Florida Agenda

By Marc Paige

When Mitt Romney selected a gay man, Richard Grenell, as his Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman, the Log Cabin Republicans, GOProud, and LGBT conservatives everywhere hailed this appointment as proof that Romney, in his heart, was a fair man who will do right by the gay community.

But it took only ten days for Grenell to be gone, and Romney’s anti-gay bona fides to be stronger than ever. Grenell’s decision to leave the Romney presidential campaign came after a busy week of foreign policy news. While Grenell was allowed to listen in on a key press call on foreign policy, the New York Times reported that he was neither introduced at the beginning of the call, nor allowed to speak during the conversation.

Apparently, this humiliation was too much for Grenell, appointed to a position where relationships with reporters are vital to success. Grenell’s letter of resignation thanked 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,” and placed the blame for his departure on “the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues.

Furious voices on the right came fast to condemn Romney when he initially selected Grenell, the loudest being Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. After Fischer took credit for Grenell’s resignation, his directive to Romney going forward was unequivocal: “I will flat-out guarantee you Romney is not going to make this mistake again. There is no way in the world that Mitt Romney is going to put a homosexual activist in any position of importance in his campaign.” At no point during the Grenell affair did Romney publicly speak out against the ugly voices of bigotry coming from the right. That would have taken conviction and leadership.

In his statement of regret over Grenell’s resignation, Romney’s language contained a dog whistle to the right to reassure them that he remains one of them: “We select people not based upon their ethnicity or their ‘sexual preference’…” (to be read as a choice and changeable), avoiding the accurate “sexual orientation” (derided by the right for its intrinsic and unchangeable connotation). What does all this mean for the November election? LGBT voters are a small constituency, representing perhaps five percent of the voting population.

But a growing number of young heterosexuals see LGBT equality as the civil rights issue of our time. The Grenell debacle has reminded young voters, as well as those with gay loved ones, that a Romney presidency, ruled by the right, will reverse the forward trajectory of LGBT equality in America. After his victory, an emboldened Bryan Fischer told The Nation magazine that candidate Romney must commit to other anti-gay measures, including vetoing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) if it reaches his desk.

During his failed U.S. Senate run in 1994, Romney made a commitment to Massachusetts’ Log Cabin Republicans to co-sponsor ENDA at the federal level. But in 2007 Romney told Tim Russert on “Meet The Press” that he would not support ENDA at the federal level.

When Russert challenged this about face, Romney was unfazed: “Oh, Tim, if you’re looking to someone who’s never changed any positions on any policies, then I’m not your guy.” Now there’s a solid Romney conviction.

By Phoebe Moses

WASHINGTON, DC – Less than a week after being appointed to serve as the foreign policy face of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, openly gay spokesman Richard Grenell is under fire for hundreds of online comments he had posted which reflected less than flattering personal opinions of women in politics from both sides of the political aisle.

Although he jibed on Twitter that Secretary of State “Hillary [Clinton] is starting to look liek [sic] Madeline Albright,” a reference to the first female secretary of state, who served under Bill Clinton, he likewise quipped that Republican candidate New Gingrich’s third wife, Callista “stands there like she is wife #1,” and wondered if her hair snaps on.”

Grenell also attacked Michelle Obama, who has waged a national campaign against childhood obesity, claiming that the First Lady was “sweating on the East Room carpet” after a workout, and called MSNBC host Rachel Maddow a “dead ringer for teen idol Justin Bieber. Grenell, a former Bush aide, apologized last Friday for the posts, and said that he would remove the offensive comments.

“My tweets were written to be tonguein- cheek and humorous but I can now see how they can also be hurtful,” Grenell told Politico. “I didn’t mean them that way and will remove them from Twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused.” Approximately 800 tweets were removed from Grenell’s accounts over the weekend.

MSNBC’s Maddow speculated on Friday’s broadcast about the long-term impact on the Romney campaign, and if the presumptive GOP nominee and his advisors “understand that a long string of really nasty, sexist tweets about Callista Gingrich’s appearance might be alienating to people who might otherwise consider voting for Mr. Romney.”

Democrats have had their own perilous week, with David Parker, the chairman of North Carolina’s Democratic Party announcing last week that he will not seek re-election after a week of pressure from party elders—including the state’s outgoing governor—to resign after allegations of male-on-male sexual harassment surfaced last week in the state party’s Raleigh headquarters. Those allegations concern former state party executive director Jay Parmley, who himself resigned last week after it was disclosed that a complaint had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against him by Adriadn Ortega, a former party employee who alleged he was fired from his job after Parmley sexually harassed him, despite assurances from party officials that he would not be punished for coming forward with a complaint.

Parker, the state chair, had resisted a week’s worth of cajoling from Democratic leaders to resign because his leadership of the party had become a distraction so close to the May primary and the election of a successor to Gov. Bev Perdue. “The party must move quickly to select a new chair and a new executive director,” she said. “It’s time to resume our focus on the core mission of the Democratic Party: strengthening our schools, creating jobs, and ensuring more opportunity for all North Carolinians,” said Perdue after Parker’s announcement.

In his EEOC complain, Ortega said that he was sexually harassed between early September and late November. He claims that he spoke to the party’s administrative director about the harassment in September, and that after speaking with another party official he was told that there would be no retaliation for his actions. Although Ortega says he was subjected to no further harassment, he was fired from his job in November.

Parker said that an investigation into Ortega’s claims found several of his allegations to be either false or open to interpretation, noting that they weren’t included in Ortega’s EEOC complaint. All that was left were allegations of Parmley touching Ortega’s leg while the latter slept during a road trip and of the executive director giving Ortega inappropriate shoulder massages. “We’re down to a whack on the leg to wake him up,” said Parker, “and unwanted shoulder rubs that don’t amount to a hostile environment.”

Democratic National Committee Executive Director Patrick Gaspard said that Parker’s decision was “in the best interest of the party,” as the scandal’s backlash threatened to hurt preparations for the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in September in Charlotte. Strategists for both parties also note that the Tar Heel State will be a battleground in November’s presidential election, and that President Barack Obama won the state in 2008 with just a 0.3 percent margin of victory.