Paul Ryan: We shouldn't reinstate DADT

Via Towleroad:

"Now that it's done, we should not reverse it. I think that would be a step in the wrong direction because people have already disclosed themselves."

"I think this issue is past us. It's done. And I think we need to move on," he told Florida's WPTV.

Huh.  Perhaps it's time that the Ryan/Romney campaign decide who they want to be when they grow up.  Today they're pro-gay.  Tomorrow they're evangelical firebreathers.  Or as Romney did one day a few weeks ago, he held four different positions on health care reform within one 24 hours period.

This isn't a sign of a kinder and gentler Romney/Ryan campaign.  It's the sign of a campaign that can't figure out what it wants to be, far left, far right, Republican, Democrat.  So each day it flails back and forth, from issue to issue, sometimes taking multiple and contradictory sides of the same issue, only to reverse itself hours later.

Just wait.  The religious right is going to go nuts, then Romney will clarify that what Ryan meant to say was that they were going to study the issue of reinstating DADT after they win.  Just wait. Read the rest of this post...

A ghetto kid, doing what Romney did, would have been booked with assault

An excellent point, by Roger Simon, about Romney's hazing/assault of a gay kid in his youth.

And there is another thing that troubles me even though some dismiss it as trivial. I am still bothered by Romney attacking that gay kid and cutting off his hair with a pair of scissors when they were in prep school.

A ghetto kid does that and he gets booked for assault with a deadly weapon. But what does the son of a governor get? A law degree from Harvard.

Read the rest of this post...

Ann Romney booked for gay-bashing hate-group conference

So much for Mrs. Romney being Mitt's "human" side. Now she's his dehumanizing side.

This is all part of Romney's new embrace of his Mormonism, something he basically hid (in a political sense) up until now.

Romney is trying to convince evangelicals, and voters generally, that he's a Christian too. Except that of late, Romney's version of "Christianity" has only been the wacky-crazy hateful Christianity of wife-beating advocate Pat Robertson and now officially-designated hate groups.

Then again, Mormons know a thing or two about hate and bigotry.  They were openly racist towards blacks until well into the 70s, when their God suddenly changed his mind about finding blacks inferior only after an economic boycott of BYU's sports teams.  Apparently, the racism lingers to today.

The Mormons are also notoriously homophobic, for decades now regularly spending large sums of money in order to oppress gay people and force them to live under Mormon religious edicts.

So it's no surprise in principle that Mrs. Romney, as a member of a faith that treats blacks as inferior, and hates gays, is attending a conference sponsored by three officially designated hate groups.

Though this definitely marks a turning point where Mrs. Romney is no longer the kinder-and-gentler Mitt.  If she's going to attend gay-bashing hate group conferences, then she's as much of a hate-monger and hate-enabler as her ever-flip-flopping and confused husband. Read the rest of this post...

Romney campaigner Pat Robertson tells man to beat his wife

Mitt Romney spent Saturday campaigning with religious right extremist Pat Robertson.  Romney was using Robertson to "prove" that he's a "real" Christian.

Which is ironic, since most would question Robertson's claim to speak for Christianity.  (It also makes you wonder what Mitt Romney thinks a real Christian is - if he thinks Pat Robertson is God's messenger.)  Here's Mitt and Pat together at an event this weekend.




Yesterday, fresh off of campaigning with Mitt Romney just 48 hours before, Pat Robertson told a caller to his TV show to beat his wife. Via Right Wing Watch:

For example, today on the 700 Club’s “Bring It On” segment where viewers ask Robertson questions, one man wondered how he should go about repairing his marriage with a wife who “insults” him and once tried to attack him.

“Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her,” Robertson responded. “This man’s got to stand up to her and he can’t let her get away with this stuff,” Robertson continued, “I don’t think we condone wife-beating these days but something has got to be done.”

He later said the woman is a “rebellious child” and pondered if she has psychological problems. Robertson told the viewer that since he “can’t divorce her according to the Scripture, so I say: move to Saudi Arabia.”

Robertson's network has now censored the broadcast, but fortunately Right Wing Watch got it first:



It's not clearly if Mitt Romney is just as confused about Christianity as Robertson, or whether he's simply pandering to extremists again, in a desperate effort to save his floundering presidential run.

