The RNC committeeman committed the one GOP unforgivable sin: He was alienating donors
Renowned anti-gay, anti-Muslim activist, Dave Agema announced Friday night that he will not resign from the Republican National Committee even after nearly everyone in his party had called on him to do so — except Governor Snyder, who is too busy telling Congress how to budget to stand up for the people of his state.
Under pressure, Agema had skipped the RNC winter meeting last week, sending in his place Chuck Yob — a former RNC member who faced similar calls to resign his position 12 years ago for a sexist comment.
But Agema — a former member of Michigan’s House of Representatives — said he’s too popular to deny his genius to the RNC just because of “a few strident advocates for homosexual marriage.” His statement appeared on his new website, which is missing his extensive research connecting same-sex marriage to HIV/AIDS that littered his old site.
Agema spewed his anti-gay vitriol publicly several times in the last year. Last year after Agema posted a comment disparaging gays that cited a known white supremacist, the RNC responded by unanimously approving his resolution reaffirming the party’s stance against same-sex marriage. After he said that gay people only want health care because they get AIDS and die young, he was greeted at an RNC meeting with a “partial standing ovation.”
So why did the GOP decide to act now?
The party and and its favorite billionaires are about to spend millions to try to win a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.
Agema’s anti-gay vitriol was fine with bigwigs like the DeVos family but he decided to out himself as anti-Muslim in a recent Facebook post. Muslim voters likely couldn’t swing an election in this state but Arab voters — who were equally offended by the post, as were all reasonable people — could. In his statement, Agema specifically apologizes for the anti-Muslim post but does not offer the same courtesy for any of his homophobic commentary.
Republicans in this state have clearly written off LGBT voters and that will not change if Agema stays or goes. As most of the nation approves of same-sex marriage, they’re still fighting same-sex adoption and refusing to recognize domestic partnerships. This state won’t even let a woman take her partner’s last name.
Michigan’s Republicans embrace these increasingly antiquated policies of discrimination because they figure it doesn’t cost them any voters, while keeping their base motivated. Thus Agema didn’t cost them any votes until he started spraying his hate in a way that could waste their donors’ money.
This wasn’t about principle, of course. This was about money.
Michigan’s GOP is the party of Dave Agema with or without Dave Agema. So he might as well stay in an official position so everyone know that for sure.
