Twice in the past twenty-four hours or so, I have received reports via Facebook of gay men coming out for Romney, only to encounter attacks from their gay peers.

People “are surprised”, one wrote, as if writing about my own initial experiences coming out conservative, “when I say I’m a republican. They ask me how I can be a Gay Jew and a republican at the same time.” The other had a “Question for you Dan! Why do LGBT people hate conservative LGBT people … I have so many haters right now!”

Yes, why do they hate?

“Let’s be honest,” the second man wrote

. . . the left doesn’t hate me because I am mean or brash or too aggressive – the same label can be applied to many of my critics. No, the left hates me because I have the audacity to stand up to them. They hate me because I am a conservative who happens to be gay. They hate me because I won’t be bullied by them. They hate me because I have dared to wander off the liberal plantation, because I refuse to play the victim card, and because I have rejected their failed big government, single-issue, tunnel-visioned agenda.”

He concluded, “They hate me because I am a conservative who happens to be gay.”

Upon reading the first draft of this post, the first correspondent disagreed with the language used by the second: