Gay-Lovin’ Skeletons in Romney’s Closet

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Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has been the very picture of paranoid homophobia in the last few years, becoming an almost-comic figure when he filed a bogus law suit last month in an attempt to force an anti-marriage amendment onto the 2008 ballot in Massachusetts. This from a man who opposes “activist judges” and favors tort reform. Coincidentally (or not), most pundits expect Romney to be a presidential candidate on the ballot in 2008.

But, according to the Boston Globe, Romney sang a different tune in a recently re-released 1994 interview with Bay Windows, Boston’s gay paper. Romney said that the gay-lesbian community “needs more support from the Republican Party.” Romney advocated letting states decide whether to allow same-sex marriage. “People of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have,” Romney said. (Note to Bay Windows: SNAP on the re-release, but lose the cutesy name!)

Golly Gee, it turns out that Mitt Romney, like so many other Republicans, has been cynically gay-baiting all these years in hopes of earning kudos and votes from the religious crazies who actually think gay marriage is a pressing issue. (In reality, only about 8,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts. Not only has the sky not fallen, but support for gay marriage has increased statewide.) Well, either Romney has been exaggerating his anti-gay feelings as governor of Massachusetts or he disingenuously downplayed them as a candidate, in efforts to woo gay votes away from his opponent, the notorious liberal Edward Kennedy.

So, did he lie then, or is he lying now? Frankly, I don’t give a damn. Romney won’t win in 2008, thanks, in a stroke of poetic justice, to prejudice. In this case, against him. A recent Gallup Poll says Americans aren’t ready for a Mormon president. See how hating doesn’t pay?

— Cameron Scott

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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