Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu (Associated Press)
Republican U.S. Congressional hopeful Paul Babeu is set to visit Dallas on April 7. A fundraiser for the recently outed Arizona sheriff is being hosted by Rudy Oeftering, vice president of the gay GOP group Metroplex Republicans, according to an invitation received by Instant Tea.
Oeftering wasn’t immediately available for comment but mentioned his support for Babeu at the group’s February meeting. After contacting Babeu in early February, Oeftering said he was trying to find a good date Babeu could come to Dallas to speak and garner Texas support to “make history to elect the first open gay [conservative] representative for the House.”
“He’s been a strong conservative for many years,” Oeftering said at the time. “Besides the fact that he’s gay, he’s got pretty unassailable conservative credentials. With this new revelation, there’s a lot of people within the evangelical community that have now discounted him and he’s reaching out to new people and new sources to help him with his campaign.”
Oeftering wrote on the fundraiser’s online invitation that Babeu stands for the conservative values Texans want to see represented on Capitol Hill.
“He is making a special trip to Dallas to meet with us and tell us about his plans to take our Conservative principles to Washington,” Oeftering wrote. “Please mark your calenders to attend this important event. Also, please plan on making a financial contribution to help his campaign.”
Shame, Babeu is not “openly gay” he was Out’d by his boyfriend. His record and history are now coming to light, he went to great lengths to shut people up and hide the fact he is gay. More than likely, if the situation presented itself, he, like most republicans would do whatever was needed to set back gay rights. Gay Republicans? I have never understood why a group of people would want to join or try so hard to be part of a group that hates them so.