So..Who is Fred Karger? Just the first openly gay Presidential Candidate and he is a Republican!

[Selene]

Fred S. Karger (born January 31, 1950) is an American political consultant, gay rights activist and watchdog, former actor, and candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2012 US Presidential election.^[2] Although he has not held elected or public office, Karger has worked on nine presidential campaigns and served as a senior consultant to the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford.^[3][4] Karger was a partner at the Dolphin Group, a California campaign consulting firm.^[3][4] He retired after 27 years and has since worked as an activist on gay rights causes, from protecting the gay bar The Boom to using his organization Californians Against Hate to investigate the LDS Church's and the National Organization for Marriage's campaigns to repeal the state's same-sex marriage law.^[5] His running for the Republican nomination for president makes him the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history.^[6][7][8][9]

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Fred_Karger

He also tried to investigate the LDS Church and it's campaign to repeal California's same-sex marriage law.

Karger declared himself the "Anti-Romney" candidate, and later stated that he "plans to run a campaign specifically designed to throw a wrench into Romney's run."^[18] Since making his announcement, Karger has been to Iowa and New Hampshire several times, holding town hall meetings, talking to voters, as well as meeting with political, LGBTQ, AIDS organization leaders and the media.^[19][20]

Wednesday, Mar 23, 2011 16:45 ET

Fred Karger, gay Republican, for president

A retired GOP consultant launches a campaign, the party blocks him from debates Video

<p class="byline clearfix">By Alex Pareene

• 
  

CBSNews.com

Fred Karger, presidential candidate

I have a new favorite candidate! Fred Karger, a retired political consultant, has filed his paperwork with the FEC to become America's first (openly) gay Republican presidential candidate. He is also, as Stephanie Mencimer reports, "the first GOP candidate to declare officially that he is running for the 2012 race." (The closest anyone else has come is the "exploratory committee" phase.) Wonderful.

Karger had to make it extra-official so that it would be more difficult for the party to keep him out of debates. While coastal elites at the RNC have been friendly to Karger, the true Republicans... at the RNC... have also already blocked him from participating in one debate, and they are likely to continue banning him from all future debates, at least until he stops being gay (which will be even more difficult now that the gay-curing "app" has been banned from all the iPhones).

As Mencimer explains, the person the RNC has overseeing the debates, lawyer James Bopp, is no fan of Karger:

Bopp represents many anti-gay marriage organizations that have been battling in court to protect their donors and supporters from state disclosure laws. Many of those lawsuits have been inspired by Karger himself, who was instrumental in organizing boycotts of the major donors to California's Prop. 8, which banned gay marriage in the state. Bopp has argued in court that the Prop. 8 donors were harassed and subjected to potential violence because of their outing and is fighting to eliminate many of the laws that made Karger's boycott possible. Bopp has actually subpoenaed Karger in one of those cases in California, and has been defending the group Protect Marriage from a state ethics complaint Karger filed against the group in Maine.

Awkward.

Anyway, Karger might be banned from the so-called debates, but he's got my vote. (And between me, Sully, and Ken Mehlman, that is three votes. It's a start!)

Here is a little interview with Karger, who will hopefully continue annoying the Republican party by forcing them to demonstrate, repeatedly, their increasingly unpopular bigotry:

Someday this man will be our second gay Republican president, after Lincoln.

Edited September 28, 2011 by Selene