Posted on 07/13/2011 9:46:12 AM PDT by delacoert
Mitt Romney did the right thing by rejecting a social conservative group’s repulsive “marriage pledge.” Will he explain his reasoning?
As Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum bent over backward to endorse a right wing document pledging allegiance to conservative values, the Romney campaign says that while their candidate supports “traditional marriage,” he finds some of the pledge’s “references and provisions [to be] undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign.”
The pledge, put out last week by right wing activist Bob Vander Plaats and his group, The Family Leader, reads like a hit list on American freedoms.
One of the document’s many demands prohibits all forms of pornography, which, according to the Family Leader, leads to “stolen innocence.” Elsewhere, candidates must vow to fight “Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control,” and to support “robust childbearing.”
Yet another bullet point demands that candidates “[fiercely defend] the First Amendment’s rights of religious liberty and freedom of speech, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.”
Anyone who fights for LGBT rights, then, becomes an automatic enemy of the state.
Romney’s disavowal of the marriage pledge shows that he’s moving away from social conservatives — a group that wouldn’t support a Mormon candidate, anyway — and focusing on economics.
That’s clearly a wise choice: the governor has a long, long record of flip-flopping on social issues.
For instance, in 1994, while running for governor, Romney claimed that he would be an advocate for gay rights. “We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” he wrote to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group.
When it came time to run for president in 2008, however, Romney changed his tune to appease the Republican Party’s conservative base. Now he’s moving away from such rabid right wing politics, and clearly hopes to rise above the homophobic drama that is currently complicating Bachmann’s White House run.
That’s good, right? Yes, it is: congrats to Romney for rejecting hateful politics.
But his campaign’s explanation still leaves many questions, like what parts of the document does Romney find “undignified”? Is it the vow to be loyal to his wife? Is it the disgracefully un-American attack on Muslim people? Is it the questionable claim that married people have better sex?
If Romney truly wants to take the moral high ground on the Family Leader’s pledge, he’ll actually spell out why he finds the marriage pledge “inappropriate” and set his opponents straight on what qualifies as dignified and what does not.
But, alas, that’s probably asking too much from a millionaire business man who once tried to court voters by saying, “I’m also unemployed.” Because for Romney, everything is a calculation, and he rarely shows his work.
He was NEVER there Charlie. The guy is a social ib, fiscal conservative - sort of.
We have a plague of them hereabouts in New Jersey.
RE: Mitt Romney Rejects Iowa Marriage Pledge, But Why?
Here is where Romney’s Mormonism might come into play.
Remember, quite a number of Mormons still believe that Polygamy should be considered legal (their prophet, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had dozens of wives).
Utah had to reject Polygamy in order to be accepted into the United States. Now, with the advent of Gay marriage, it might be time for a few Polygamists to “test” the marriage waters.
They should tell Bob Vanderplaats; “ I don't sign pledges for various groups. You can see how I live my life and judge me that way.”
Vanderplaats is just trying to insert himself and make his group relevant.
Why would Mormons accept a candidate that does disavowal? Oh right the same reason any other candidate besides Romney and Huntsman have a snowball chance in Hell of winning the Utah primary.
Billy Sunday and the prohibition amendment campaign.
Mitt Romney saw how McCain succeeded in 2008 by getting Democrats to vote for him in the primaries. Mitt is copying this. Mitt is going for the Democrat& independents votes in the Republican primaries. He is also going after all non-right wing republican voters in the primaries. Mitt has written off people like me and other freepers
Because it’s sophomoric?
Response: Perhaps his well coiffed hair gives us a hint??
Because he has always favored abortion and gay marriage. He supported both while he was governor of Taxachusetts.
He has to have a political suicide wish. That’s the only explanation. So far he has endorsed Global Warming, refused to endorse traditional marriage and is real slippery on cutting spending. He’s running as a moderate. I don’t see where the votes are for that. But in any event, I’m happy he is. It shows what a tool he is—more flip flops on an already huge mountain of flip flops.
Well, Romney just put another nickel in his "15 Minutes" meter.
Besides, he’s from a long line of polygamists and qualifies as a Mormon aristocrat (great-great grandson of one of Smith’s “apostles,” Parley Pratt).
His grandparents fled to Chihuahua, Mexico to flee the anti-polygamy laws adopted in Utah.
Willard has heard all the stories. They are part of his heritage.
Well he just wants to put his foot in the door for polygamy. It is every Mormon’s dream to have as many children as he can for when God gives him his own planet to rule over upon death. The more kids he has, the more power he can wield! I mean, you’ve just got to sympathize with the guy. /s
It’s no surprise... Mittens is a big fat liberal and always has been.
God help us if he is the GOP nominee.
Progressive Republicans are the only creatures on earth who are more liberal than liberal Democrats.
These pledges are asinine and Bachmann clearly didn't do "due diligence" before signing off. Another example of her "leadership."
True.
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