ONTD Political

Romney’s Openly-Gay Spokesperson Resigns After Facing Pressure From Anti-Gay Right Wing

3:27 pm - 05/01/2012
Richard Grenell, the openly-gay conservative foreign policy spokesperson hired by Mitt Romney, has resigned from the campaign in response to right-wing pressure, the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin reports. “[M]y ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign,” Grenell said in a statement, which came just days after groups like the American Family Foundation painted Grenell as a “homosexual activist” and condemned Romney for bringing him on board. From his statement:

GRENELL: I have decided to resign from the Romney campaign as the Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman. While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign. I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team.

Rubin reports that Grenell was also frustrated for “being kept under wraps during a time when national security issues, including the president’s ad concerning Osama bin Laden, had emerged front and center in the campaign.”

The former spokesperson for U.N. ambassador John Bolton had also come under fire for tweeting all sorts of flippant comments about liberals, Democrats, women and, especially, U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration. Only a day after the announcement of his new post, Grenell joked on Twitter that President Obama had committed treason by passing missile secrets to the Russians. Shortly after his appointment, he scrubbed much of his online presence, deleting over 800 tweets and taking down his personal website.

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source
evilgmbethy 1st-May-2012 07:44 pm (UTC)
Mitt Romney once claimed to be better for gay rights than Ted Kennedy!
____jonas 1st-May-2012 10:41 pm (UTC)

mskye 1st-May-2012 07:53 pm (UTC)
Gee, being gay and a Conservative just sounds like it's more trouble than it's worth!
thecityofdis 1st-May-2012 08:30 pm (UTC)
It was.
eyetosky 1st-May-2012 07:54 pm (UTC)
Goddam, you'd think the Romney camp would have seen any single one of those 800 tweets.

Or, better yet, they saw them and didn't care. Goodie fucking gumdrops.
amyura 1st-May-2012 08:51 pm (UTC)
I don't think Romney himself knows exactly what Twitter is or how it works. And we already know his son fucked up pretty basic facts on his Twitter.
ruby_stevens 1st-May-2012 07:55 pm (UTC)
Can't say I feel sorry for him, he reaped the benefits of gay lefties who were willing to march and die for their rights so he could live as an openly gay man. And he in turn decided to work for a party that demonizes gay people to hold on to a voting block, his boss signed NOM's pledge to fight to overturn any GLBTQ protections. You lie down with rabid dogs, you're going to get bit and hard.
lickbrains 1st-May-2012 08:23 pm (UTC)
This.
maladaptive 1st-May-2012 08:17 pm (UTC)
I find it kind of funny how short-sighted the Family Foundation is. A gay man on Romney's campaign should be a GODSEND. His getting drummed out will play well to specific subsets of conservatives, but a lot of people won't approve. Many folks I know who don't believe in gay marriage still think gay people should be able to have jobs and have a place at the table. They also like to say that bigotry against gays doesn't exist, so seeing it happen just won't sell well.

And those-- along with even more liberal independents-- are the people Romney needs to be playing to even more than the neo-cons.
executivehpfan 1st-May-2012 08:22 pm (UTC)
But gay people have cooties. Political asset or no, they can't be catching the cooties so he had to go.

Seriously, if I roll my eyes any harder all this fuckery they're gonna pop out of my head.
kitanabychoice 1st-May-2012 08:19 pm (UTC)
Yeah, I can't imagine why this happened...

Although that last paragraph is more than a bit confusing.
lickbrains 1st-May-2012 08:32 pm (UTC)
I want to thank Governor Romney for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team.
They told him to "Get the fuck out. We don't want gay people around here." and he says "Thank you, I love you." And if Romney himself didn't say it (he basically says it all the time), it was bound to come from him sooner or later. I really don't understand people sometimes.
hinoema 2nd-May-2012 04:37 am (UTC)
Exactly. If it was a non-issue, he'd still be working.
bnmc2005 1st-May-2012 08:47 pm (UTC)
What is the controversy over the tweets this story refers to? Does anyone know?
baked_goldfish 1st-May-2012 09:55 pm (UTC)
He said some shit about Democratic women - I think one of the tweets was about Rachel Maddow needing to put on a necklace, one of them was bashing both Hillary Clinton's and Madeleine Albright's looks, things like that.
wicked_g 1st-May-2012 09:01 pm (UTC)
Uggghhh

A close family friend's son is working in the Romney campaign, and he's soooo nice and his wife recently gave birth and I love their family to bits, but it makes it, frankly, a little hard to openly cheer for the downfalls the campaign goes through all the time-like, I want this guy to do well in his career, but all I can think is 'why couldn't you have remained a democrat? whhhhyyyyyy?'

