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In the last Window (December 23, 2006),
I shared some background with you on
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to help
inform Catholics about this likely
presidential candidate's record on
abortion and emergency contraception.
In Part 2, I will briefly recap those
key questions and share more information
regarding Romney's positions and record
on gay rights, gay adoption, and
judicial appointments.
In a few days, I will publish the last
part of Questions for Gov. Romney
focusing on his response to the gay
marriage ruling by the Massachusetts
Supreme Court.
Once again, we will present facts,
perspectives, and questions that have
been largely ignored or overlooked by
the mainstream media.
Tomorrow Governor Mitt Romney is
expected to announce his candidacy for
the Republican nomination for President.
The following should be carefully
considered when deciding whom to
support. It is an eye-opener!
GAY RIGHTS
By now, many readers know that for the
past two and a half years Gov. Romney
has become a crusader against same-sex
marriage and activist judges. But his
gay-friendly positions from his 1994
campaign against Kennedy have recently
come back to haunt him, and reams of
documentation by Massachusetts
pro-family activists and the Boston-area
gay newspaper, Bay Windows, show how
Romney's pro-gay actions as governor
have not matched his conservative
rhetoric.
Romney's previous comments reported by
the New York Times, Boston Globe, and
other papers are troubling on their own.
In 1994, Romney won the endorsement of
the gay-advocating Log Cabin Club of
Massachusetts, saying he would be a
stronger advocate for gays than US
Senator Edward M. Kennedy. "We must make
equality for gays and lesbians a
mainstream concern. My opponent cannot
do this. I can and will."
During his 2002 run for governor, Romney
supported full domestic partnership
benefits for gay and lesbian couples
which had been opposed by Democratic
legislative leadership, and his campaign
distributed pink flyers during Gay Pride
promoting equal rights for all citizens
regardless of their sexual preference.
During that same 2002 run, Romney also
denounced as "too extreme" an effort by
pro-family groups to enact a state
Marriage Protection Amendment banning
gay marriage, civil unions and same-sex
domestic-partnership benefits which
could have preempted the November 2003
same-sex marriage court decision.
Romney's inactions as governor that
allowed the gay agenda to advance among
young people are even more troubling.
For example, the Governor's Commission
for Gay and Lesbian Youth promotes
gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (GLBT)
education in schools via speaking
presentations, films, books, dances
(such as transgender proms), handouts,
and establishment of GLBT clubs.
Although Romney had legal control over
the entity, he never tried to limit its
use of funding, impact the membership,
or dissolve the Commission until after
the Legislature created a redundant
commission several months before the end
of his 4-year term in office. In fact,
Romney's fiscal 2006 budget included
$250,000 for the Commission, twice what
he proposed spending in 2005. Romney
signed annual proclamations recognizing
"Youth Gay Pride Day.
Romney's Department of Public Health
supported publication of "The Little
Black Book…Queer in the 21st Century," a
pamphlet which includes graphic
instructions about safely performing gay
sex acts, which even liberal Boston
Herald columnists described as "filled
with crude vulgarities" and a "vile
little pamphlet...dirt, dummied-down
poison to the mind."
Romney's Department of Education
provides extensive instructions to
schools on forming Gay/Straight Student
Alliances, advocates school children
should attend gay pride parades,
proposes agendas for a gay/lesbian "Day
of Awareness" including a panel of
transgender individuals talking about
transvestite/transsexual issues, and
suggests top ten Gay Straight Alliance
meeting topics such as "What would the
world be like if 10% of people were
straight and 90% were gay?" and "What
would it be like if parents wanted their
children to grow up gay?"
If Gov. Romney did not care enough about
protecting family values and children's
education to eliminate or curtail these
programs when he had direct management
authority over the sponsoring agencies
in Massachusetts, why should Catholics
believe he will do any better in
Washington?
RECAP ON ABORTION AND EMERGENCY
CONTRACEPTION
As discussed in Part 1, Gov. Romney
attributes his pro-life conversion to a
November 2004 discussion with a Harvard
researcher about stem cell research,
claiming, "Like Ronald Reagan and Henry
Hyde and others who became pro-life, I
had this issue wrong in the past."
To faithful Catholics and committed
pro-lifers, who have written since our
report came out, this late-life
conversion more than 30 years after Roe
v Wade, raises eyebrows. We know that
Reagan and Hyde were pro-life early in
the public debate over abortion, with
Reagan favoring a ban on abortion except
in rare cases in his 1980 presidential
campaign, and Hyde being pro-life by
1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed.
Expecting people to overlook Romney's
multiple conversions to and from being
pro-life requires more explanation from
a would-be President of the United
States.
Is Gov. Romney also asking Catholics to
ignore his stated support for abortion
rights from 1970 to 2004? Are Catholics
expected to feel comfortable that his
views were apparently unswayed during
thirty-five years of polarizing public
debate about abortion? Are Catholics
supposed to accept that he supported a
woman's "right to choose" through nearly
a decade of Congressional action and
passage of bills to ban partial-birth
abortion? Are Catholics expected to
believe he only concluded that abortion
is immoral and life begins at conception
in 2004 (coincident with his interest in
the presidency)?
Furthermore, if Romney is really
"committed to promoting the culture of
life" as he now says on the campaign
trail, why did he force emergency
contraception on Catholic hospitals last
year, despite a previous statute that
his own Department of Public Health said
exempted them from the intrusive law?
ROMNEY'S JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS
For all of Romney's rhetoric about
activist judges, his own judicial
appointments also leave much to be
desired. The Boston Globe reported in
July of 2005 that, Romney has "passed
over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of
the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced,
instead tapping registered Democrats or
independents -- including two gay
lawyers who have supported expanded
same-sex rights."
