Gay voters should blame themselves for Prop 8, not black Californians.
Smart LGBT leaders knew our campaign couldn’t make Prop 8 a “gay” issue.
Must we appear as churchgoers or nationalists to deserve our rights?
In part, Prop 8 failed because of inept LGBT leadership.
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By RON McCULLOM
Friday, June 15, 2007
NEW HAMPSHIRE’S SEAsoned and no-nonsense voters have become a challenge to Mitt Romney’s presidential aspirations. His poll numbers have flat-lined and there is a substantial lack of traction around the former Republican governor from neighboring Massachusetts.
Compare this to the conservative man-crush that has engulfed fellow has-been (and official non-candidate) Fred Thompson. Additionally—and this is key —Romney’s anti-gay credentials have gained some currency among so-called “values voters” outside of New England.
Case in point: Cynthia Fishi. Last week, when almost everyone else was transfixed by the Paris Hilton three-ring circus, the New Hampshire mother confronted Romney on the campaign trail.
“I am a gay woman and I have children,” the mother of 6- and 8-year-olds tearfully explained. “Your comment [against gay families] sort of invalidates my family. Why, if we are sending our troops over to fight for liberty and justice for all throughout this country, why not for me? Why not for my family?”
Romney flashed his trademark game-show host grin and meandered across the ideological landscape. He congratulated the mom, but cautioned marriage is for a man and woman “to raise a child.” He further explained “there are other ways to raise kids, that’s fine. Single moms, grandparents raising kids, gay couples raising kids. That’s the American way.”
That circuitous logic illustrates the underlying hypocrisy of Multiple Choice Mitt Romney’s anti-gay positions. He was born into a wealthy, conservative political family (his dad ran American Motors and was the governor of Michigan), headed east, embraced liberal Republican politics and nowadays, who knows? He even contradicts himself.
Romney’s anti-gay branding is a revisionist coat of varnish on a once close partnership with the gay community. He opposed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and supported domestic partnerships and non-discrimination laws. He even courted the support of the Log Cabin Republicans, won their blessing and at least two LCR members joined his staff, according to Mass Resistance, one of his fiercest conservative critics. The piece de resistance: Romney’s record on gay rights was once so strong that Human Events, the weekly social conservative magazine, declared Romney the nation’s most pro-gay rights Republican. That history makes his new anti-gay platform all the more disturbing—even Ray Charles could see Romney’s multiple-choice positions are those of expediency, not conviction or ideology.
Multiple Choice Mitt has even presented a revisionist veneer on his Mormonism to court evangelicals. He’s the worst kind of enemy, soulless and without ideology.
The unfortunate by-product of this schizophrenic branding is a failure to recognize the truth.
“I am not anti-gay,” Romney recently declared during an interview. “I know there are some Republicans, or some people in the country who are looking for someone who is anti-gay and that’s not me.”
With friends like Mitt Romney, who needs enemies?
Rod McCullom is a freelance writer and producer and can be reached via his blog at rod20.com.
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