Posted on 01/21/2008 11:32:31 PM PST by maui_hawaii
I hear of the tag 'flip flop' being assigned to Mitt Romney by certain groups of people.
What I want to do is pick one (for this example) of where these people who make this charge are incorrect. In doing so, I will respond to that caller who called in to Rush yesterday and wanted Rush to tell her 'where is the record of Mitt's conservatism'.
I will answer her and all others in the process.
Now for facts. Mitt was running in a very liberal state that is friendly to gays and in fact is the hotbed of gay activism.
In the course of the several elections these gay activists were openly hostile to Republicans, and in particular a Mormon Republican.
For those who are unfamiliar with the background, the LDS Church, in one of the few times ever in history to do so, came out publicly and campaigned against gay marriage. In gay politics, Mormons are despised because they enrolled so many people and bankrolled and fought against the redefinition of family.
I remember even going door to door asking people to fight for traditional families.
Gay political extremists knew the LDS position on the matter and in their deluded kind of way tried to paint Mitt as a proactive gay hater. They did the same with the LDS church as a whole.
They got so extreme in their accusations that they were making claims that Mitt and Mormons advocated violence against gays and things like that.
So, what resulted was Mitt took a position that has never changed. He took a classy approach and did not lose his cool under fire.
What was that approach? Love the sinner but not the sin.
He said gays should not be persecuted, or have violence directed at them. He said gays had the right to live in peace. Life Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.
If they are two consenting adults and they happen to be gay, a public position cannot be to advocate extreme behavior against them. That being said, Mitt also said, while they can be gay all they want in their own homes, they are not, and should not have special treatment as the gay lobby was hoping for. The gay group wanted to redefine marriage so they are 'equal'...
Mitt gave a classy, but firm answer. Live in peace and do your thing if you must, but we are not redefining marriage--- and you (meaning the gay lobby) cannot accuse him of being an extreme right wing gay hater. That position is simply not true.
Mitt's position in a nutshell was, "no we do not approve of your lifestyle, but we will not do two things. 1. Persecute IE advocate violence against gays (as was the accusations) 2. Give them special rights and redefine marriage.
Can you see where he drew the line? I can.
While all this was going on, court cases were in the works and the gay lobby had summarily been put on their collective butts by Mitt Romney. Basically he inferred in no unqualified terms that they should grow up and that their extreme politics don't work.
"You won't let us be gay and be married so that means you are going to send the troops to bash us all in the head like a bunch of baby seals!"....stuff like that... Mitt exposed that for what it was. Hysterical politics aimed squarely at conservative values.
This group then got a victory in that a court case was unilaterally decided to redefine marriage. The gay lobby could not win in the legislature and they definitely couldn't win with the governor... so they got a fiat win in court as to how marriage is defined.
In short order not only was Mitt fighting this group, but he was in fact a leader in the fight for a constitutional ammendment for traditional marriage.
Look at the record. He was testifying for such from the get go and even in front of the Senate.
Mitt tried to disarm a hostile lobbying group, and the result was they got more hostile. You want to know why the MSM hates Mitt? Because he smoothly told them to screw off with their BS extreme politics. Because Mitt was standing his ground, the gay lobby went around him---and everyone else--- to get to their desired outcome.
People here are trying to make the case that Mitt is pro gay--- not so. His position has been clear and consistent. He recognizes that gays are going to exist and that there should not be violence against them. At the same time, their lifestyle should not be enshrined in law. Alternative lifestyle it is, and alternative lifestyle it will remain.
Where is the flip? There is none. Problem is you have people wanting to cherry pick what they want to selectively hear.
Thank you. I bet your candidate agrees with that as well.
We should all oppose discrimination against a person based on their sexual preference.
Oddly, no. IN fact, there is no question about being gay even on the adult volunteer form.
There are clauses that could cover it, but not directly.
That will be another topic, but he already has come around, as I’ve showed and you’ve acknowledged, but then you keep posting this old information.
June 22, 2004
“Preserving Traditional Marriage: A View from the States”
Testimony of Governor Mitt Romney Before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
Mr. Chairman, Senator Leahy, Senator Kennedy, distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for asking me to join you today.
First, I ask that my written remarks be inserted into the record of this hearing.
You have asked for my perspectives on the recent inauguration of same sex marriage in my state. 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.
Given the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Congress and Americanow face important questions regarding the institution of marriage. Should we abandon marriage as we know it and as it was known by the framers of our constitution?
Has America been wrong about marriage for 200 plus years?
Were generations that spanned thousands of years from all the civilizations of the world wrong about marriage?
Are the philosophies and teachings of all the world’s major religions simply wrong?
Or is it more likely that four people among the seven that sat in a court in Massachusetts have erred? I believe that is the case.
