3 days ago
Pro-Trump Kennedy Center executive says he was fired
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It was not immediately clear what activities he was involved with at the center. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to requests for comment made outside business hours Thursday.
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Brown said Thursday that his requests for an explanation for his dismissal and to speak with Grenell, who during the president's first term was recognized as America's first gay Cabinet member, have been ignored. Brown claimed that he was told he would be fired if he did not recant his position on 'traditional marriage.' 'Needless to say, I refused to recant and was shown the door,' he wrote.
Brown was the operative behind the racist Willie Horton attack ads during the 1988 presidential campaign. He later promoted conspiracy theories about Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, too. Brown has also made comments denigrating homosexuality in the past. In an archived page from one of his defunct websites, he lamented the victories of 'secular pro-gay culture.'
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'Comments rooted in my personal Christian views, which I have made in the past, have no impact upon my work here at the Kennedy Center nor do they impinge on my interactions with colleagues,' Brown wrote in his X post. 'I have never intended to attack or demean any person in my statements, and have always shared the mission of Jesus, striving to love others unconditionally.'
This is the latest episode in months of upheaval at the Kennedy Center.
Trump stunned the cultural world in February when he made himself chair of the Kennedy Center and purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden-era appointees, making his loyalist Grenell the president. Trump's actions have prompted criticism, and some artists have canceled their engagements at the center in protest.
Grenell has culled the Kennedy Center's staff, saying it faces serious financial problems. He has also denounced some of the center's efforts to embrace diversity, saying it should promote 'common sense programming.'
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