I agree with AFA that this is “in your face” to social conservatives/Christian conservatives on the part of Mitt Romney.
I’ve changed my viewpoint on his strategy, though.
First, I do think Mitt is pro-homosexualism. I’ve no doubt. It wouldn’t surprise me to read future history and discover that Mitt was himself a closet AC/DC.
Next, I do not think he is trying to hide his homosexualism by sliding it under the radar.
I’ve decided that Romney WANTS us social conservatives screaming bloody murder about his pro-gay agenda while his public personna is saying he is pro-natural marriage/family.
His best credential to fence-sitting pro-gay independents and log cabinists is OUR indignation, OUR screaming bloody murder that he is HIDING his true feelings.
He is playing both ends against the middle.
We, of course, must continue to call him on his comments and on his record. We must also make clear, however, that the strategy of using our indignation to convince the pro-gay independents/youth/democrats that he is subtly on their side will be called out.
And the best way to do it is remind EVERYONE how duplicitous is this man, this Romney character. He will sell them “for a bowl of pottage” if it suits his immediate needs.
Would that Paul Ryan were the nominee instead of Mitt Romney! Lord, hear that prayer. Amen.
There are scenarios in which that might happen. God is in control. Keep praying.
However, I have concerns about the Grenell issue being brought up now.
First, it's an article from April. That's not decisive — old news can be important news — but why now? The fact is that this openly homosexual Republican resigned from the position to which Romney appointed him (good) while making clear that being openly gay was not an issue to Romney (not good).
Here's Grenell’s full statement of resignation: “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.”
John Bolton tried unsuccessfully to talk him out of resigning. Maybe we need to be asking questions about Bolton too, but I think it's obvious Bolton is much better than Romney.
More to the point, I did some digging on him. Interesting stuff.
He's the son of Church of God missionaries. He's anti-abortion and has strong words for those who aren't. That's good.
“He also dislikes those who can’t handle the hard questions — cuts in the budget, abortion. If you won’t toe the line, Grenell has a handy label for you. “Squish,” he says of Christine Todd Whitman, the pro-choice Republican governor of New Jersey. This is not a compliment.”
On the negative side, he's a big fan of Ariana Huffington.
According to Huffington Post, he was a blogger for Huffington Post until a month before his resignation.
According to ThinkProgress, “He also asserted that President Obama’s children should be fair game for political debate.”
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/04/20/468736/richard-grenell-twitter-women/?mobile=nc
This isn't just a social conservative issue. His comments about Newt Gingrich's marital background and attacks on Callista Gingrich are at a level that would raise major concerns for lots of Freepers who are Gingrich supporters, and even Gingrich opponents (me included) who think mocking comments about a candidate's wife are not appropriate.
Can anyone imagine something like this being tolerated on Free Republic: “At the debate before that, ahead of the Florida primary on Jan. 23, Grenell cracked: ‘newt will win this question because he had 3 families!’ On the previous day, he wondered: ‘what’s higher? The number of jobs newt's created or the number of wives he's had?’”
He also mocked Rick Santorum on Twitter with this Feb.. 22 statement: “im rick santorum and gay people should be deported”
Jennifer Rubin, author of “Right Turn” over at the Washington Post, says Grenell was forced out by “anti-gay conservatives”:
The National Review Online says that “Grenell is more passionate about same-sex marriage than anything else.”
With all this awful stuff about Grenell, I think the real question ought to be how the Romney campaign could **POSSIBLY** even consider appointing him to a prominent position. Maybe the problem isn't that Romney is pro-gay, but rather that Romney is a poor manager.
Anyone in management has hired bad people, but this is pretty bad. I wouldn't expect something like this to happen at the national level of politics.
The Washington Post's statement was that “He was hired through the policy side of the campaign — not the political side, where a different level of vetting occurs.”
Okay, maybe. I get the point that lower-level policy functionaries who won't attract lots of public attention may do good work for a campaign as long as they stay behind the scenes and keep quiet. But this guy was going to be a policy **SPOKESMAN.**
Wouldn't it be obvious to anyone with access to Google that this guy was radioactive?