Bryan Fischer is the first social
conservative to criticize Mitt Romney for hiring openly gay spokesman
Richard Grenell.
Grenell will serve as the Romney
campaign's national security and foreign policy spokesman, the
campaign announced on Wednesday.
Grenell, who has been partnered to Matt
Lashey for 10 years, served as the spokesman for the U.S. ambassador
to the United States during the George W. Bush administration.
Fischer, who regularly lashes out
against gay rights on his American Family Association-hosted radio
program, Focal Point, knocked the hire in a message to his
1,272 followers on Twitter.
“Romney picks out & loud gay as a
spokesman,” he tweeted. “If personnel is policy, his message to
the pro-family community: drop dead.”
Grenell is also facing criticism over a
series of tweets mocking Newt Gingrich's two previous marriages, his
weight and his current wife Callista Gingrich.
On January 26, he messaged, “i wonder
if newt has investments in Lipitor”; and on February 11, after the
death of singer Whitney Houston: “it feels to me like Newt Gingrich
is producing Whitney Houston media coverage. #Grandiose.”
On January 22, he tweeted, “what's
higher? The number of jobs newt's created or the number of wives
he's had?”
“Calista stands there like she is
wife #1,” he jabbed on March 6. Seven days later, he added: “do
you think callista's hair snaps on?”
Grenell apologized in a statement to
POLITICO.com.
“my tweets were written to be
tongue-in-cheek and humorous but I can now see how they can also be
hurtful,” he said. “I didn't mean them that way and will remove
them from twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused.”