Posted on 08/07/2012 6:36:10 AM PDT by xzins
A spokesperson for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has advised that the former Massachusetts governor disagrees with the Boy Scout’s current policy prohibiting open homosexuals from serving as members and leaders.
According to The Associated Press, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told the news outlet in an email that Romney still stands by his beliefs that homosexual men should be able to serve in the organization. She specifically noted that Romney had outlined his views in 1994 during a political debate, and that his stance has not changed.
“I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue,” Romney stated during the debate. “I feel that all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.”
As previously reported, last month, the Boy Scouts of America issued a statement reaffirming its policy prohibiting open homosexuals from joining the organization.
“The committee’s work and conclusion is that this policy reflects the beliefs and perspectives of the BSA’s members, thereby allowing Scouting to remain focused on its mission and the work it is doing to serve more youth,” the statement said. “The review included forthright and candid conversation and extensive research and evaluations — both from within Scouting and from outside of the organization.”
The decision to reiterate and reaffirm the Scout’s current policy followed two years of deliberations from an eleven-member committee comprised of Boy Scout executives and other volunteers who represented “a diversity of perspectives and opinions.”
When all was said and done, the committee concluded that the restriction served as “the best policy” for the Boy Scouts.
The current policy reads, “While the BSA does not proactively inquire about the sexual orientation of employees, volunteers, or members, we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA.”
Mitt Romney also recently reiterated his support for homosexual adoption. This past May, in an interview with Neil Cavuto of Fox News, he explained that while he is against the concept of homosexual “marriage,” he does believe that homosexual couples should be able to adopt children.
“[I]f two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, or even to adopt a child, in my state, individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children. In my view, that’s something that people have a right to do,” Romney outlined. “But, to call that ‘marriage’ is something that in my view is a departure from the real meaning of that word.”
He had first outlined his position on the matter in 1996 while talking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“Well, they are able to adopt children,” he said. “I’m not going to change that.”
Prior to Saul serving as Romney’s press secretary, Richard Grenell, an open homosexual, filled the position.
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Really, folks, nobody can vote for a guy like that.
This is some some sort of clown show you've put on and in the end the clowns will rip off their clothes and become something else ~ what, nobody will admit.
Christie is not conservative.
So it's better for conservatism to just hand the presidency to the democrats, rather than elect a republican who would then be beholden to conservatives if he hopes to be re-elected? Sorry, but that logic escapes me.
Romney has an established record of advancing and promoting every single major liberal agenda, from state-run health care to activist judges to global warming regulation.
He was a figurehead governor, presiding over a legislature that was 80% democrat. And BTW, MA has Bill Weld to thank for advancing those special "gay" rights. Bill was admired by the dems at the state house because he was so liberal. Those same dems didn't like Romney very much.
Perhaps Romney might have ruled by executive order as Obama does, but that wouldn't have gone over very well in MA.
We know how the first one worked out.
Yes we do. We have an anti-American subversive in the White House, caught on an open mike whispering deals with the Russians. Everything else aside, at least Romney is a real American.
Look, if he was into borderline personality disorder that'd be something much more definable I guess ~ and far less destructive, but I see now signs of borderline.
These guys have no sense of what security is about or where you need it. No sense at all.
Seems to be a serious problem with both Obama and Romney.
Time to fight a straight candidate, or maybe two.
That is a false dichotomy. The answer never was Obama or Romney, it was and is; truth or lies, freedom or slavery. The GOPe set this up, and YOU and people like you are enabling it. NOT ONE conservative vote for Mitt the Lesser,and the problem of the GOPe force-feeding Conservative Americans this crap sandwich every four years solves itself. I won’t enable my opressors.
I know he isn't, L J.
That is why I posted "someone like Christie".
The primaries are over, and Obama and Romney are the only two left standing.
In regard to oppression:
Obama is oppressing the Catholic Church; Romney filed a bill to protect the rights of Catholic Charities.
Obama passed his healthcare monstrosity; Romney has pledged to repeal it.
Obama is a racist and Romney is not.
Obama is anti-American, and Romney is not.
Obama is an economy wrecker, while Romney possesses the economic expertise to repair the damage Obama has wrought.
