"I am a Republican"

An anonymous individual, describing himself only as "Mr. X.", confesses in the New York Sun:

You know me. If you don't, you've seen me...eating dinner in a midtown restaurant or walking up Broadway on a Saturday morning or sitting at the playground in the park as my child climbs the monkey bars. I take the subway to work every morning like thousands of other New Yorkers. I shop at Fairway and Zabar's. Maybe you've even been sweating on the next treadmill at the gym. I look like a hundred other guys around my age. I dress like them, too. And if you saw me, you would never guess my secret.

I am not gay. That is certainly no reason to hide. I am not a person of color. That prejudice should have been erased from our national consciousness decades ago. I don't carry any disease microbes that I am aware of. I don't even smoke.

But the information that I will now transmit has caused people to shout at me, brought dinner parties to an abrupt end on less then polite terms. It has even ended long friendships.

Here it is. I will just say it. I am a Republican.

The article has provoked quite a response from readers of The New York Sun, resulting in numerous letters to the editor from like-minded sympathizers.