Bay Windows, MA
12-07-06
Romney is a big fat liar
Laura Kiritsy
The fact that there’s intense interest in a letter Mitt Romney wrote to the
Massachusetts Log Cabin Club 12 years ago in which he pledged to be a more
ardent advocate for gay rights than U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy isn’t a surprise. (See
“Follow That Trail,” page 15.) Romney is an all-but-declared candidate for
president who’s staked his candidacy on social conservatism. Any hint of
hypocrisy on Romney’s part with regard to LGBT issues is of great use for
political reporters, GOP primary opponents and LGBT activists alike. What is
surprising, though, is the depth of Romney’s hypocrisy.
In 1994, when Romney was running for U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy, he
engaged in a lengthy interview with Bay Windows during which he discussed his
views on employment nondiscrimination legislation, the military’s “Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell” policy — and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples (see “Mitt’s
secret gay history II,” page 10). The interview was published Aug. 25, 1994. His
views on gay issues in 1994 are largely at odds with his stated views today.
Take civil marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. Romney said that his view
on the issue was similar to then-Gov. William Weld’s. Weld opposed it. But
Romney explained that he saw marriage as “a state issue … the authorization of
marriage on a same-sex basis falls under state jurisdiction.” The statement, of
course, is at odds with Romney’s current support of a federal marriage ban,
which he has testified in favor of before Congress. Romney’s views on marriage
in 1994 line up with potential GOP presidential primary opponent Sen. John
McCain’s views on marriage. McCain opposes an amendment to the U.S.
Constitution that would prohibit same-sex couples from marrying and believes
the issue should be decided on a state-by-state basis. Romney has called
McCain’s position “disingenuous.”
In the interview, Romney emphasized that he would be an advocate for gay civil
rights. And he offered some surprisingly thoughtful reasons for his positions —
surprising only because of his demagoguing on gay rights today. He tied his
willingness to advocate for the rights of gay people, for instance, to the Mormon
concept of “free agency”: “When I speak of free agency, I don’t just mean that
each person can do what they want to do, I mean that our society should allow
people to make their own choices and live by their own beliefs,” said Romney.
“People of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others
can live by different beliefs they may have. That’s the great thing about this
country: it was founded to allow people to follow beliefs of their own conscience. I
will work and have worked to fight discrimination and to assure each American
equal opportunity.”
While Romney said he supported President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
policy against openly gay service members, he sounded downright optimistic that
the battle on that issue wasn’t over. “I believe that there will be change over time
as the military establishment and the rank and file become more comfortable with
the realities of sexual orientation in the military,” said Romney. “I will support
progress being made in that area as time progresses and the military and society
becomes more accepting.”
Romney also stated his opposition to Republican stalwart Sen. Jesse Helms’s
attempt in 1994 to pass an amendment to an education bill that would have
prevented the portrayal of homosexuality as “a positive lifestyle alternative,”
calling it “a dangerous precedent.” “I would have opposed that. It also grossly
misunderstands the gay community by insinuating that there’s an attempt to
proselytize a gay lifestyle on the part of the gay community. I think it’s wrongheaded and unfortunate and hurts the party by being identified with the
Republican Party.” This from a man who now complains about the reading of
gay-themed books like King and King in the classroom.
Last but not least, that letter to the Log Cabinites wasn’t the first time Romney
put forth the claim that he’d be better for the gays than Kennedy. In a last ditch
effort to woo gay voters, Romney wound down the interview with this
observation: “There’s something to be said for having a Republican who supports
civil rights in this broader context, including sexual orientation. When Ted
Kennedy speaks on gay rights, he’s seen as an extremist. When Mitt Romney
speaks on gay rights he’s seen as a centrist and a moderate. It’s a little like if
Eugene McCarthy was arguing in favor of recognizing China, people would have
called him a nut. But when Richard Nixon does it, it becomes reasonable. When
Ted says it, it’s extreme; when I say it, it’s mainstream.
“I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party,” the
candidate added, “and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster antidiscrimination efforts. …”
So how will all of this impact Romney’s presidential aspirations? Political pundit
Andrew Sullivan recently told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that the GOP’s
evangelical Christian base won’t abide Romney’s pro-gay stances, particularly if
he tries to defend them now. But if Romney backs off his support for LGBT rights,
which he clearly appears to be doing, it opens him up for, at minimum, scrutiny
and, at most, attack. After all, gay rights is not the only social issue on which
Romney has made an abrupt change of heart. He used to be pro-choice.