Either way, it's time for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to issue a statement about wife-beating. Are they for it or against it? Read the rest of this post...

Romney campaigning with homophobic nut Pat Robertson today

Is there no depth to how low Mitt Romney will stoop in order to be President?

Pat Robertson isn't just an old religious right leader.  He's a hateful nut.  A sampling of what kind of hate and quackery Mitt Romney is now embracing in his desperate quest for the presidency:

Haitian ambassador responds to Pat Robertson's remarks today about Haiti paying a price for making a pact with the devil

Then there was the time that Pat said that God gave Ariel Sharon his stroke as punishment.

Or the time God told Pat that he might just send a tsunami to America.

Or the time Robertson said it's better to just divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's.

Or the time Robertson said that Episcopalians, Methodists and Presbyterians are tied to the anti-Christ.

Then there's all of this:

Robertson is opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage.[15][16] He has described feminism as a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Many of Robertson's views mirror those of fellow evangelical pastor/activist Jerry Falwell, who made frequent appearances on The 700 Club. He agreed with Falwell when Falwell stated that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were caused by "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union and the People For the American Way."

On the June 8, 1998 edition of his show, Robertson denounced Orlando, Florida and Disney World for allowing a privately sponsored "Gay Days" weekend. Robertson stated that the acceptance of homosexuality could result in hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and "possibly a meteor."[20] The resulting outcry prompted Robertson to return to the topic on June 24, where he quoted the Book of Revelation to support his claims. The first hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season,[21] Hurricane Bonnie, actually turned away from Florida and instead damaged the rest of the east coast. The area hardest hit by the hurricane was the Hampton Roads region,[22] which includes Virginia Beach,[23] where the Robertson's The 700 Club originates.[24] While other hurricanes did hit Florida,[21] none of them hit Disney World.

While discussing the Mark Foley scandal on the October 5, 2006 broadcast of the show, Robertson condemned Foley saying he "does what gay people do".

There's much more, just Google it.

But seriously, how desperately does Mitt Romney want this job that he has utterly sold his soul to the devil in order to get it? Is there anyone Mitt Romney won't pander to, any extremist or extreme position he won't embrace, in order to win in November? Is there point at which this man's better angels, if he still has any, will step in and say 'enough'? Read the rest of this post...

Pro-Romney ad bashes gays

Well that didn't take long.

The man who claimed to be more pro-gay than even Ted Kennedy, now has gay-bashing ads running that warn America that "gay marriage" will be forced upon them over their morning coffee.

The ads were produced by a pro-Romney SuperPAC tied to fey religous right leader Gary Bauer, who has lots of issues with homosexuality.

Also interesting is that Romney's running mate Paul Ryan voted for ENDA in the House, before voting against it. Then, when HuffPo asked Ryan a few weeks ago if he still supports ENDA, the response was silence.

I think folks should probe Paul Ryan much more deeply on his past history concerning all things gay.

Read the rest of this post...

On gay rights, like every other issue, Mitt Romney is cheating on himself

Mitt Romney took a veiled swipe at gay marriage last night.

Whatever.

The guy is so all over the map on everything that nothing he says anymore means anything.  He will say quite literally anything to get elected - he'll lie about Obama, he'll lie about himself.  Nothing he says means anything.  I he can pivot 180 degrees on every firm conviction he's ever had - with no other justification than political expediency - then he can pivot again.  Which ought to trouble GOP voters.

It's a lot like the old saying about falling in love with a guy who's cheating on his wife to be with you.  What's to say he won't do the same to you?  Especially if, like with Gingrich's current wife, you're number 3 on the cheat-then-marry index.

Except in this case, by lying about his own lifelong positions, such as his once-promise that he'd be more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy, Romney is now cheating on himself.  And there really isn't a bigger betrayal than that. Read the rest of this post...

New Yorker covers show Romney and Ryan as kinda gay

Odd.

Read the rest of this post...

Ryan now refusing to say if he still supports ENDA

Photo via Shutterstock

I wrote yesterday that someone should ask Paul Ryan if he still supports ENDA. He voted for ENDA in 2007, right before voting to kill it. I thought that since the gay Republicans keep crowing about Ryan being such a great VP pick, someone ought to ask Ryan if he still supports ENDA. Lila Shapiro at HuffPost did, and here's what happened:

Ryan's congressional office directed questions about ENDA to Romney's campaign, and Romney's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

What's particularly interesting about that is that Ryan now seems equally afraid of angering the gays as he does the religious right. It's a sign of the religious right's waning influencing that a conservative GOP VP candidate is afraid to say that might not support a gay rights bill.

