Romney's openly gay adviser, kept "under wraps because of...attacks on his homosexuality", resigns

Richard Grenell, an openly gay foreign policy spokesman for GOP presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, resigned Tuesday over what he called “the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign.”

“While I welcomed the challenge to confront President Obama’s foreign policy failures and weak leadership on the world stage, my ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished,” Grenell said in a resignation statement in a statement obtained by the Washington Post.

Grenell’s hiring was widely criticized by those both on the left and right and he also came under fire for a number of Twitter posting he deleted poking fun at the physical appearances of many women politicians and pundits, including Callista Gingrich and Rachel Maddow.

But it was Grenell’s sexual orientation that he said ultimately led to his exit from the campaign. Grenell’s hiring earlier was announced April 19 but he had yet to make any public remarks or on-the-record comments on foreign policy issues for the campaign, even during the days marking the one-year anniversary of the Osama bin Laden raid.

Many pundits found this fact puzzling considering the Osama raid was a major international incident on which Grenell could have commented officially. Some posited the campaign hired Grenell to fill a diversity quota and they were keeping him under wraps because of conservative and liberal attacks on his homosexuality. Other said he was hired in April but officially wouldn’t begin his tenure as spokesman until May 1.