Neither candidate would be my choice if I were king and could decide who to put on the ballot, but given the playing field we've been presented with, Obama fits my definition of an oppressor more than any other candidate who ran in the primaries or is presently left standing.
And BTW, I agree with you completely; voting against oppression is the most critical consideration at this juncture in our nation's history.
“Of course, Romney has strengths. How do you think he has succeeded in business, in politics, with the Olympics.”
In business he was a vulture capitalist...he was not the creator of anything. He doesn’t fit my definition of a good businessman.
In politics.....I can’t even believe this is being discussed, from a conservative viewpoint, he was a terrible governor. He was pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, a gun grabber, and a big government statist. Plus, he is the real architect of the OBAMACARE...and ROMNEYCARE has been a FAILURE in Mass. It is incredible that you would be so foolish to list his political record as a “strength.” Only a democrate would see what he did as a strength.
On the olympics....but whoop. Does that really matter? What does that have to do with running a country? NADA!
Also, you make the assinine comment:
“You are in serious denial, and in that posture, you not only hurt Romney—which is obviously part of your intention;—but hurt the ability of all of us to win over those who have bought into the Leftwing social dogma that is undermining America.”
ROMNEY IS PART OF THE LEFT-WING SOCIALIST AGENDA. You are in denial, not me. Having an (R) behind your name does not make you worthy to be POTUS...or to even be the candidate representing the GOP. He doesn’t represent 90% of the party, just the GOP East Coast Country Club Establishment. The reason he has the nomination. He doens’t remotely represent the values of the Party’s base...not remotely.
“Romney is not even 1/100th as bad as the Kenyan.”
Your calculator is broken. Romney, in his own ways, is just as bad as Obama. IF you think he is going to rescue this country’s economy....you are seriously deranged.
Get the moral/social issues right, and the economic issues will fall into place. Romney is wrong, wrong, wrong on moral/social issues, and to make matters worse, he pretends to be a moral/social conservative.
Really? So you're saying it's easy to understand why a man would support and pander to sodomites the way he always has and still does?
‘Mitt Romney’s Deception’ and the homosexual lobby
By Matt C. Abbott
I know, I know — no politician is perfect. Heck, none of us is perfect, obviously. Far from it.
That said, the main thing that bothers me about GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney — no, it’s not his affiliation with Mormonism, although you should take a look at RenewAmerica.com president and editor Stephen Stone’s new e-book A Mormon Story: Authoritarianism Knows No Bounds (click here) — is his seemingly cozy relationship with the homosexual lobby, as evidenced in the book Mitt Romney’s Deception: His Stealth Promotion of ‘Gay Rights’ and ‘Gay Marriage’ in Massachusetts, authored by pro-family activist Amy Contrada.
Thanks to Ms. Contrada for allowing me to publish the following excerpts (sans endnotes) from her book. For more information about, and to order, Ms. Contrada’s book, click here.
Excerpts from Mitt Romney’s Deception
The Catholic Charities adoption fiasco is a prime example of Romney’s inaction (while he postured as acting for the good), and of his expertise in covering his tracks.
In 2005, the Boston Globe revealed that Catholic Charities of Boston had placed a small number of special-needs children with homosexual couples for adoption. The Archdiocese of Boston responded in early 2006, stating it would no longer place children with homosexual couples (as the Church considers homosexuality “gravely immoral”). A media storm quickly followed.
Responding to charges that it was illegally discriminating against homosexuals, the Archdiocese then asked the state to grant a religious exemption to Catholic Charities, but the Legislature balked. Existing Massachusetts non-discrimination laws referencing “sexual orientation” plus “legal gay marriage” would not allow the Church to follow its moral precepts, it was claimed.
Governor Romney said his hands were tied by the law, the Legislature’s refusal to act, and the Supreme Court ruling which had forced same-sex marriage on the state. All he could do was to file a bill to “protect religious freedom” in Massachusetts, specifically targeting the laws covering adoption, and hope for the best. The Legislature then killed his bill, and the Church had to end its adoption services in order not to violate its own tenets. But Romney had done all he could for religious freedom!