“Clearly he’s moving to the right very aggressively and he has to. He’s got to
move over to John McCain’s right using what issues he can,” says Charlie Cook,
author of the Cook Political Report, the influential non-partisan newsletter.
Romney needs to do this, adds Cook, primarily to inoculate himself against any
concerns about his Mormon faith, which is viewed suspiciously by evangelicals,
along with a broad swath of the American public. “That’s what politicians do,
whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, a Romney or anybody else. That’s
what they do and that’s what he’s doing.”
“The truth of the matter is that politicians may take different positions on issues
based on political realities,” agrees Steffen Schmidt, a political science
professor at Iowa State University. “Does that make them bad or cynical or
corrupt or whatever? The answer is no,” says Schmidt, who notes that Democrat
Sen. Hillary Clinton has moved to the center on a number of issues as she
warms up for a White House bid. Likewise, Schmidt notes McCain’s about-face
on his past opposition to federal ethanol subsidies, which is perceived to be part
of his effort to woo voters in the crucial primary state of Iowa, where production of
the corn-based fuel is revitalizing the farm economy. “That’s the nature of
electoral politics, is that you have to fine tune and finesse your positions and
that’s the case with Mitt Romney.”
But Schmidt concedes that once the Republican contenders roll up their sleeves
and start throwing punches, position changes become an obstacle. “Especially
on social issues,” he says. Indeed, it’s easier to imagine explaining a shift on an
economic/energy issue like ethanol than it is to articulate why you’ve gone from
supporting a program to reduce to teen suicide to opposing such a program, or
why you now believe that it’s okay for people to be fired from their jobs because
they’re gay. But if Romney is going to succeed in winning the presidency with the
support of the GOP’s right wing, it’s hard to imagine him signing the employment
non-discrimination act into law (ENDA), even though he’s pledged support for it
in the past.
Indeed, the challenge for Romney will be to come up with a believable narrative
to justify his backtracking on LGBT issues. Political candidates who change their
minds on issues “have to have some kind of compelling story for why their ideas
have changed over time,” says Dean Spiliotes, the director of research at St.
Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, otherwise they’re accused
of being opportunists or flip-floppers.
“It’s a tricky thing to deal with as a politician, particularly for Romney because this
wasn’t all that long ago,” says Spiliotes. “We’re talking about stuff that he said
basically 10 years ago [and] back in 2002. I think it’s pretty clear that he feels at
some level he sees an opportunity. You can decide whether you want to question
whether he truly is a conservative who adapted his positions to be elected in
Massachusetts and now is reverting to his earlier ideological position, or whether
he’s evolving towards being more socially conservative because he sees that as
being what he needs to do to outflank some of the other Republican candidates.
“There are all sort of interesting explanations for why candidates do this kind of
stuff,” Spiliotes observes, “but it really opens him up to a lot of scrutiny.”
Romney weathered some criticism last year for his past expressions of support
for gay rights from right-wing activist Gary Glenn of the American Family
Association of Michigan after Bay Windows published an article detailing the
governor’s record of pro-gay stances after Romney began making appearances
in front of conservative audiences and railing against civil marriage rights for
same-sex couples. (See “Mitt Romney’s Secret Gay History,” March 3, 2005.)
Glenn mailed a copy of the article and a letter blasting Romney for being too
liberal on gay rights and abortion to GOP state senators in advance of Romney’s
appearance at a fundraiser for the Michigan Republican Party.
Other than that, however, his previous record on LGBT issues has largely gone
unexamined by mainstream media outlets, even as he crisscrosses the country
wooing the GOP’s right-wing base and portraying himself, as he recently did
during an interview with the D.C. newspaper The Examiner as “a conservative
Republican,” who differs on a number of issues — including same-sex marriage
— with his more moderate potential rivals, Ariz. Sen. John McCain and former
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Romney has been content to flog his opposition
to marriage equality from the steps of the State House to CNN’s The Situation
Room, while saying little else about his positions on other LGBT issues.
Appearing on The Situation Room in October, for instance, Romney repeatedly
dodged host Wolf Blitzer’s inquiries into whether he supported the right of samesex couples to adopt children; at one point he responded to Blitzer’s questioning
with the noncommittal, “Well, that’s a state-by-state issue.” When Blitzer
persisted, Romney launched into an explanation of the need for a federal
constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
But as Romney’s tenure on Beacon Hill draws to a close his record on LGBT
issues will get a much closer vetting, especially given the reputation he’s built
among social conservatives on the issue of gay marriage. It seems that some,
particularly the governor’s hard-right supporters, might be surprised at what’s
found.