He has said: “This is a subject about which people have tender emotions in part because it touches individual lives. It also has been misused by some as a means to promote intolerance and prejudice. This is a time when we must fight hate and bigotry, when we must root out prejudice, when we must learn to accept people who are different from one another. Like me, the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians.”

Is this hateful?

He has also said, “They (Mass supreme court) viewed marriage as an institution principally designed for adults. Adults are who they saw. Adults stood before them in the courtroom. And so they thought of adult rights, equal rights for adults … Marriage is also for children. In fact, marriage is principally for the nurturing and development of children. The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother.”

Romney wants them to be able to inherit money from each other and all that legal stuff. He just doesn’t think catholic charities should have to change it’s practicies with regard to adoption. There are plenty of other places for people to adopt… Is that hateful? If you were a kid, wouldn’t you want a Mom and a Dad? You have to pick on or the other. Are you going to side on the side of kids or adults? Well if you are a typical politician, you would side on the side of adults, because they are more politically active, and can call you a bigot…

Clift: Mitt Romney and Same-Sex Marriage
Mitt Romney is wooing conservatives by opposing gay marriage. It’s a strategy that won’t get him very far.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 4:01 p.m. ET Nov 24, 2006

Nov. 24, 2006 - There ought to be a prohibition against opportunistic politicians messing around in state laws to further their presidential ambitions. With his days as governor of Massachusetts nearing an end, Mitt Romney is trying to reopen the issue of same-sex marriage in the only state where it is legal.

Romney opposes gay marriage, and he hopes to ride the issue to the White House. Talk about retro. Rallying the right around fear of the so-called homosexual agenda worked in 2004, but it failed to rouse the same degree of passion in ’06. Voters are wising up to the games politicians play.

A relative unknown, Romney is fashioning himself as the conservative alternative to John McCain for the Republican presidential nomination. The right doesn’t trust McCain, and Romney thinks he can prove his bona fides with social conservatives by forcing a measure onto the Massachusetts ballot in ‘08 to amend the state constitution and ban gay marriage. The state legislature adjourned without doing his bidding, so Romney has appealed to the state Supreme Court, asking it to order a ballot initiative because 170,000 citizens have signed a petition asking for it. This is the same court that in 2003 ruled same-sex marriage legal; since then, 8,000 gay and lesbian couples have been joined in matrimony in Massachusetts.

The issue would be settled in Massachusetts if not for Romney’s meddling. A survey done by the progressive Campaign for America’s Future found that the more gay marriage is debated, the more tolerant the country grows, with a majority (51 percent) now saying “homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society” rather than something that should be “discouraged by society” (42 percent). Romney is going to battle stations over yesterday’s issue. He says McCain is “disingenuous” because he opposes same-sex marriage but believes it should be left up to the states. Romney wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Yet he was elected governor as a social moderate and once ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate as a liberal Republican. Where does he get off accusing McCain of trying to have it both ways when it comes to gay marriage?

The conservative movement is in a real meltdown since the election. Conservatives have been so wedded to this White House that they don’t know which way to turn for ’08. This will be the first election since 1922 where there is no sitting president or vice president on the ballot. President Bush has been derelict in positioning a successor, and thankfully so, since the policies he advocated have brought America worldwide condemnation and deserve to be retired with him. There is no conservative darling to capture the hearts of the right, no candidate who can check off all their boxes. McCain was clearly squirming when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed him on “This Week” last weekend about whether he supports civil unions, a loaded term among social conservatives who see it as a fig leaf for gay marriage. McCain avoided the phrase but said he supported various partnerships to facilitate hospital visits and the like. His home state of Arizona just voted down an anti-gay marriage initiative that also would have banned domestic partnerships even among heterosexual couples. The state’s large retired population took the lead in defeating the measure. Many older couples opt to live together rather than marry to keep their retirement incomes intact.

