Press Release - May 9th, 2012

For Immediate Release

View Online: http://lgbtde.ms/JgGaY9

May 9, 2012
Contact: Jerame Davis
202-625-1382
jdavis@stonewalldemocrats.org 

Gay Republicans Shamelessly Attack Obama for His Support of LGBT Equality

Today, after President Obama's historic endorsement of the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, gay Republican groups launched vicious attacks on the President's embrace of equality calling it "cold comfort" and comparing the President to former Vice President Dick Cheney. One group said the announcement was, "offensive and callous" while the other said it was "hardly a profile in courage." National Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jerame Davis issued the following response:

"These groups are truly shameless in their desperate attempt to provide cover for the atrociously regressive positions held by the GOP and Mitt Romney. Just today, Mitt Romney came out singing the party line expressing his complete opposition to marriage equality and civil unions. And just to drive home the point, the RNC provided Chairman Reince Priebus as a backup singer warbling the same broken tune. 

"But to invoke the name of Dick Cheney in their attacks is just surreal. Cheney was, by most accounts, the most powerful vice president in history. He had the power to order torture, wire-tapping, and got us into two wars - yet he did absolutely nothing to advance LGBT equality with that power in the entire eight years he was in office. When George Bush and Ken Mehlman - himself a closeted gay man at the time - concocted their scheme to advance a federal marriage amendment for political gain, Cheney sat idly by and did nothing to stop it.

"President Obama has done real work to advance LGBT equality and today's statement only adds to that sterling resume. What's offensive and callous is demeaning his record by comparing it to the deliberate harm caused by Republicans like Mitt Romney and Dick Cheney."

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National Stonewall Democrats is the national voice of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied Democrats, with more than 80 local affiliates across the nation. Stonewall Democrats works to elect more pro-equality Democrats regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity - and to improve the Democratic Party on issues important to LGBT Democrats.