And I believe their error was the product of seeing only a part, and not the entirety. They 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. If heterosexual adults can marry, then homosexual adults must also marry to have equal rights.
But marriage is not solely 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.
Of course, even today, circumstances can take a parent from the home, but the child still has a mother and a father. If the parents are divorced, the child can visit each of them. If a mother or father is deceased, the child can learn about the qualities of the departed. His or her psychological development can still be influenced by the contrasting features of both genders.
Are we ready to usher in a society indifferent about having fathers and mothers? Will our children be indifferent about having a mother and a father?
My Department of Public Health has asked whether we must re-write our state birth certificates to conform to our Court’s same-sex marriage ruling. Must we remove “father” and “mother” and replace them with “parent A” and “parent B?”
What should be the ideal for raising a child: not a village, not “parent A” and “parent B,” but a mother and a father.
Marriage is about even more than children and adults. The family unit is the structural underpinning of all successful societies. And, it is the single-most powerful force that preserves society across generations, through centuries.
Scientific studies of children raised by same sex couples are almost non-existent. And the societal implications and effects on these children are not likely to be observed for at least a generation, probably several generations. Same sex marriage doesn’t hurt my marriage, or yours. But it may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole. Until we understand the implications for human development of a different definition of marriage, I believe we should preserve that which has endured over thousands of years.
Preserving the definition of marriage should not infringe on the right of individuals to live in the manner of their choosing. One person may choose to live as a single, even to have and raise her own child. Others may choose to live in same sex partnerships or civil arrangements. There is an unshakeable majority of opinion in this country that we should cherish and protect individual rights with tolerance and understanding.
But there is a difference between individual rights and marriage. An individual has rights, but a man and a woman together have a marriage. We should not deconstruct marriage simply to make a statement about the rights of individual adults. Forcing marriage to mean all things, will ultimately define marriage to mean nothing at all.
Some have asked why so much importance is attached to the word “marriage.” It is because changing the definition of marriage to include same sex unions will lead to further far-reaching changes that also would influence the development of our children. For example, school textbooks and classroom instruction may be required to assert absolute societal indifference between traditional marriage and same sex practice. It is inconceivable that promoting absolute indifference between heterosexual and homosexual unions would not significantly effect child development, family dynamics, and societal structures.
Among the structures that would be affected would be religious and certain charitable institutions. Those with scriptural or other immutable founding principles will be castigated. Ultimately, some may founder. We need more from these institutions, not less, and particularly so to support and strengthen those in greatest need. Society can ill afford further erosion of charitable and virtuous institutions.
For these reasons, I join with those who support a federal constitutional amendment. Some retreat from the concept of amendment, per se. While they say they agree with the traditional definition of marriage, they hesitate to amend. But amendment is a vital and necessary aspect of our constitutional democracy, not an aberration.
The constitution’s framers recognized that any one of the three branches of government might overstep its separated powers. If Congress oversteps, the Court can intervene. If the Executive overreaches, Congress may impeach. And if the Court launches beyond the constitution, the legislative branch may amend.
The four Massachusetts justices launched beyond our constitution. That is why the Massachusetts legislature has begun the lengthy amendment process.
There is further cause for amendment. Our framers debated nothing more fully than they debated the reach and boundaries of what we call federalism. States retained certain powers upon which the federal government could not infringe. By the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, our state has begun to assert power over all the other states. It is a state infringing on the powers of other states.
In Massachusetts, we have a law that attempts to restrain this infringement on other states by restricting marriages of out-of-state couples to those where no impediment to marry exists in their home state. Even with this law, valid same sex marriages will migrate to other states. For each state to preserve its own power in relation to marriage, within the principle of Federalism, a federal amendment to define marriage is necessary.
This is not a mere political issue. It is more than a matter of adult rights. It is a societal issue. It encompasses the preservation of a structure that has formed the basis of all known successful civilizations.
With a matter as vital to society as marriage, I am troubled when I see an intolerant few wrap the marriage debate with their bias and prejudice.
I am also troubled by those on the other side of the issue who equate respect for traditional marriage with intolerance. The majority of Americans believe marriage is between a man and a woman, but they are also firmly committed to respect, and even fight for civil rights, individual freedoms and tolerance. Saying otherwise is wrong, demeaning and offensive. As a society, we must be able to recognize the salutary effect, for children, of having a mother and a father while at the same time respecting the civil rights and equality of all citizens.
Thank you.
###
That's why threads like this are so useful, because anybody reading this thread will see, well, a bunch of people who refuse to discuss the charge and have to run off making lots of other charges instead.
I’m a member of the republican party, and I don’t agree with them all the time. I’m a member of Free Republic, and I don’t agree with the official positions all the time.
