pictures of his underwear-clad crotch on Twitter and engaging in lewd online exchanges with women.