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Thursday, May 3, 2012

A ‘Huge Win’ for Homophobia

May 2, 2012, 1:34 pm


On Tuesday Richard Grenell, an openly gay spokesman for the Romney campaign, resigned — or, more accurately, was hounded out of town by social conservatives. And the religious right isn’t taking this victory sitting down.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who previously said that hiring Mr. Grenell was like telling the “pro-family community” to “drop dead,” gleefully relayed the news on his radio broadcast yesterday.



Especially noteworthy is how Mr. Fischer explained the big picture to his audience. He didn’t just claim responsibility for the “huge win;” he claimed to have taught Mitt Romney a lesson. “Mitt Romney has been forced to say, ‘Look, I overstepped my bounds here. I went outside the parameters here. I went off the reservation with this hire. The pro-family community has called me back to the table here. Called me back inside the borders of the reservation.’”

That’s actually a pretty stunning boast. Mr. Fischer’s asserting that the “pro-family community”—not Mr. Romney, not his advisers, not the Republican National Committee, and certainly not the electorate at large, is setting the “parameters” of the campaign. Mr. Romney can’t just bring whoever he wants into the G.O.P.’s big tent; he has to ask permission first.

If I were Mr. Romney, I’d be none too pleased. I don’t think his experience at Bain prepared him to cede so much responsibility to outside interest groups.

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