The light finally dawns

Talk about running to the front of the parade:

GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia announced last week that he would renounce his affiliation with the Republican Party and become an independent nearly five years after he founded the group aimed at gay conservatives.

“I just came to the realization that the Republican Party doesn’t represent my principles and values,” LaSalvia told POLITICO. “I’m a small government conservative and they’re for big government. They’re happy to have big government as long as they’re in charge, More importantly, I don’t tolerate bigotry of any kind, whether it’s anti-gay bigotry, anti-Muslim bigotry. And they do and that’s just not OK with me.”

Although LaSalvia has spent the time since co-founding GOProud in 2009 working within the Republican Party to focus on the issues he cares most passionately about, he says he’s given up hope.

“I think there’s a cultural problem within the Republican Party that’s beyond fixing. I think the leadership of the Republican Party is so out of touch with life in America today that I just decided that it’s not worth fixing. I don’t think they can win a national election again. Pull the plug on the patient, the party’s brain dead.”

For LaSalvia, the eye-opening moment came during Mitt Romney’s presidential run in 2012.
“He was so paralyzed by fear of retribution from the forces of intolerance that he couldn’t do what he needed to do to reach out,” said LaSalvia. “He admitted himself that they wrote off 47 percent of the country.”