Interestingly, Romney has also flip-flopped on ENDA (now that he wants to be the nominee of a party run by the far right, Romney is suddenly anti-ENDA - like Ryan, Romney was for ENDA before). Read the rest of this post...

What is Romney VP Paul Ryan's position on gay rights?

Absolutely awful. He voted once for ENDA, then turned around and voted against it (likely when the religious right got a hold of him). That's it. Otherwise he's been terrible on everything.

Ryan is Romney's VP choice.

From Paul Schindler at Gay City News:

It’s not simply that Ryan is reluctant to take the plunge on marriage rights for same-sex couples. Throughout his years in Congress, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Washington-based LGBT lobby, has identified only one instance in which the 42-year-old Wisconsin Republican has ever taken a pro-LGBT position.

In 2007, Ryan was one of 35 Republicans to vote for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which at that time only proposed to protect against job bias based on sexual orientation, not gender identity or expression.

Ryan’s advocacy didn’t last long, however. When Republicans unsuccessfully tried a parliamentary maneuver to shelve the bill after passage –– with what is known as a motion to recommit –– he joined 26 other GOP ENDA supporters in the unsuccessful effort to kill the bill they had voted for just moments before.

HRC does not issue congressional scorecards until the end of a two-year session, so no rating is available for 2011-2012. In the prior five scorecards, Ryan received four zeroes and one rating of 10 out of 100, for his half-hearted support of ENDA in 2007.

I've never been one to trust the pretty straight boys.

More on Paul Ryan here, including the fact that his role model is Ayn Rand, a woman whose life mission was to kill God and replace Him with man. That should go over well with Bryan Fischer at the AFA. Read the rest of this post...

Romney still thinks gays should be permitted in Scouts

I'm surprised that this is the one issue where Romney has chosen to remain consistent over the years.  It can't be long until the religious right forces him to change his stance.  Or maybe Bryan Fischer of the AFA has lost his touch. Read the rest of this post...

Romney: "I don't care" about kids of gay parents

Romney in 2004 in a conversation with the lesbian plaintiff of a landmark marriage case in Massachusetts:

"I believe he [Romney] will be responsible for a major backlash," said Julie Goodridge, a star plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts in 2004....

Goodridge recalls a meeting with Romney, who was then the governor of Massachusetts

"I looked him in the eye as we were leaving the meeting," Goodridge says in the video, "and I said in exasperation, 'Governor Romney, tell me, what would you suggest I say to my 8-year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can't get married? Because you, the governor of her state, is going to block our marriage.'

And he looked at me ... and he said, kind of looked over my shoulder with this blank stare and said, 'I don't really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don't you just tell her what you've been telling her for the last eight years?'"

Read the rest of this post...

When is International Olympic Committee suing the Romneys?

Remember when the International Olympic Committee got all mean and nasty towards the Gay Olympics for calling themselves the Gay Olympics? It only took the IOC three weeks to sue the Gay Olympics for calling themselves that.  (The Gay Olympics were forced to change their name to the Gay Games.)

So I'm wondering how much time it will take for the IOC to call out Mitt Romney - now one of the biggest public figures in America, and the world - for naming his annual family outing "The Romney Olympics."

If the IOC is going to worry so much about diluting their brand that they'd go after a bunch of gay guys (and even some self-proclaimed rednecks) playing sports, imagine the damage the Republican presidential candidate - and a former CEO of the winter Olympics - could cause. Read the rest of this post...

Signorile on what motivates GOProud and Mary Cheney

Mike Signorile:

I'm still not sure any of these terms quite captures what exactly motivates Mary Cheney and GOProud. It's one thing to work within the Republican Party to change it, and I've often supported the work of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans in doing so. But to actually endorse a candidate who calls for stripping you of rights seems totally crazy and pathological -- unless perhaps you don't believe the candidate will ever do such a thing. And that is actually what gay Republicans who are voting for Romney will tell you privately. In fact, several such gay Republicans who are listeners to my show have called in to say as much.