But that’s not exactly what happened. In fact, Romney erroneously blamed the Church’s predicament on non-existent law and could have rescinded the administrative regulations that would not let Catholic Charities deny placement of children with homosexual couples. Romney also failed to point out that religious freedom was already protected in both the state and federal constitutions. The Archdiocese could have fought this in court but did not — perhaps out of fear of losing major donors with liberal views (who were well represented on Catholic Charities’ board). In the end, the homosexual activists and their allies got their way, and it was another public whipping for the Catholic Church — all of which Romney could have prevented.
Romney falsely claimed the law required Catholic Charities to place children with homosexual couples
This story is significant because it lays bare Romney’s hypocrisy and self-contradiction. He simultaneously accepted homosexuality and laws or policies banning discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation,” yet blamed those very laws or policies for threatening “religious freedom.” If he understood that conflict in March 2006, how could he ever have supported laws banning discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation”? (It is unclear whether he still supports such laws; see Chapter II.) Did he (and does he) not see how they set up conflicts with basic constitutional rights?
Romney blamed Massachusetts law for the problem. But there is no overarching law in Massachusetts concerning “sexual orientation” discrimination. The phrase “sexual orientation” appears in only certain specific Massachusetts statutes (signed into law by Democrat Governor Michael Dukakis in 1989). In any case, these statutes do not trump freedom of religion, constitutionally protected both the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution.
One could even question Romney’s motives. He had said in 2003 that he favored “adoptive parent rights” for same-sex couples, but on many other instances tried to sidestep that question. In a clear statement at the height of the Catholic Charities adoption story, he said that same-sex couples have “a legitimate interest” in adopting children...
C. J. Doyle, head of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts — long-time insider and fearless truth-teller in the world of Massachusetts politics — had a rich understanding of this complex story. He explained on the MassResistance radio show (WTTT Boston) on March 25, 2006:
‘Governor Romney is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to go around the country and tell evangelicals and Catholics and pro-lifers and pro-family people that he supports religious freedom without having any kind of actual political downside here for the Republican Party in Massachusetts. From everything we’ve been able to understand about this, this is not a statute, this is not a law, this anti-discrimination provision, it’s nothing but a CMR, a Commonwealth of Mass. Regulation.
‘And because of your excellent research, Brian [Camenker of MassResistance], we’ve confirmed that. This is a regulation that was promulgated, we believe, in September of 1997 that prohibits so-called sexual orientation from being used as any kind of a litmus test in adoptions. Apparently this was done by the Department of Early Education, which is the licensing agency for adoption agencies here in Massachusetts.
‘There is no statute, there is no act of the Legislature, there is no act in resolve of the General Court, it’s a regulation promulgated by a bureaucrat, by an executive agency. ‘And a regulation that is promulgated by an executive agency can be rescinded by executive order. And that’s precisely what the governor is not doing. He can simply rescind this by executive order. Instead, he’s proposing a new law. Now this, of course, this has somewhere between slim and no chance at all of getting through the Legislature at all given its current composition. The Massachusetts General Court, our Legislature, is dominated by special interests. And one of the most powerful special interest right now is the homosexual community.
‘And our legislators, a majority of them are nominally Catholic, are far more afraid of political reprisals from homosexuals than they are of political reprisals from the Catholic Church. Romney is saying we need a law, knowing full well that that law stands virtually no chance whatsoever of being passed, while he’s avoiding taking the obvious and logical and expedient step, which is to simply repeal it by executive order....
‘Our attorneys [Massachusetts Catholic Conference] have told us the same thing, if it’s promulgated by an executive agency; an executive order can repeal this. So we have the governor filing a bill which he knows has no chance whatsoever of being passed, and then going on about how he wants to support religious freedom, while avoiding taking the hard, necessary, controversial but obvious step in protecting religious freedom which is rescinding this by executive order....
‘And I’m afraid that the Bishops and the Catholic Charities really threw in the towel without a fight. This has been a serious defeat for religious freedom. They’ve withdrawn from the adoption business.... Everyone knew all along that Romney was not going to do anything by executive order. There were no votes in the Legislature. The only way to fight this was to litigate it. And frankly I think they stood a very good chance, not only under the free exercise clause of the U.S. Constitution, but under Article 2 of the Declaration of Rights of the Massachusetts Constitution.... And they simply threw in the towel. And this talk about an exemption is entirely PR.
