It also doesn't help that Romney was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy, pro-choice, and pretty much a liberal Democrat on practically every issue until a few years ago when he decided he wanted to run for president in a party to the right of Atilla the Hun.
Just in from CBS News:
"At this point, I've got to feel comfortable with him," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who will speak at the three-day conference on Saturday.
"There's the choice before us of Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. There are no other choices as I see it," Perkins continued. "He wasn't the first choice but I look at what he has to offer as opposed to what Barack Obama has to offer, and I'm for Mitt Romney."
"Enthusiastic would probably not be the right word," said Jim Garlow, pastor of the evangelical California mega-church Skyline Church, who will address the conference Saturday.Perhaps my favorite quote is from the head of the Concerned Women for America, another rabidly religious right group:
Garlow said that he is backing Romney, in part, because he sees President Obama's policies as "catastrophic." But he adds that "there's simply a number of people who are waiting on the sidelines waiting to hear if there's convictional, visceral commitment" to social conservative positions. Support for Romney among evangelicals and conservative Catholics, he says, is "tepid at best."
"But I do think he has gone above and beyond the call of duty to try to be very clear on where he is today," said Nance, who speaks to the conference Saturday. "You have to take a candidate at their word which is why you have to get a candidate on the record as to where he stands. I do think it would be a different thing, frankly, if I saw him parsing his words or backtracking. I haven't seen that."Take him at his word? Which word would that be? The one where he said he was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy? The one where he said he was pro-choice? Romney's word changes with his ambition. The religious right is setting themselves up for another Mehlman (when they were reportedly assured, repeatedly, that then-RNC-chair Ken Mehlman was not gay - guess what, now we all know he is).
Romney may not be gay, but he's as close as you can get to an honorary gay in terms of his past support for gay civil rights (though he's now, suddenly, terrible on pretty much everything). The man is worse than a chameleon, he's a liar. And if the religious right falls for his lies, then they deserve what they get
