At the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, two Republican Wall Street moguls championed LGBT
rights.
Paul E. Singer of Elliott Management
and Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point joined HRC President Chad Griffin
on a panel moderated by journalist Fareed Zakaria and sponsored by
The Huffington Post and Microsoft.
Zakaria alternated these guests with
J-FLAG Executive Director Dane Lewis, Russian journalist Masha
Gessen, Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom and United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
Singer, who is considered one of the
biggest donors to the Republican Party, said his son's coming out at
the age of 21 prompted him to reconsider the issue.
Loeb, who became involved at the
invitation of Singer, described three levers that can advance
activism: the financial lever, the legal lever and the social lever.
“It's not cool to be anti-gay,” he said.
Attendees included business tycoon
Richard Branson and Senators Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Claire
McCaskill of Missouri.
(Watch
video from the panel at The
Huffington Post.)