McCain gets more latitude on this subject because we sense that in his heart, he’s a Goldwater libertarian. Social issues are not what drive him in public life. He’s playing to his party’s conservative base as newly defined by the religious right, but if elected president, he’s not going to be beholden to them the way Bush has been. Romney is harder to read. As both a Mormon and a onetime moderate, he can expect some tension with and suspicion from the evangelical community about his conversion to social conservatism. The voters may be less inclined to give Romney a pass if he goes overboard with his fealty to the right. His father, the late George Romney, a three-term governor of Michigan, famously offended his party’s hawks when he belatedly confessed after visiting Vietnam that he’d been subjected to “the greatest brainwashing that anybody could get.” The admission subjected him to ridicule (“all it would have taken is a light rinse”), and ended his presidential hopes.

The Republicans took control of the House in 1994 on the strength of the Contract with America, which stayed away from social issues. Former House majority leader Dick Armey, architect of the contract along with Newt Gingrich, recalled to NEWSWEEK that when he first ran, the head of Texas Right to Life thanked him for his pro-life stand but recommended he not talk about it on the campaign trail. Puzzled, Armey asked why. He was told the subject makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The Gingrich revolutionaries championed reform and fiscal responsibility. How the GOP got from those issues to gay marriage is not evolution, it’s devolution.

h/t Dale at thecarpetbaggerreport.com

I didn’t bring up “John and Jane Public.” You did. Now that the argument has been turned around on you, John and Jane become “base” and their opinions are dismissed. Nice.

I love how anyone who opposes same-sex marriage is judged to be filled with hate. What a leap that is. You’ve introduced hatred to the argument, veiled connections to racism and sexism. It’s only a matter of time until you reference Nazism and the debate ends.

Also, you’ve proven how little you know about Romney. Outside of his fervent opposition to gay marriage, he has been relatively open to helping gays.

“On Gay Rights: All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their
sexual orientation. While he does not support gay marriage, Mitt Romney
believes domestic partnership status should be recognized in a way that
includes the potential for health benefits and rights of survivorship.”
Romney’s 2002 campaign website

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said yesterday he was ready to work with
lawmakers to craft a “civil union”-style law to give some marriage rights to
homosexual couples, even though he also supports a constitutional amendment
to preserve traditional marriage . . . Mr. Romney yesterday told TV news
stations that he would support a Vermont-style civil union law in
Massachusetts, but reiterated his support for a constitutional amendment
that would clarify that “marriage is an institution between a man and a
woman.”
Washington Times, 11/20/2003

Through all the twists and shifts during the gay-marriage debate this
year, there was one constant: 22 Republicans in the House of Representatives
opposed every measure that would grant gay couples civil unions in the
constitution. That all changed yesterday, however, when 15 of that 22-member
bloc broke away at the urging of Governor Mitt Romney and voted in favor of
a proposed amendment that would ban gay marriage but create Vermont-style
civil unions. Those 15 members provided the margin of victory, observers
from both camps said yesterday after the measure passed by just five votes.
In the end, the 15 agreed that approving a measure that they viewed as
highly undesirable was preferable to the possibility that nothing would be
sent to the state ballot for voters to weigh in on.
Boston Globe 3/30/2004

Hate-filled? Funny that you are guilty of what you accuse others of. You’re hopelessly lost.

In fact, in the only same-sex marriage ban that failed was due to a media campaign surrounding elderly heterosexual cohabitants who would have been affected by a strict ban on domestic partnerships in Arizona.

Can they bring back slavery too? Ban abortion in all instances? Deny women the right to vote? Deny other minorities access to marriage or other legal fictions enforced by their all powerful government?

FSP you should really avoid trying to defend Romney on this point. It is a real loser like Romney will end up if he keeps climbing into bed with religious fundamentalists for political points. He may be playing to Bob Jones but it is only hurting him with John snd Jane Public and most moderate people in states that decide elections rather than races to the right wing bottom.