Now, whether or not Romney would really push for a federal marriage amendment, his speaking out in favor of it is damaging simply because he emboldens anti-gay forces and helps to inject hate into the political discourse. So, no, I don't believe it's an excuse to vote for him just because you believe he's stringing the Christian right along, telling them he'll push for a constitutional ban on gay marriage even though he will drop it once elected. But it does explain why GOPers like the Cheney family, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and others who publicly and proudly support marriage equality would still support Romney. They don't believe he's anti-gay. They actually believe he's the flip-flopper he's shown himself to be, and in this case they see that as an asset. Or, to be more honest, they believe he's a liar.

Read the rest of this post...

Conservative gay group endorses Romney after he pretty much bails on everyting

Whatever. Romney is pretty much bad on everything at this point - ENDA, DOMA, DADT. Hell, he couldn't even stomach a gay spokesman. So naturally, the upstart conservative gay group has to endorse him because without the endorsement their members would need to actually address their own self-loathing. Providing them a psychological beard is cheaper than therapy.

Read on, from HuffPo:

The endorsement does not surprise political observers as GOProud has previously said that it would back any Republican presidential candidate. GOProud's executive director, Jimmy LaSalvia, told The Huffington Post that Romney's opposition to same-sex marriage did not affect his group's endorsement. While he does not agree with Romney's stance on marriage, he concurs with many other of his positions, on Social Security reform and health care, for example.

LaSalvia is more concerned about the debt ceiling then marriage, he said: "We're on the brink" of a debt crisis, "and that will effect everything in our lives.

"Every issue is a gay issue," LaSalvia continued. "We know what we need to know: Governor Romney's record and President [Barack] Obama's record."

Yes, well any gay rights group that's more worried about the debt than gay marriage isn't really a gay rights group at all, now is it. It's a GOP front group. It is to gay civil rights what Fox is to news. It's meant to co-opt the issue in order to help Republicans, rather than advance the cause of gay civil rights or the truth.

Though if every issue is a gay issue, then every group is a gay group, so there's really no need to pay any more heed to these boys and their psychological issues.

PS It was only a week or so ago that I warned what happens when "gay" groups aren't able to draw a distinction between gay rights work and every other issue under the sun. When every issue is a gay civil rights issue, then gay civil rights becomes a non-issue all together. And isn't that what these boys wanted all along?

As a gay Republican chief of staff to a House Member told me at an AIDS fundraiser years ago, after lecturing me about how the federal government shouldn't be spending a dime on AIDS because "it doesn't affect people like you and me":

"I make six figures, I have more important things to worry about than my civil rights."

Yeah, like your soul. Read the rest of this post...

Mitt "More gay than Ted Kennedy" Romney says straight parents are better than gay ones

Whatever.  When Mitt Romney decides who he wants to be when he grows up, get back to us.

Via NewsOne

Read the rest of this post...

Former GOP Florida governor alleged to be a gay

This isn't exactly news.  Though it is interesting that McCain was reportedly considering Charlie Crist as his VP... for a millisecond.

Wonder if this will have any impact on Texas Governor Rick Perry being on Romney's short list for VP, since Perry has also fought rumors for years. Read the rest of this post...

Gay money flowing to Obama, Log Cabin fibs about Romney's gay positions

The article isn't a great shock. I always suspected a good deal of gay money would flow to President Obama's re-elect, regardless of what he did on DADT or marriage. But. It was clear that there was growing disaffection in the community, and that disaffection spread like a virus to other key Democratic constituencies and the media.

I truly believe that the administration's mishandling of gay issues at the beginning set the tone for the media coverage of, and conventional wisdom about, the entire administration. So it's good, and important to their re-election chances, that they finally nipped it in the bud by moving forward on a number of key issues like DADT and marriage.

What's interesting to me is that the gay Republicans are still trying to claim that Romney isn't all bad on gay stuff.

Really?

From Jen Christensen at CNN:

But some gay Republicans say Romney is not totally close minded on LGBT issues. "On gay issues, where Romney stands is not as black and white as it seems," said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay and lesbian Republicans. "One thing he has been consistent on, as governor and as a candidate for president, is he has spoken in broad terms about ending discrimination in the workplace. He has said there is no room for it."

