by Marc Paige
When a gay Republican tries to persuade LGBT people to support an anti-gay GOP candidate, the argument is always the same. First, they tell us the candidate is not really that bad on gay issues. Then, when confronted with the candidate’s blatant and incontrovertible homophobia, they have two defensive retorts: 1) Democrats have a history of being just as homophobic; 2) They are not single issue voters.
Nick Stone, Vice President of the Broward County Young Republicans, recently wrote in the Florida Agenda (Jan. 26, 2012: “The Big Tent GOP”) that LGBT people should be supporting Mitt Romney for president because, “If you believe in equality under the law, a Mormon Republican is our best bet for president in 2012.” That line could have worked if gay people didn’t read newspapers, or never heard Romney speak on TV. Unfortunately for Mr. Stone, we’ve done both.
In an August 25, 2005, appearance on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, then-Gov. Romney explained his Massachusetts strategy to undermine marriage equality and civil unions: “So we will have a constitutional convention this year. Hopefully, the decision of our legislature will be to let the people decide. And, specifically, I hope that people will be able to decide that neither civil union, nor same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts.”
Romney reiterated his views on another Hardball appearance on April 12, 2006: “I am not in favor of same- sex marriage. I am not in favor of civil unions. The Democratic Party, particularly in my state, has made an error by adopting a platform that supports gay marriage.”
At the televised Fox News Iowa debate this past August, Romney called for discrimination to be inscribed in our nation’s constitution: “I believe we should have a federal amendment in the constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and woman, because I believe the ideal place to raise a child is in a home with a mom and a dad.”
Last month Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom assured the “Huffington Post” that Mitt is also firmly against gay couples having the equivalent rights of marriage, even by another name: “He has not been in favor of civil unions, if by civil unions you mean the equivalency to marriage but without the name marriage. What he has favored was a form of domestic partnership or a contractual relationship with
reciprocal benefits.”
The “reciprocal benefits” language is taken almost directly from the anti-gay Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI). The MFI website supports a “new category of contractual relationships entitled ‘reciprocal beneficiary contracts’ to define basic benefits.” Romney and his friends at MFI are willing to allow gay couples, who have built their lives together, to form contracts for hospital visitations. Gee, thanks Mitt!
In 2006 Romney donated $10,000 to MFI, which also promotes “ex-gay therapy.” Its website states: “Our compassion is for those struggling with same-sex attraction and we encourage the healing of individuals who wish to change their choice of lifestyle.”
If Mitt Romney had his way, the armed forces would still be discharging gay soldiers, or forcing them to hide in the closet. Thanks to President Obama and the Democratic congressional majority in 2010, the military’s discriminatory policy is as dead as Osama bin Laden, while General Motors and Detroit’s auto industry remains very much alive.
I do agree with one point in Mr. Stone’s article: it is “simply untrue” that the GOP doesn’t want our votes. Republicans would like nothing more than to peel off enough gay votes to help propel their conservative agenda to victory. GOP operatives are happy to get as many LGBT voters as possible to vote against their own interests.
Mr. Stone ends his piece by writing that Romney will bring gays “real progress,” while Obama “takes our vote for granted.” Stone’s assessment is only accurate if “real progress” means closing the door forever on gay couples and families getting full federal rights, and “taking our votes for granted” means signing hate crimes legislation inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity, ending DADT, and refusing to defend in federal court the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act.
On a Jan. 25 town hall conference call sponsored by Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition, Mitt Romney blasted President Obama for his “assault on marriage.” He pledged to “propose and promote” a marriage amendment to the constitution, and unlike Obama, “defend the Defense of Marriage Act.” While there is a small but growing number of Republican politicians who are turning away from their party’s history of anti-gay bigotry, Mitt Romney is definitely not one of them.
I’m not sure if Nick Stone is delusional, or he just thinks it’s acceptable for gays to be second-class citizens. Mitt Romney’s homophobia is real and tangible. He must not be allowed
his agenda of inscribing discrimination into our constitution, and taking us backwards.
Our nation’s Declaration of Independence declares “all men are created equal.” Gov. Romney doesn’t get that America’s promise is that all of us have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Luckily, President Obama does.
Partisan-Paige Spiels the Liberal-Left Pundits in the FL Agenda
Once again a columnist who’s a liberal-gay Democrat demeans gay/gay-friendly Republicans in a form once considered by some as “yella journalism.” In Marc Paige’s February 9th “Q-Point” column, published in the Florida Agenda, no mention was ever made of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a co-sponsor of the recent Congressional legislation that rescinded the Clinton-Nunn-Frank DADT gay ban authored by Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) and subsequently codified by a Congress and Presidency controlled by Democrats. You likewise didn’t hear a favorable spiel flowing from Marc’s pen about the once renowned gay-friendly Sen. Barry Goldwater who boldly stated to Conservatives and his constituents that, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” Paige attacked Romney especially on gay marriage but you didn’t hear a peep about the codification of the anti-gay DOMA bill which was also signed into law by President Clinton and set the guidelines for many anti-gay marriage laws and in some cases civil unions in many States.
Paige, who appears to warmly welcome you with his right hand readily reverts into a quill holding “Left-Handed-Pundit Transformer” that seemingly has little affection and/or appreciation for Gay/Gay-friendly Republicans. He retorts with little or no qualms when readily smearing all Republicans.
In his attack on Stone and allies Paige never once mentioned the fact that when Candidate Obama campaigned in Black-Florida churches he proudly proclaimed to the folks that marriage was established as a union between “one man and one woman.” Little was ever discussed about Fr. Flager or the long-time President’s family friend and spiritual advisor the Rev.White who was and is extremely anti-gay as is another Obama supporter, the Rev. Farrakhan, the leader of the radical Nation of Islam. Obviously, in his attacks, we didn’t hear about the DADT Supreme Court challenge by Log Cabin Republicans against the defense put up by an Obama appointee, Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney General.
Let’s just be honest and expose Marc’s bag of bashing tricks used against Gay/Gay-friendly Republicans, skewed tactics utilized by other left-leaning columnists attempting to demoralize LCR activists, demonstrating and advocating a hard-line bias. Organizers in Gay-left organizers like the MOW and ACORN, for example, are not for affording across-the-board equality and inclusion but for inequality and exclusion when it comes to anyone in the community who may be a registered Republican or a Conservative Democrat. Marc, like some others on the extreme ends of the political spectrum, is just another pundit transformer, a skewed story teller who unwittingly enables hate through allegory and rhetoric..
While Gay/Gay-friendly Republicans don’t work in a field or bed of roses, as those Democrats who live in a gay-left vacuum and one-way-mirrored-glass houses do, they are hero and heroin partisans in a “5th column” movement who fight the internal fight that many others ran from when the challenge became too rough for them to handle as fiscal moderates and conservatives.
Indeed, men like Nick Stone, who Paige attacks in his “Don’t Be (Nick) Stone-Walled By Romney” column, are not simply “walled-”in-Republican activists but men and women working inside the halls and back rooms of the Republican Party to create positive change through outreach and education. Marc and his Media-Matters ilk wallow in the pleasure of pouring more salt into the wounds of those front-line troopers like Stone who happen to be gay/gay-friendly Republicans and daily deal with a head-on challenge against those defending a hard-line anti-gay bias.
Log Cabin Republicans and their friends are here for the long run. They appreciate and understand of the Constitutional guarantee of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” for all citizens of this great country is the single most motivating force behind all their efforts and hard work in a truly growing and diverse political arena where they and their supporters proudly fly the banner of “Equality and Inclusion” for all regardless of a Partisan-Paige-spieling-leftist pundits against them.