Bill White has shifted from supporting
Mitt Romney to President Barack Obama over the issue of gay marriage.
White, who is openly gay and previously
donated $25,000 to the Romney campaign, has asked the campaign for a
refund.
“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,” White wrote in
a letter addressed to the Romney campaign and obtained by CNN.
In 2008, White was touted by top
retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress to be the
next secretary of the Navy. The former president of the Intrepid
Sea, Air and Space Museum currently serves as the chairman and CEO of
the New York-based consulting firm Constellations Group.
White
married his husband Joseph Bryan Eure last October in a ceremony
held at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. Lawyer David Boies,
who is representing two gay couples challenging the constitutionality
of California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8, officiated the
ceremony.
White, a registered independent, said
that he took issue with Romney's
address at Christian Liberty University.
“... 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. “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.”
White told Reuters
that he does not consider himself an activist “But I am married and
that's that. You should be able to marry who you love.”