So yes, I join organizations I don’t agree with entirely.
That is incorrect. The court ruled that the terms "man" and "woman" were not explicitly gender-related, and therefore had to be interpreted as "person". They further ruled that all people party to the lawsuit, and all people similarly situated, were granted relief under the ruling.
They then stayed the ruling for six months to give the legislature time to fix the law if they wanted to, to make it explicit that "man" meant male and "woman" meant female.
The legislature did not take them up on the offer, because the legislature, by a wide majority, supported gay marriage (so much so that in the end we couldn't get 50 votes to put an amendment on the ballot).
In fact, I suggest that those who want to bring up other topics, just let them. We’ll address those other topics elsewhere with appropriate titles.
My only suggestion is that for the next title, make it a positive title and include the specific topic, so searching finds it. Your title here opened the thread to hijacking because it didn’t specifically mention the topic.
But it is virtually impossible to find an attorney or law professor who has checked the Massachusetts Constitution and it is utterly impossible to find one that has done due diligence in uncovering the huge body of the Supreme Judicial Court's own previous decisions that the Goodridge court violated. A large part of this might be attributed to intellectual laziness. But it goes much deeper. And unless we take this monster head on, we will have Goodridge rulings as far as the eye can see.
So they claim that NOBODY could miss it, and then say the reason nobody has actually FOUND it is that NOBODY has bothered to look at all. This in rebuttal to a legal team's corrections based on READING the constitution and the case law.
To assert that, on the siminal ruling of the decade, NOT ONE LAWYER bothered to even look at the constitution, is so self-evidently laughable that it shocks me that people of sound judgment would make the claim.
BTW, their argument is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy. They say that any lawyer who reads the thing would obviously agree with them. To refute that claim, we show them a lawyer who disagrees with them, and they then argue "No lawyer as read it".
Sorry, the legal opinions of those who argue against Romney are flawed. If it was so clear, a lawsuit against Romney for issuing marriage licenses would have been successful. We have an entire country full of pro-marriage lawyers who would take such a case pro-bono if there was ANY chance of success.
“Thank you. I bet your candidate agrees with that as well.
We should all oppose discrimination against a person based on their sexual preference.”
My concern is that thee laws can creat specially ‘protected’ classes of people where in fact they don’t get hired in the first place, because they can become impossible to fire.
The Freakonomics guy, Levitt, wrote about the effect the Americans with Disabilities Act has had in actually hurting the disabled, for example.
NO, actually, he didn’t START them until the 180-day period expired.
He did oppose it, and tried to go to court to stop it. However, Mass. does NOT allow the governor to represent the state in court, only the AG, and the AG refused to take the case. The AG does not report to the Governor.
No one is a flip flopper more than John McKennedy. What he is saying on the campaign trail is completely counter to what he has done in the Senate. He voted twice against the Bush tax cuts, and NOW he wants to make them permanent????
The McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill, and now he says he is against amnesty? LOL LOL
Let us realize the REAL flipper in all this. It isn’t Mitt.
Tom McClintock recently ran for Lt. Governor of a state every bit as liberal as MA. If he had won (he came within 4%), would that have disqualified him as a Conservative in your mind? Would that have disqualified him as a Republican nominee for national office? Should Massachusetts be abandoned by the Republicans and not contested at all? Which is more important to Right wing Republicans in MA, getting some of their agenda passed and some braking on the dominant Libs, or ideological purity that achieves nothing?
He probably is not aware of it because it is not true.
He was born and raised in Michigan. He then lived in Mass.
He did essentially live in Utah for 3 years when he worked on the Olympics. He does have a house in Park City.
No, he didn’t.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe Mitt Romney became a fan of Ronald Reagans after dealing with a very liberal and politically correct state like Massachusetts? It makes sense to me, I don’t care when a person became a fan, as long as they eventually get it. Some of the best spokespeople for the conservatism have been former liberals. Just the same, Mitt never was a liberal anyways, that is all misrepresentation by those who have other motivations.
He lived in Mass for most of his adult life. He had only lived in Utah for a few years.
ANd he could do a lot more good for his home state of Ma. than he would have done for Utah, because Ma. needed a lot more help.
THanks to Romney, gun owners got a much better deal. More on topic, thanks to Romney, we had a SHOT at a gay marriage amendment, and at least gay marriage was restricted to Massachusetts residents.
When talking about flip-floppers you are comparing against Romney, the guy who said;
a) He and his father marched with Martin Luther King
b) He “saw” his father march with Marting Luther King
c) Depends on your definition of what “saw” is ...
d) All of the above
If you answered (d) you are correct. The guy lied and kept changing the lie until he came up with the Clintonian “depends what the definition of is is”
Holy flip-floppers Batman!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.