Richard Grenell has denied he was force
out of his post as national security spokesman for the Mitt Romney
campaign.
Anti-gay groups chided Romney for
placing an openly gay person in a prominent position. He stepped
down less than two weeks after he was hired.
In an interview with The
Desert Sun of Palm Springs, Grenell denied that he was forced
off the campaign because of pressure from social conservatives.
“The right I'm very comfortable with,
taking those hits and barbs, because I've had a 20-year career where
I've worked for politicians, I've worked on elections, on campaigns,
and I know exactly the trajectory of assaults from the far right,”
he said.
“I resigned because I'm very
passionate about foreign policy and national security issues,” he
added. “When the messenger becomes part of the message – if you
really care about these issues – you should step aside.”
Bryan Fischer of the Christian
conservative American Family Association (AFA) led the charge against
Grenell and cheered his resignation. Afterward, he suggested Romney
was weak for giving in.
“If Mitt Romney can be pushed around,
intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host
in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese?”
Fischer asked on his AFA-sponsored show, Focal Point. “How
is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to
North Korea, if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me? I don't
think Romney is realizing the doubts that this begins to raise about
his leadership.”
The Obama campaign also criticized
Grenell's resignation, suggesting that he was pushed out because of
his sexual orientation: “Today we learned that in the year 2012, a
Republican nominee for president can't have a gay person as
spokesman,” Teddy Goff, a spokesman for the campaign, tweeted.
The Romney campaign immediately denied
the charge, saying, “We wanted him to stay because he had superior
qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.”
“The far left doesn't want a gay
person to be conservative and the far right doesn't want a
conservative to be gay,” Grenell told the paper. “Some of the
most hateful, mean-spirited intolerant comments about me being the
foreign policy and national security spokesman for Governor Romney …
were coming from the far left.”
Grenell and his partner have purchased
a home in Palm Springs which they plan to renovate.