Because it's shit like this that makes me so angry and yet I want his family to remain stable and safe but uggghhh
icanseenow 1st-May-2012 10:36 pm (UTC)
Maybe it helps to think of all the other families who will be ruined and damned when the compaign does not succeed?
crossfire 1st-May-2012 09:09 pm (UTC)
Whatever.

lol we have a welp!.... tag, that's awesome.
ladypolitik 1st-May-2012 09:46 pm (UTC)
Freshly added, lol
ladypolitik 1st-May-2012 10:03 pm (UTC)
This immediately reminded me of this incident:

"Santorum’s Gay Former Aide Defends His Anti-Gay Record"

--Only the aide [Robert Traynham] defends Santorum vehemently. The situation in question is of Chris Matthews taking Traynham to task for defending Santorum in spite of his obvious anti-LGBTQ position(s).

I cant remember whether he provides why he became Santorum's "former" aide.

Read transcript or watch video @ Equality Matters.
redstar826 2nd-May-2012 12:10 am (UTC)
I don't understand people like that at all.
sparkindarkness 1st-May-2012 10:26 pm (UTC)
You mean being gay and working for a homophobe in part of a homophobic organisation, surrounded by homophobes, championing homophobic causes, trying to gain the support and aid of homophobes, working with homophobes and where homophobia is not only the norm but damn near mandatory has awful consequences and is hard to do?

Well, I am shocked. SHOCKED I SAY!
elobelia 1st-May-2012 10:36 pm (UTC)
This makes me happy, if only because it makes it that much harder for Romney and the Republicans to attract moderate votes. If they are going to chase gay people out of the party, they can go right on ahead. Dumbasses. I mean, this guys was literally the ONLY thing Republicans could point to to show that they aren't homophobic. That was it. And they booted him out.
tinylegacies 1st-May-2012 11:07 pm (UTC)
It absolutely baffles me how people who are not white, straight, Christian, cis males can support the Republican party.

Is it really worth supporting conservative fiscal policies when the major power in your party doesn't consider you a valuable person?
etherealtsuki 2nd-May-2012 12:44 am (UTC)
It's a little more insidious than that.

These people are usually well to do, and the least likely to be affected by anti-discrimaton laws because they have the money and power to make people look the other way. They don't have to worry about seeing their SO in the hospital, they can afford the security to protect them from the horrible sacks of flesh who think it's their god given right to put their hands on people because they are a minority, they may even don't support gay marriage or adoptions because they don't 'believe' it in themselves! These people are very happy to push their fellow, less fortunate minority brethren off the cliff if they can protect their bubble of power and money. They happily to enforce their belief that they aren't like the rest of THEM (very much like the anti-choice women who get abortion and pull that my abortion is the only moral abortion bullshit) and do the shucking and jiving at a beck and call.

They are quite content being the 'X' friend to disapprove that the GOP aren't full of people with White privilege and -isms. All for a false sense of power and security. Some would say they are trying to change it on the inside, but it's mostly bullshit.

They do get geninuely surprised when shit like this happens to them. They seriously overvalue their worth.
tabaqui 1st-May-2012 11:58 pm (UTC)
As if this was ever *not* going to happen? The rabid far-right will continue cutting off their noses to spite their faces until the manage to hack their own brains right out.
soultoast 2nd-May-2012 05:36 am (UTC)
John Bolton is off his rocker... has he become relevant again? plsgodno.
hinoema 2nd-May-2012 06:18 pm (UTC)
But I'm not sure you really have an understanding of the situation because you keep using language like 'let go'. He was not let go. He resigned.

People in situations like that don't resign for something that 'isn't an issue' unless there is a great deal of behind the scenes pressure to do do.
kittymink 3rd-May-2012 05:43 am (UTC)
HAHA! Fuck this guy.

Why anyone LGBT would want to be a Republican in this day and age I don't know. I know they exist. I know they rationalize it and many are putting their own fiscal self-interest above idk, being treated than something other than a second-class citizen. I also know the Democrats and LGBT liberals are often full of fail. But still, makes no sense to me.
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