A gay man served as a top-level senior aide to Senator Rick Santorum for ten years. That the virulently anti-gay Santorum — who has also this week taken heat for remarks that appeared to be racist — would hire a gay man who also happens to be black no doubt will leave many Americans scratching their heads. But in 2005, blogger and activist Michael Rogers outed Robert Traynham, Santorum’s Communications Director:
Traynham is Santorum’s DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATION! You know, the guy in charge of the “messaging.” Here’s a gay guy working for Rick Santorum who bashes gay men and lesbians and freaks out AP reporters with mentions of “man-on-dog sex.”
This evening, America got re-acquainted again with Traynham, who spoke with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, and — amazingly — continued to glowingly support his former boss, Rick Santorum. Also amazing: Traynham denied any knowledge of Rick Santorum’s position on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).
READ: Santorum: “I Don’t Want To Make Black People’s Lives Better By Giving Them Other People’s Money”
For the record, Santorum has stated he would kick all gay service members out of the military and re-instate DADT.
Traynham told Matthews he disagrees strongly with Santorum on same-sex marriage, but in 2005, now-famous blogger Pam Spaulding quoted Rogers (who owns PageOneQ and blogACTIVE.com, mentioned below,) as saying:
In a phone call recorded by PageOneQ and blogACTIVE.com, Robert Traynham, Director of Communications for United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) has said he is an out gay man who completely supports the Senator.
When asked how a gay man could speak for one of the nation’s most notorious homophobes, Traynham, left, protested that has “been with the Senator for eight years.” Traynham went on to say “Senator Santorum is a man of principle, he is a man who sticks up for what he believes in, I strongly do support Senator Santorum.”
When pressed on whether he supported the Senator’s stands on lesbian and gay issues, Mr. Traynham abruptly ended the phone call by saying “Senator Santorum is a family man. I have been with Senator Santorum for eight years and I am very proud to be with him.”
There’s a good deal more here, including that, as Mike Rogers, (who is now the Managing Director for The Raw Story,) reported in 2006, a local Pennsylvania activist was able to get Santorum to sign a non-discrimination statement.
Almost presciently, Sue over at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents on New Year’s Day penned, “Whatever Happened to the Gay Guy Who Worked for Santorum?,” where you can learn even more about Traynham. Also, here’s a link to Rogers’ archive of his Traynham articles.
If this isn’t amazing, if all this hasn’t shocked you yet, let me tell you that Robert Traynham is not the only gay man Rick Santorum has hired. While I’m not ready to disclose any other names yet, I am comfortable stating I know of one other very senior-level former Santorum aide who is gay.
Which begs the question: Why does Rick Santorum seem to surround himself with gay men?
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I'm nearly speechless. I generally believe it is not a good idea to judge other people — but I cannot but wonder just how self-hating or self-deluding someone has to be to spend years working for a man who spews so many lies and so much hatred for LGBT people. Rick Fecal Santorum, of course, claims to love the sinner/hate the sin, but his intention is to do horrible things to our civil rights (even if some of them are actually beyond the power of the president.) Gay people who work for Santorum should be outed: they undoubtedly fit the criteria of 'actively doing damage to the LGBT community' and so are deserving of exposure.
You've written a couple of articles about how people should be outed. The other campaigns are doing hard core opposition research. Do you think they might be digging a little further into the lives of other 'senior aides' soon?
Sorry, I'm just not comfortable with the ethics of the article. You're a journalist who holds himself to higher standards. Please keep doing that through the election cycle.
@pensiveye — I disagree. I think there is a widely-held (OK not universal, but widely-held) view that outing people is generally frowned-upon and should not be done unless the person is actively engaged in doing damage to our community. It seems to me that this guy fits that description perfectly. In general outing is not a good practice, but neither is sitting-by idly while people do damage to you and your community. Outing SHOULD be used as a tool of defense when we are actively being harmed by a person being a closet homophobe.
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