Posted on 08/09/2007 8:09:53 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
My information on Mitt Romney comes from multiple sources. However, the primary source is Mitt Romney himself. If a person expends the energy to follow his multitude of rhetorical contortions, it’s obvious that this man can’t be trusted by anyone, on the left or the right.
"A new law to make emergency contraception more available in Massachusetts continues to be a political rollercoaster for Governor Mitt Romney. He supported expanded access when campaigning for governor, but vetoed a bill expanding access, earlier this year. The bill then passed over his veto. Earlier this week, the governor sought to exempt Catholic and other private hospitals from having to offer 'morning after pills' to rape victims. Then yesterday, he reversed his position." - WBUR Radio, Boston, 12/9/2005
“I don’t really understand how it works or when it works but my understanding is it’s an effective morning after pill and I think it would be a positive thing to have women have the choice of taking morning-after pills….I would favor having it available.”
- Boston Herald, 5/19/1994
“Romney has decided to support experimentation on surplus frozen embryos from in-vitro fertilization procedures.”
- National Review Online 2/11/2005
During the 2002 governor’s race, Romney’s platform stated, “As Governor, Mitt Romney would protect the current pro-choice status quo in Massachusetts. No law would change. The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government’s.”
- Romney’s 2002 campaign website
“Romney, a Republican and the former Winter Olympics chief, was endorsed by the New York-based Republican Pro-Choice Coalition. He mentioned his mother, Lenore Romney, who favored abortion rights when she ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, even before the 1973 Roe v. Wade case affirmed women’s constitutional right to abortions. . . . Lynn Grefe, director of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, applauded Romney’s ‘commitment to family planning and protecting a woman’s right to choose’ in a letter on Wednesday.”
- Associated Press / New Bedford Standard-Times 10/3/2002
“Gubernatorial candidates Shannon O’Brien and Mitt Romney sparred yesterday over who was the strongest abortion rights supporter by touting endorsements from abortion rights groups and challenging each other’s records on the issue . . . O’Brien and Romney both say that if elected they’ll uphold state and federal laws protecting abortion rights. ‘There isn’t a dime of difference between Mitt Romney’s position on choice and Shannon O’Brien,’ said Kerry Healey, Romney’s running mate.”
- Associated Press / New Bedford Standard-Times 10/3/2002
In February 2005, The American Spectator observed of Romney, “He is pro-choice and, aside from the marriage debate, generally in agreement with gay-rights advocates.”
- American Spectator, 2/23/2005
In March, 2005, Boston’s leading homosexual newspaper, Bay Windows, told its readers that Romney’s pro-gay record belies his new-found “conservatism”:
“Governor Romney has been touring the country in the past few weeks, courting anti-gay right-wingers in South Carolina, Missouri, and Utah with speeches designed to show that he is firmly in their camp. Yet a look at Romney’s record shows that his Rick Santorum drag act is a relatively new phenomenon.”
- Bay Windows, 3/3/2005
But what struck the gay GOP during that campaign, according to Massachusetts Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), was Romney’s accessibility to and comfort within the local gay community. Romney and his Republican primary opponent, John Lakian, attended an LCR-sponsored candidate’s forum during the campaign, where they both competitively vied for the organization’s endorsement — which Romney eventually won. During the course of his campaign, LCR member and former president Mark Goshko told Bay Windows, Romney held several meetings with group members and at least two LCR members joined his staff. Though gay Republicans were by no means running Romney’s campaign, “it was really a multi-level involvement,” Goshko stated. “Our people were very involved officially and outside of [the campaign].”
- Bay Windows, 3/28/2002
"[Romney] did, however, pledge to support the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban job discrimination based on sexual orientation, and other civil rights protections for gays in the areas of housing and credit. He also promised to bring the initiatives begun in Massachusetts to protect gay and lesbian youth to the federal level." - Bay Windows, 3/28/2002
When he was campaigning for Governor, Romney positioned himself to the left of the Democrat Speaker of the House, Tom Finneran, on domestic partnerships, during an interview with Bay Windows:
“Basically I see the provision of basic civil rights and domestic partnership benefits [as] a campaign against Tom Finneran. I see Tom Finneran and the Democratic leadership as having opposed the application of domestic partnership benefits to gay and lesbian couples and I will support and endorse efforts to provide those domestic partnership benefits to gay and lesbian couples,” says Romney.
- Bay Windows, 10/24/2002
“On Gay Rights: All citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual orientation. While he does not support gay marriage, Mitt Romney believes domestic partnership status should be recognized in a way that includes the potential for health benefits and rights of survivorship.”
- Romney’s 2002 campaign website
Romney said at a State House press conference:
“If this [proposed constitutional marriage] amendment were to pass, at that stage I would support legislation which would provide certain domestic partnership benefits, like hospital visitation rights, and rights of survivorship, and so forth.
- State House press conference, 6/15/2005
Within days of the Goodridge ruling, Romney announced that he supported homosexual civil unions:
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said yesterday he was ready to work with lawmakers to craft a “civil union”-style law to give some marriage rights to homosexual couples, even though he also supports a constitutional amendment to preserve traditional marriage . . . Mr. Romney yesterday told TV news stations that he would support a Vermont-style civil union law in Massachusetts, but reiterated his support for a constitutional amendment that would clarify that “marriage is an institution between a man and a woman.”
- Washington Times, 11/20/2003
In 2005, Romney tried to tell South Carolina Republicans that he had always opposed civil unions:
Massachusetts Governor Romney is coming under fire for comments he made about gay marriage to Republican activists in South Carolina. Romney told Monday night’s gathering in Spartanburg County that he’s always been opposed to same-sex marriage as well as what he called “it’s equivalent, civil unions.” Romney, however, has for months backed a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts constitution that would ban gay marriage but provide for civil unions with the same rights and responsibilities as marriage. Massachusetts State Representative Phil Travis says Romney can’t be for civil unions when he’s in Massachusetts and against them when he’s out-of-state. Travis has been a leading opponent of same-sex unions.
- Associated Press, 2/23/2005
You stay hung up on what Romney said in 1994 and the rest of us will just have to grin and bear it.
Romney sounds tough but yet he had no qualms advancing the legal career of one of the leading anti-marriage attorneys. He nominated Stephen Abany to a District Court. Abany has been a key player in the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association which, in its own words, is "dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated."
- U.S. Senate testimony by Gov. Mitt Romney, 6/22/2004
Stephen Abany testified at the State House in 1999 advocating a bill to repeal the sodomy laws in Massachusetts. This type of activism obviously did not bother Romney. - Lawyers' Weekly 2/14/2000
Sorry, but the lying Romney campaign spin you keep regurgitating just doesn’t hold up under the avalanche of actual facts about his leftwing record in Massachusetts.
More recently Romney proposed allocating $250,000 for the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth for fiscal year 2006, twice what he proposed for FY05. The Legislature ultimately funded the commission at $250,000 for FY05, so Romney’s proposal for next year amounts to level funding, and the proposal is still a far cry from $1.6 million the commission received in the mid-’90s before the state budget crisis. Yet as commission co-chair Kathleen Henry said, Romney could just as easily have dissolved the program. “We serve completely at the will of the governor,” said Henry.
- Bay Windows 3/3/2005
And 2002 as well.
And 2003, and 2004, and 2005, and 2006, and 2007...
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