If "When the campaign announced the hire, Grenell’s sexual orientation wasn’t noted in media coverage" is "pandering to the gay voters," Romney's people seriously need a remedial course in pandering!
The guy had spent eight years at the UN for Bush's administration. He appeared qualified and politically vetted to speak for a Republican presidential candidate on foreign affairs.
You would ban such people, without regard to their aptitude for a job, forcing them to become invisible and thus creating the very threats and risks you claim to oppose. It isn't rational and doesn't achieve your goals, only exacerbates the problem you see.
John Bolton's support for this man gives me pause. Bolton is not naive. If Bolton saw something useful in him, others could legitimately do so as well.
**HOWEVER** — look at the stuff I dug up about him with a five minute Google search. He was posting things on his Twitter feed that would infuriate virtually everyone on Free Republic, not just the social conservatives. Highly offensive comments about Newt Gingrich's marriages, Callista Gingrich's physical appearance, Rick Santorum’s views on homosexuals. And then nasty comments about the physical appearance of other women.
Campaigns can't have someone like that as a policy spokesman. This looks like he was a train wreck waiting to happen, even without being homosexual.
I wonder about the professionalism of Romney's internal vetting process for his policy staff if something like this could happen.