In what ought to be a lesson to gay Republicans - yes, those individuals that I view as the equivalent of blacks supporting the KKK - Bill White, the former President of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, a veterans activist, and founder of the strategic consulting firm Constellations Group, and maxed out donor to Mitt Romney's campaign, has belatedly awaken to the fact that the GOP as a whole and Mitt Romney in particular are the nothing short of avowed enemies of LGBT citizens. That's not to say that the Democrats are the saviors of LGBT Americans, because they are not as proven by the cowards in the Virginia House of Delegates who were too afraid to vote "yes" for Tracy Thorne-Begland. The New Civil Rights Movement has coverage on White's epiphany. Here are highlights:
A famous donor has dropped his support for Mitt Romney‘s campaign, asked for a refund, and thrown his support to Barack Obama after the President announced his support for same-sex marriage and Mitt Romney derided it at his commencement address at Liberty University over the weekend.
Bill White, the former President of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, a veterans activist, and founder of the strategic consulting firm Constellations Group, wrote Mitt Romney and expressed his dissatisfaction.
“I feel that I no longer wish to support your presidential campaign and ask that you please return the maximum contribution that I gave to you last year,” Bill White wrote in a letter addressed to Romney, CNN reports:
“You have chosen to be on the wrong side of history and I do not support your run for president any longer,” White added.
…
White began his letter to Romney stating, “I am currently a max donor to your 2012 presidential campaign.” He did not fundraise for the Romney campaign, though he said his partner and some friends also contributed to Romney.
In his letter, White goes on to mention the president’s public announcement of his personal support for same-sex marriage last week.
“Several days later this past Saturday to a packed stadium of young college students you made the following statement that ‘Marriage is only between one man and one woman,’” White wrote, referring to Romney’s recent commencement address to Liberty University, an evangelical school in Lynchburg, Virginia. “I believe that you will do as you now say and try to force a constitutional amendment which would attempt to make my own legal and blessed marriage null and void.”
CNN pressed White: Why now, given that Romney’s stance is not new? “I had a very visceral reaction to him – he had a great opportunity… to get on the right side of history,” White responded. “And to be someone to the country that helps to unite us, versus what divides us. And I just think his very proactive intention to pounce on this issue now has sent me to the other side.” “Now, I feel like he’s declared war on my marriage. And I could just sit back and not say anything. Or I could do something about it. And I’ve chosen to do something about it.”
White married his longtime partner last October at New York’s iconic Four Seasons Restaurant. The wedding – the first legal gay marriage held at the Four Seasons – drew luminaries, including singer Aretha Franklin, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Barbara Walters and [NYC] Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Gay Republicans can try to convince themselves that they believe in fiscal conservatism - not that the 8 years of George Bush's failed regime and the then GOP controlled Congress demonstrated any fiscal restraint- but in doing so they are forfeiting their own humanity and, I would argue, integrity. Are lower taxes worth the price of one's soul? Not in my book. I hope other gay Republicans wake up and defect from Romney and the GOP. And that they ask for their money back.
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