A Portrait of Selfish, Privileged, White Gays

Bill White and Bryan Eure - selfish, self-centered gays who have betrayed the LGBT community.

I frequently lament privileged white gays who willingly throw the rest of the LGBT community under the bus in exchange for what they perceive as personal advantage and self-promotion, all the while believing that their wealth and whiteness will protect them from the discrimination and abuses others in the community regularly endure.  We have such white, privileged gays locally who support Republicans working to deprive LBGT Virginians of civil rights and non-discrimination protections.  These amoral individuals exist at the national level as well as illustrated by a piece in the New York Times that profile Trump supporters Bill White and his husband, Bryan Eure who seem motivated not by principles but rather by what perks they can land and who will most kiss their asses.  What the Times article glosses over is the fact that White abruptly resigned from his job when confronted with a corruption investigation  (details his resignation are here and his $1 million settlement payment are here).    The latter link states at outset:

The former head of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum has agreed to pay a $1 million settlement for his role in a massive state pension fund pay-to-play scandal. . . . "The state pension fund, which should be safeguarded for taxpayers, was instead served up to fixers, finders, and fund-raisers like Bill White, who used his access to fill his pockets," Cuomo said.  . . . Amid the probe, White last May suddenly quit his job with the Intrepid museum, which he had held since 1992.

Perhaps most telling is that this pair of opportunists only switched their allegiance to Trump after it was obvious Hillary Clinton was going to lose the 2016 presidential election.  Not surprisingly, they could care less about Trump's war on the LGBT community and his regime's efforts to allow Christofascists to discriminate at will and ignore state non-discrimination and public accommodation laws.  Here are highlights from the Times piece about these two who sound as amoral as trump himself:

In some ways, they are a typical political power couple seeking to “Make America Great Again.”

They are throwing a $5 million fund-raiser for President Trump this winter, and are quick to make it known that they have the president’s sons’ cellphone numbers on speed dial. They have poured more than $50,000 of their own money into supporting the president, who smiles in photos on the bookshelves of their home.

But Bill White and his husband, Bryan Eure, are not red state evangelicals or die-hard right-wingers. In fact, for years, they were key players among a cohort that Mr. Trump loathes: Manhattan’s liberal elite. . . . Mr. White and Mr. Eure used to back strident, anti-Trump Democrats, but now dine with Fox News anchors and plan rounds of golf at Mar-a-Lago.

The two men were not only longtime backers of left-wing causes, but firm supporters of Hillary Clinton who put their clout and cash behind her two White House bids. President Barack Obama was the guest of honor at a $39,500-a-plate truffle risotto fund-raiser dinner they hosted once in their Chelsea townhouse.

The couple say they have been condemned not just for hypocrisy, but for what has been seen as a betrayal of their own community, by backing a man who has scaled back L.G.B.T. protections.  They dismiss such concerns.

As they have risen in the Trump pantheon to attending cocktail parties with Trump acolytes, they’ve lost friends, the couple said, from liberal politicians they once lavished with campaign contributions to a former employee of Mr. White’s who sent excoriating Twitter messages.

Their former allies offer a succinct view on who Mr. Eure and Mr. White are now: craven turncoats.

“They ran to the other end of the spectrum and then walked off the ledge,” Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said. “This president is degrading our institutions. He is racist, he has no respect for women, he has no respect for minorities or for any community, including the L.G.B.T. community — it makes you wonder.”

The genesis of the couple’s reversal can be timed to about midnight on Nov. 8, 2016. Inside the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan, at Ms. Clinton’s election night event, Mr. White stood watching the returns in an increasingly funereal atmosphere. He got in his Chevrolet Suburban and drove to the New York Hilton in Midtown, where Mr. Trump was celebrating his win. 

“I didn’t want to be part of that misery pie; I’m not a wallower in self-pity,” said Mr. White, who now runs Constellations Group, a strategic consultancy firm. “I really believe that once that decision is made, you have to get behind your president.”

Since 2016, the couple has made a gradual shift from life in the liberal enclaves of the Hamptons and Manhattan, where they had long flipped homes as a hobby, to Atlanta, where they recently purchased property.

They now split their time between New York and Georgia. In the South, they are closer to Mr. Eure’s parents and found that they can wear red pro-Trump hats in peace.

Chatting inside their latest project, in the Buckhead neighborhood, they described a litany of slights by Democrats as motivation for switching sides.

There was the time, earlier this year, at Ralph Lauren’s Polo Bar in Midtown Manhattan, when Mr. White spotted Chelsea Clinton across the dining room.  Offended that she failed to acknowledge him, Mr. White said, he whipped out his phone and dialed Donald Trump Jr. “He said, ‘Do you want me to come over? I’m at the office, do you want me to?’”

“Some people give their time and resources to causes and candidates for the right reasons, some don’t,” Mr. Merrill, Ms. Clinton’s spokesman, said. “No better indication of which case this is than to watch a guy decide to embrace Trump and all he stands for because he couldn’t get his picture taken one night.”

Since boarding the Trump Train, as they call it, for every morsel of recognition the Trumps have offered, the couple has responded with a feast — sometimes literally.

In my opinion, these guys make tawdry whores look virtuous.  They are, in my view, cut from the same cloth as Trump.  Moral and decent people cannot support and continue to claim to moral.  It is truly that simple. White and Eure have shown their true selves and after the days of Trump are past, I hope decent remember.