Tony Perkins should resign as the head of the religious right gay-bashing group Family Research Council. Perkins had been praising Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is planning on running for president as a conservative family values religious right loving republican. Now Perkins is suddenly "surprised" that Romney has a history, that everyone knew about, of being super duper pro-gay.
This is quite disturbing, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who had praised Mr. Romney as a champion of traditional values at the groups conference in late September. This type of information is going to create a lot of problems for Governor Romney. He is going to have a hard time overcoming this.Perkins either lied to his followers in praising Romney, or he's an idiot. Everyone knew about Romney's pro-gay past. We've written about it repeatedly, just from memory. Except Perkins and the other family values bigots, it seems.
Well, a letter has surfaced from 1994 in which Mr. Romney claims he's even more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy. From the NYT:
The 1994 letter followed a meeting with the Log Cabin Club. Mr. Romney wrote, I am not unaware of my opponents considerable record in the area of civil rights.The religious right are fools. Romney has been super pro-gay up until two years ago when he decided to woo the religious right in his presidential bid. Any religious right hate group who supported this man either knew Romney was secretly pro-gay, and didn't care, or they failed to do even the basic level of due diligence about Romney's true views. Either way, the religious right hate groups have shown yet again how truly irrelevant, and bankrupt, it has become.
For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponents record in this area, he said. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.
Mr. Romney, recounting in the letter the promises he made in the meeting with the club, said he had agreed to help sponsor a bill barring discrimination against gay men and lesbians if he was elected to the Senate and to broaden it to include protections for housing and credit.
He said he supported the dont ask, dont tell military policy created by former President Bill Clinton, and described it as the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nations military.
Oh, and before Romney claims he's "evolved" on gay issues, his staff already came out and said that his views on gay issues are the same now as they've always been:
Aides to Mr. Romney, who did not dispute the letters legitimacy, said that the governors opinions on gay issues had not changed.This almost as fun as Mary Cheney pregnant.
