The Gist

Outed staffer leaves Tancredo campaign

When we last checked in with Tyler Whitney the 18-year-old conservative activist was being defended by Bay Buchanan on the occasion of his outing. The story lit up the web and had Whitney scrubbing all the nasty right-wing stuff from his myspace page. But he was determined to stay with the Tom Tancredo for President Campaign.

Interestingly, less than two months later young Tyler has left the supposedly friendly and accepting Tancredo campaign and has headed back to Michigan. He says he was homesick. Reporter Todd Heywood of Between the Lines, who broke the original story, was on the show on Friday to talk about Whitney's news and Heywood's interview with him last week.

Now apparently openly gay, Whitney has gone to work for the openly gay mayoral candidate running for mayor of Flint, Michigan. So far, so good. But Heywood says Whitney will not answer questions about his having been involved in the racist and virulently antigay chapter of Young Americans for Freedom up in Michigan (cited as a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center)and his having held up a sign at at protest warning gays to "go back in the closet."

Moreover, the openly gay candidate he went to work for, Dale Weighill, an independent who worked in Republican circles, doesn't seem at all bothered by Whitney's past either, according to Heywood. (The campaign actually sent out a press release touting the hire, seeming to want to capitalize on Whitney's new-found fame as a right-wing closeted gay staffer working on a presidential campaign and as a former head of a dubious organization.) Weighill's campaign hired Whitney shortly after Weighill had received the endorsement of the local Triangle Pride PAC, the political action committee of the statewide GLBT group, Triangle Foundation.

According to Heywood, an official with the Triangle Pride PAC was taken aback by the hire of Whitney, particularly coming right after the group's endorsement, and declined to comment as of yet. The fact that Weighill would hire a former Tancredo campaign staffer who hasn't apologized for involvement in a known hate group is not going to sit well with many in the local community -- whether he (or the candidate himself) is openly gay, closeted, straight, bi, trans or whatever.

UPDATE: According to reporter Todd Heywood, who will publish a story in Between the Lines, Whitney did not in fact join the Weighill campaign and the candidate does remain concerned about Whitney's past.The press release announcing the hire went out by a lower staff memeber who was impressed with Whitney and thought it would be good to hype his having done a little bit of leafletting for the campaign. This person should be fired for putting the candidate in such a bad position, in my opinion. After Heywood appeared on the my show and the story went around the web, Weighill had to repudiate the staffer's actions and said he does not support Whitney's having been involved with YAF and completely supports GLBT rights. Furthermore, Whitney had only done some minor volunteer work for the campaign, it appears -- it was the staffer who claimed he went to work there. This is probably among the things that are prompting Whitney to apologize, and apparently give a sit-down interview with Heywood, which is the only right thing to do if he wants to put this behind him and also heal the hurt he has caused people in the past.