Floyd Brown, a longtime right-wing activist, said on Thursday that he had been fired from the Kennedy Center because of his views on same-sex marriage.
Mr. Brown said in a long post on X that he was fired on Wednesday by Richard Grenell, whom President Trump appointed as the interim leader of the center in February after he began imposing his grip on it. Mr. Brown said his dismissal happened about two hours after CNN contacted him for comment on his past statements on homosexuality and marriage.
The Kennedy Center did not announced Mr. Brown’s appointment. He said in a LinkedIn post this month that he had started working at the center as vice president of development. The executive in that position leads the department responsible for raising millions of dollars for the center.
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 on Thursday.
Mr. Brown said Thursday that his requests for an explanation for his dismissal and to speak with Mr. Grenell, who during the president’s first term was recognized as America’s first gay cabinet member, have been ignored. Mr. 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.
Mr. 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. Mr. Brown has also made comments denigrating homosexuality in the past. In an archived page from one of his defunct websites, FloydReports.com, he lamented the victories of “secular pro-gay culture.”
“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,” Mr. 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.
Mr. Trump stunned the cultural world in February when he made himself chairman of the Kennedy Center and purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden-era appointees, making his loyalist Mr. Grenell the president. Mr. Trump’s actions have prompted criticism, and some artists have canceled their engagements at the center in protest.
Mr. 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.”
Qasim Nauman is a Times editor in Seoul, covering breaking news from around the world.
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