A friend and admirer of Dan Quayle, Durnil served from 1981 to 1989 as Indiana Republican State Chairman and member of the Republican National Committee. His conservative credentials are impeccable. But he took his IJC responsibilities seriously and he stayed up nights reading mounds of esoteric studies to educate himself. Initially, Gordon Durnil did not want to believe that pollution was a serious problem. But being a good conservative, with the ability to think for myself instead of being told how to think, I was willing to change my way of thinking.
Evidence is evidence and facts are, indeed, facts.
There is growing scientific evidence that exposure to environmental chemicals causes a broad spectrum of adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes and that they are preventable if the exposures are better controlled. The sons of Michigan mothers whose breast milk contained an industrial flame-retardant chemical had a higher incidence of testicular abnormalities and smaller penises than the norm. I wonder why. It is a good question. Durnil sees it as a basic conservative tenet that an invasion of our bodies by toxics is a fundamental violation of a most basic right.