In May of 2005, Romney selected for a
district court judgeship Stephen Abany,
a former board member of the
Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar
Association who organized the group's
opposition to a 1999 bill to outlaw
same-sex marriage. The MLGBA is
"dedicated to ensuring that the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
decision on marriage equality is upheld,
and that any anti-gay amendment or
legislation is defeated."
Ironically, the Globe reports that two
days before Abany's nomination, Romney
was lamenting the liberal tilt of the
state's bench, telling Fox News that
''our courts have a record here in
Massachusetts…of being a little blue and
being Kerry-like."
Catholics would no doubt also be
surprised to hear another Romney choice
for the bench is Marianne C. Hinkle, who
described herself in her application for
the bench as a longtime active member of
Dignity/USA, a group which wants to
reform the Catholic Church's views and
teachings on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender activity.
What exactly explains the contradiction
between Romney's staff/judicial choices
and his conservative rhetoric? Since
lower-court appointments are often
stepping-stones to higher-court judicial
appointments, should Catholics conclude
that these choices are indicative of the
sort of judges Romney would appoint as
President?
GAY ADOPTION
Massachusetts Catholics say that Gov.
Romney's positions on adoption of
children by homosexual couples are
contradictory at best, and that inaction
on his part contributed to Catholic
Charities of Boston exiting their
adoption ministry in 2006 after more
than 100 years of service.
In terms of his public rhetoric, Romney
tries to have it both ways. He has been
dismissive of same-sex parenting to
South Carolina Republicans, saying
sarcastically that some gay and lesbian
couples "are actually having children
born to them," while in Massachusetts,
he says he recognizes that homosexual
couples "have a legitimate interest in
being able to receive adoptive
services."
Romney's action and inaction on this
issue has been different from his stated
position. In late 2005 and early 2006,
when Catholic Charities of Boston was
under fire for having complied with a
state regulation requiring adoption
agencies to broker adoptions to
homosexual couples, Romney initially
claimed he could not unilaterally exempt
them, as an exemption would require
legislation "and would not be something
I would be authorized to do on a
personal basis." Since legislative
leaders had previously declared such
legislation would be effectively
dead-on-arrival, Catholic Charities
proceeded to exit the adoption business,
and Romney's subsequent decision to file
legislation asking for the exemption
indeed went nowhere, with zero benefit
to the agency.
But Catholics deserve to know why Romney
refused to simply use his executive
powers to change the regulation, and
even former Gov. Michael Dukakis weighed
in to say Romney's legislation was
"unnecessary," in that "the state's
anti-discrimination statutes do not
preclude an exemption for the Catholic
organization." Abortion is
constitutionally protected, yet Catholic
hospitals that do not perform abortions
on religious principle are not prevented
from being reimbursed for Medicaid
eligible services. Since the liberal
Gov. Dukakis, who signed the original
gay rights bill during his tenure, said
there was nothing mandated in this area
and observed, "governors can change
regulations if they want to, that's up
to him," why did Romney back down?
THE BOTTOM LINE
Although Gov. Mitt Romney brings what
many describe as intelligence, solid
management skills, optimism, and
charisma to the presidential race, an
increasing number of Catholics are
concerned that Romney's recent
conversion to pro-life, pro-family
conservatism contrasts dramatically with
his public record of speaking and
governing as a social moderate or
liberal, routinely backing down when the
going gets tough, and accomplishing few
conservative successes.
Despite preparing a "track record" to
portray governance as a conservative, in
the end, Catholic activists say Romney's
own leadership failures enabled the
social liberals to win the battles. He
vetoed emergency contraception knowing
the veto would easily be overridden, and
then he forced it on Catholic hospitals.
He campaigns against activist judges,
but he himself appointed gay activists
as judges.
He claims to be pro-family, but he did
nothing to stop his own Department of
Public Health and Department of
Education from their activities that
encourage gay activity for young people.
He criticized gay adoptions, but refused
to grant a small internal regulatory
exemption that would have allowed
Catholic Charities to continue brokering
adoptions.
Why does the conservative publication,
Human Events, list Romney at #8 on their
2005 list of "Top Ten Republicans in
Name Only (RINOs)? Is Romney really an
embattled "conservative" fighting the
forces of liberalism in one of the most
liberal states in the country, or is he
a moderate liberal "in sheep's clothing"
himself?
Can Catholics trust that the 59-year-old
Romney who was pro-choice and was
unaffected by three decades of public
debate over abortion-would carry his new
pro-life convictions over into Cabinet
personnel decisions, judicial
appointments, and public policy?
If Romney is a true-blue conservative,
why didn't he try to slow down or
occasionally defeat the liberal agenda
during four years of governance by using
the executive powers granted in the
Constitution, rather than pleasing his
liberal constituencies?
And most important of all, with a track
record of 4 years of setbacks or losses
in Massachusetts on life and family
issues across stem cell research,
emergency contraception, marriage, and
the gay agenda in public schools, what
actual pro-family and pro-life results,
wins, and accomplishments can Romney
point to? Finally, if Romney does
suddenly have pro-life and pro-family
beliefs, why should Catholics believe he
holds them deeply enough to fight hard
when the going gets tough in Washington
when he didn't fight for them in
Massachusetts?
The gap between how Mitt Romney appears
in public statements vs. his record is
substantial enough that committed
Catholics are raising legitimate
questions about his highly promoted
conversion to conservatism which Romney
will need to answer.
Until such time as those questions are
satisfactorily addressed, Catholics may
want to keep their 2008 presidential
options open.
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Email:
thewindow@morleyicc.com
Phone: 202-367-7456 |