Angela West, the wife of Tea Party Republican Congressman Allen West, joined her husband’s attack on his gay constituents Monday, by calling them “intolerant,” after her husband was uninvited from a speaking engagement at local Florida business owners’ group. The group, the Wilton Manors Business Association, revoked their invitation to Rep. West after a boycott was threatened by a local LGBT activist group, the Florida Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Caucus, for West’s negative and offensive comments about LGBT and other social issues. In response, Rep. West had sent a letter to the Wilton Manors Business Association calling the LGBT group that threatened a boycott, “intolerable individuals.â€
“So, it is better to make sure that the congressman does not speak. That he does not address small businesses in the area, politics and the economy? Sometimes it might be better to listen,” Angela West wrote in a Facebook note.
“However, if tolerance were to be achieved by an evening of discussion, it would have been discovered that Congressman West’s close relative is gay and married to his partner — we love and adore them both. It might have been interesting to meet a good fellow soldier, Sgt. Tammy Barnwell and her partner Lydia. They all served together with the Congressman in the Middle East. And maybe you could have discussed, after the business meeting of course, his views on DADT. What a novel idea, having a personal discussion with a Congressman.”
Perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that her husband forced the Wilton Manors Business Association to change the format of the event, from a meeting open to the public, to a closed-door meeting?
Perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that her husband, Rep. West, has said that “gay marriage is an oxymoron,” which will destroy society?
Perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that her husband has said, gays can change, but, “unless I’m Michael Jackson, I can’t change my color?”
Perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that her husband, despite his supposed friendship with the same-sex couple she just outed on Facebook (no, Don’t ask, Don’t Tell isn’t gone yet, thank you very much Mrs. West,) might be a bit encumbered by his statement, “it’s just a matter of time until [gays] break down the military.”
Perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that a “partner” in a male same-sex married couple is also called a husband — that marriage is the same for all couples.
And perhaps Mrs. West is unaware that it’s not only Rep. West’s stance on LGBT issues that offend many people. Comments like, “when I see anyone with an Obama 2012 bumper sticker, I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool,” certainly don’t make people want to embrace him. Nor do his anti-Islam activities. Nor his misogynistic actions.
Angela West, the Congressman’s wife, clearly is uninformed about her husband’s activities. Mrs. West is a political appointee — Republican Governor Rick Scott appointed Angela West to the Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees, in addition to her full-time job as a financial advisor for Raymond James and Associates.