Anti-equality and Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West is welcome in the heavily LGBT town of Wilton Manors, Florida despite his "anti-gay, misogynist, and disreputable rhetoric" says City Commissioner Julie Carson. That's after the state Democratic Party’s gay caucus threatened to boycott members of the Wilton Manors Business Association, which invited West to speak on August 8, reports the Sun Sentinel.
The event has been canceled, reports The Advocate.
The Wilton Manors Business Association in the South Florida district of the Tea Party favorite had invited West as a guest speaker. But that outraged the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Caucus, which sent a letter warning that if the event went forward, a boycott would ensue. West has said marriage must be between a man and a woman because it's intended for procreation, and he opposed repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The event was canceled, so West wrote a disappointed letter to the group Monday. In it he said it was "intolerable" that gay activists "would call upon a boycott to hurt small business owners trying to earn a living and only wanting to better be informed about business related issues from their member of Congress. Clearly, we have learned who really are the intolerable individuals in South Florida."
West represents part of Wilton Manors along with pro-LGBT Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was recently elected chair of the Democratic National Committee.
West's wife came to congressman's defense in a letter posted at his official website. If the event had proceeded, Angela West wrote, because people who thought they knew her husband would have "discovered that Congressman West's close relative is gay and married to his partner --- we love and adore them both."
"Loves and adores" the gays, but refuses to support their equality in housing, employment, health benefits and relationship recognition.