‘Now the rumor that we’re hearing is that Catholic Charities was very, very concerned that a prolonged legal battle — a protracted legal conflict — would adversely impact their major donor fundraising and would particularly adversely impact contributions from large corporations. Now many of these corporations, under pressure from homosexual activists, have signed a pledge not to contribute to any organization which ‘discriminates’ against homosexuals, like the Boy Scouts. So they were worried about losing major donor funds and corporate funds....
‘The opponents of religious freedom never start by assaulting the right to worship, frontally, to assault the right to worship on Sunday morning. They start by trying to marginalize the charitable, restrict the charitable and the educational and the social service activities of churches, and try to narrow the parameters of religious liberty. This is what we’re seeing here in Massachusetts....
‘In this case, it speaks to the insincerity of Catholic Charities in terms of seriously wanting to find an exemption. I think they were quite willing to allow the governor to be disingenuous with them because they really didn’t want to continue this fight....
‘It’s very important to point out that the jurisprudence of both the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has always understood that religious freedom consists in more than simply the liberty to worship. It consists in the right to act in accordance with one’s religiously formed conscience....
‘Imagine you’re handing over children to two effeminate men who sodomize one another. Isn’t there any issue of moral turpitude here? And they will drag the children to their gay rights rallies and use them as props in their propaganda plays on same-sex marriage and other things.
‘It should be pointed out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is ‘grave depravity.’ The Catholic religion has always taught that homosexual relations are intrinsically immoral; they’re contrary to natural law. In Catholic tradition, the sin of impurity against nature comes right after willful murder as one of the sins that cries out the heaven for vengeance, so this is something the Catholic religion has always unequivocally condemned.’
Pertinent links:
MassResistance!
Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
Americans for Truth
‘Distinctive Beliefs of the Mormon Church’
‘Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons’ (Vatican document)
‘Gay Marriage’
© Matt C. Abbott
Meant to add the link. Info was also posted on Free Republic.
http://www.rightwingnews.com/column-2/romney-contributed-10000-to-radical-gay-group/
Xzins, take a look at what katie posted. Horrible.
That's a given. Meanwhile we have an election in a few weeks.
So, not vote at all—Hussein wins. Vote third party—Hussein wins. GET 0BAMA OUT NOW AND get conservatives in the senate and house also.
I can respect what you’re saying in as far as we’ve been served this mess as a “choice” by those who would not stoop to socialize with us useless eaters. God the Creator is my only king, and I have sworn no fealty to them. My vows are to God, the constitution (as written and understood in plain lanuage) and those few I have undertaken to protect and defend. My question for you is: If the republican party is successful in getting Romney elected, with the help of ABO voters, what do you really expect to be served by your “betters” as a choice in 2020? Comprimise with immorality gives away that which cannot be replaced. “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36
That's it in a nutshell.
“So, not vote at all—Hussein wins. Vote third party—Hussein wins. GET 0BAMA OUT NOW AND get conservatives in the senate and house also.”
NO, NO, NO....Romney is NO BETTER THAN OBAMA and MAY BE MORE DANGEROUS FOR CONSERVATISM IN THE LONG RUN. We must stop worrying about this election for POTUS...it is a no-win scenario. A strong conservative congress WILL keep Obama in check....however they won’t be able to keep Romney is check because of “party loyalty” when he moves left - which he WILL. Plus, Romney’s election will hurt us in congressional elections in 2014.
NO, the best course of action is to solely focus on getting conservatives elected to House and Senate this fall and in 2014. We should punt on this election for POTUS and NOT support Romney....our focus should be on 2016 NOW to ensure a real conservative gets elected. Voting for Romney is to vote for more of the same as him. Congress can and will keep Obama in check after the election...or they will impeach and convict him if he continues to urinate on the COTUS. Romney will also urinate on it, but WILL NOT BE OPPOSED BY THE GOP...which will be disasterous to conservatism and the country. Romney is a serious disaster.
Obama works to unite us...we just need the RIGHT candidate to run...Romney IS NOT THE RIGHT PERSON. It is a serious mistake to vote for him....even out of fear of Obama.
General Petraeus, sounds good to me.
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