Report: Romney Campaign “Muzzled” Their Gay Foreign-Policy Guy

Andrew Sullivan, the Daily Beast‘s resident gay Republican neo-con, is reporting that Richard Grenell was “muzzled” by Mitt Romney’s campaign, and instructed not to speak on a key conference call he helped organize. This adds some insidious anti-gay undertones to the Romney campaign, even when it’s trying so hard to Etch-A-Sketch some shred of LGBT credibility.

Original reports believed that Grenell was mostly bullied out of his position by neo-cons.

Writes Sullivan:

He’d been part of organizing a conference call to respond to Vice President Biden’s foreign policy speech, now known best for the “big stick” remark. So some reporters were puzzled as to why Grenell, a week into his job as Romney’s national security spokesman, was not introduced by name as part of the Romney team at the beginning of the call, and his voice completely absent from the conversation. Some even called and questioned him afterwards as to why he was absent. He wasn’t absent. He was simply muzzled. For a job where you are supposed to maintain good relations with reporters, being silenced on a key conference call on your area of expertise is pretty damaging. Especially when you helped set it up.

Sullivan explains that the D.C. GOP elite actually felt bad about this decision, but needed to muzzle themselves so not to appear unchristian:

I might add that the private conversation among many Republicans in this town is that this was unjust and unfair. The Romneyites are correct when they say they tried to talk him out of it. But they kept and keep their views quiet. The gay-inclusive elements in the elites simply do not have the balls to tackle the religious right. And this is particularly true of Romney, as this case now proves.

Republicans lacking the balls to tell it to your face? Sounds like Grenell was among his own!