Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, who recently noticed that the conservative movement is virulently anti-gay, has a headline on her latest post that says it all: EXCLUSIVE: Richard Grenell Hounded From Romney Campaign by Anti-Gay Conservatives.

When I learned that Grenell was gay, I knew it was just a matter of time until he was forced out. Mitt Romney may have intended the choice of Grenell as a statement that he was Etch-a-Sketching away from the far right, but this resignation makes a much clearer and more honest statement: that the Republican Party is the party of reactionary anti-gay bigotry.

If Romney honestly did intend to pull away from the far right, he found out today that he’s made a deal with the devil.

American Family Association bigot Bryan Fischer is ecstatic over the resignation; he says the religious right has forced Mitt Romney to back down, and taught him not to do anything like this again.

Related:
AFA Spokesman Bryan Fischer’s List of Anti-Gay Demands for Romney

The next big rift in the base of the Republican Party may be caused by Mitt Romney’s choice of the openly gay Richard Grenell as foreign policy spokesman. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin is properly appalled at the hateful language of people like Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, but where was she when all the Republican presidential candidates eagerly consented to be interviewed by Fischer?

Anti-Gay Voices Should Be Rebutted - Right Turn.

And Bryan Fischer is only the most egregious example of the GOP’s fear mongering on gay rights. One of the sustaining principles of today’s reactionary right wing is homosexual panic.

It would be a positive thing for the party and our country if it was crystal clear there is no place in civil discourse for those fanning the flames of hatred toward gays and egging on fellow conservatives to discriminate against gays in hiring. Unfortunately, not everyone on the right agrees.

Understatement of the weekend.

Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney’s new campaign spokesman, appears to have deleted more than 800 tweets he posted attacking women and the media.

On Friday afternoon, Grenell still featured a link to his personal site (richardgrenell.com) on his Twitter profile, which then showed that he had tweeted 7,577 times, according to a screenshot taken Friday by The Huffington Post. By Sunday morning, Grenell’s Twitter feed only listed 6,759 tweets and his personal site is no longer available. (Some examples of past writing have been archived on the Internet and can be found here.)

In the Twitter-fueled 2012 election, it’s not surprising that reporters quickly began digging through Grenell’s Twitter feed, even before he got a chance to scrub out a number of impolitic and sexist comments.

ThinkProgress noted Grenell’s tendency to make cutting remarks about the appearances of prominent women in media and politics, including his tweet advising MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “to take a breath and put on a necklace,” and another suggesting she resembled a Justin Bieber.

In another tweet, Grenell wrote that “Hillary is starting to look liek Madeline [sic] Albright.” He discussed First Lady Michelle Obama working out and “sweating on the East Room carpet.” He also asked whether Callista Gingrich’s “hair snaps on,” and on another occasion, commented how Gingrich’s third wife “stands there like she is wife #1.” Politico flagged more examples and noted Grenell’s “old pastime” of “ridiculing the Gingriches.”

When contacted about Romney’s hiring of Grenell and his removal of online writing, a campaign spokesperson referred The Huffington Post to a response Grenell gave to Politico. “My tweets were written to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous but I can now see how they can also be hurtful,” Grenell said. “I didn’t mean them that way and will remove them from twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused.”

Grenell has solid wingnut credentials, by the way; he’s even written articles for Breitbart.com. Here’s a cache of his now-deleted website, showing a link to his Big Journalism articles: Journalists as Advocates - Richard Grenell. (h/t: Gus.)

And notice that the link is broken — as is every other link ever posted to Big Government, Big Journalism, or Big Peace before the mini-Breitbarts redesigned the site and completely trashed all existing links on the entire Internet.