Billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel got a rousing ovation when he declared he is gay during his speech at the Republican convention Thursday night even as he dismissed the debate over transgender bathroom use.
“When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union, and we won,” said Thiel, the founder of PayPal. “Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?”
Thiel was well received by a party still struggling to reconcile its longstanding anti-gay policy positions with modern social mores.
“Of course, every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But most of all, I am proud to be an American,” he continued, to more applause.
He went on to bash “fake culture wars” in front of Republicans who approved a party platform that condemns the Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage.
“I don’t pretend to agree with every plank in our party’s platform, but fake culture wars only distract us from our economic decline, and nobody in this race is being honest about it except Donald Trump,” Thiel said before calling on “Americans to stand up and vote for Donald Trump.”
Thiel is a libertarian who has questioned the value of the women’s suffrage movement and donated to several Republican lawmakers. He most recently made headlines for funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, and he even went after the site for investigating whether Trump’s hair is real.
The openly gay Silicon Valley billionaire is an unusual speaker choice for the Republican convention, especially considering that he mentioned in his speech that he is gay. But Trump does not focus on social issues. The Republican nominee initially said that North Carolina’s law barring transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice was unnecessary, before later saying that it should be left up to states.