Romney is for ENDA? False.

From the Nation:

In December 2007 Romney appeared on Meet the Press and was asked by Tim Russert whether he still supports ENDA. Here’s how the exchange went:

MR. RUSSERT: You said [in 1994] that you would sponsor [Sen. Ted Kennedy's federal] Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Do you still support it?

GOV. ROMNEY: At the state level. I think it makes sense at the state level for states to put in provision of this.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, you said you would sponsor it at the federal level.

GOV. ROMNEY: I would not support at the federal level, and I changed in that regard because I think that policy makes more sense to be evaluated or to be implemented at the state level.

In fact, Mitt Romney opposes ENDA, opposes the repeal of DADT, opposes the repeal of DOMA, and opposes marriage. Barack Obama is for ENDA, for the repeal of DADT, for the repeal of DOMA, and for marriage.

That gives Romney a 0% record on the most important issues to the community. (And if you think he's good on gay partners' immigration rights or trans rights, you're high). Obama hasn't been perfect on our issues, but with some cajoling we got significant - I'd even say "historic" - movement on marriage, DOMA, and DADT.

How much more black and white would Log Cabin like it? Read the rest of this post...

Romney's former openly-gay adviser rewriting history to blame left for his job loss

Sorry, but this man and his friends already let the truth slip out right after he was forced out of the Romney campaign. He left because the right-wing forced him out. Yet now he seems to be attempting to rewrite a little history to help his former boss (who didn't lift a finger to defend him).

It's also possible that this newspaper is trying to rewrite the history. Christian Post:

Richard Grenell, an openly gay foreign policy expert, was on staff with the Romney campaign for less than two weeks. But in his first interview since resigning, he insists that he was not forced to step down.

In a recent interview with The Desert Sun, Grenell said that it was his decision to leave the Romney campaign after he realized he would be a distraction to the campaign and its message.

"The far left doesn't want a gay person to be conservative and the far right doesn't want a conservative to be a gay person," says Grenell. "Some of the most hateful, mean-spirited intolerant comments about me being the foreign policy and national security spokesman for Governor Romney…were coming from the left."

Oh, folks on the left weren't sympathetic at all to any gay man supporting a candidate who doesn't even believe in his basic humanity (or, in the case of Romney, is practically an honorary homosexual but now is pretending to be Atila the Hun in order to convince voters he's really a Republican, when he's really not). But it was the right wing who called for Grenell's head, and got it. Let me quote at length from my previous post on the matter:

UPDATE: Per Jennifer Ruben at the Washington Post, Romney threw the gay spokesman under the bus:

During the two weeks after Grenell’s hiring was announced the Romney campaign did not put Grenell out to comment on national security matters and did not use him on a press foreign policy conference call. Despite the controversy in new media and in conservative circles, there was no public statement of support for Grenell by the campaign and no supportive social conservatives were enlisted to calm the waters.

Wow. From the Washington Post's conservative blogger, Jennifer Ruben:

Richard Grenell hounded from Romney campaign by anti-gay conservatives
By Jennifer Rubin

Richard Grenell, the openly gay spokesman recently hired to sharpen the foreign policy message of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has resigned in the wake of a full-court press by anti-gay conservatives.

Pieces in two conservative publications, the National Review and Daily Caller, reflected the uproar by some social conservatives over the appointment. [UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: Although Grenell also raised the ire of liberal commentators with now-deleted tweets about certain prominent women, none of the sources I spoke with mentioned the tweets as a factor in his resignation decision.]

And Romney specifically told his gay spokesman to shut up, in order to appease the far right that was out for his neck.

Even former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer seemed appalled at the way the Romney camp was treating Grenell.

And in the end it was the very far right hate groups that Romney was wooing who claimed credit for Grenell's political demise.

But as is typical on the right, nuance is a foreign concept. Left and right weren't happy with Grenell (his sexist and homophobic comments about Democratic political leaders didn't help), but only one side refused to defend Grenell, and then took Grenell's scalp as a trophy - his own side.

And that's the best proof I can give for why Grenell's critics were right - why work for a team that hates you? Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney's grandson has two mommies

How sad that the Romneys have decided to discard 3,000 years of tradition. Read the rest of this post...