On gay marriage Romney veers hard to the right-Blasts Court's Ruling Of Prop 8 As "Unconstitutional"

[kpete]

Posted at 04:14 PM ET, 02/07/2012
On gay marriage, Mitt Romney veers hard to the right
By Greg Sargent
Mitt Romney, in a statement just now blasting the court’s ruling of Proposition 8 as unconstitutional:

“Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”

That note about judges who interpret the Constitution according to their own “prejudices” — is that a reference to the fact that the judge on the case was gay, which was cited by Prop 8 supporters as proof of his bias? Naah, probably not. A major party presidential candidate would never go there.


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MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/on-gay-marriage-mitt-romney-veers-hard-to-the-right/2012/02/07/gIQALE48wQ_blog.html

[Not Me]

1. Yeah, his church lost 80Million on this one.

I wonder how much they are willing to pony up for a SCOTUS run?

[Happyhippychick]

2. He probably contributed money to the protest against Prop 8. The Mormon church is the genesis of

whole issue.

In this rare case the Mittster is not merely pandering, he believes.

[Raster]

20. The mormon church IS THE GENESIS of the whole issue. Thank you for pointing this out!

The church had no qualms about soliciting funds from mormon congregations all over the United States and then LYING ABOUT IT, and then only feebly admitting it when confronted with evidence to the contrary.

I was raised mormon, and technically still on the membership rolls. Trust me, all the nice warm, fuzzy commercials aside, a mormon in the White House would be akin to electing a rabid fundigellical to the White House. Absolutely no good would come of either.

[qb]

3. Of course he sees no irony in bashing unelected judges and then promising to appoint more.

[NEOhiodemocrat]

9. I noticed that also

[christx30]

14. He's ok with

unelected judges... as long as he as them in his back pocket.

[fascisthunter]

4. Yes Romney... America knows you are a Bigot!

and your reasons for not wanting gays to marry is just bullshit. Cowards like you hide behind religious garbage to attack people you HATE!

[RKP5637]

7. Exactly! Romney is an example of the garbage that has brought hatred

to religion.

[msongs]

5. he is a mormon PASTOR, not just a church member. JFK was not a priest just a

congregation member. Of course he will represent LDS leadership because he IS LDS leadership

[KamaAina]

16. Oddly enough, as Boston stake president, he was somewhat liberal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Local_church_leadership

Romney tried to balance the conservative dogma insisted upon by the church leadership in Utah with the desire by some Massachusetts members to have a more flexible application of doctrine. He agreed with some modest requests from the liberal women's group Exponent II for changes in the way the church dealt with women, but clashed with women who he felt were departing too much from doctrine.

[The Wizard]

21. I believe

he may be a Mormon bishop. At any rate, we don't need superstition determining our laws.
No more witch trials.

[RKP5637]

6. Romney, running for President Bigot!!! n/t

[Tom Ripley]

8. All that Moroni cult money gone to waste

[bluestateguy]

10. That's a great way to win over young voters

The only 18-24 year olds who oppose gay marriage are those big alpha male fraternity assholes in Southern schools and those really churchy looking girls who need their father's permission to date.

[RKP5637]

11. Yep, I think many young people today, fortunately, see people like Romney and the R herd for

the repressive authoritarian fools they are ...

[Swede Atlanta]

12. Mr. Rmoney, er I mean Romney.....

The beautiful design of the Founding Fathers was exactly to prevent the tyranny of the majority. The Founding Fathers established the concept of rights, some of them are overtly stated in the Constitution and others have been found to be inherent in the structure and language of the Constitution by the courts.

The Founding Fathers were well aware of the dangers of the tyranny of the majority. They understood that you needed to provide protections against this by establishing an independent judiciary.

If we allowed a tyranny of the majority with no respect for the concept of rights he could well find his church, if you can call it that, being outlawed in this country.

So go suck a rotten egg Bigot Breath.

[msanthrope]

13. N. Randy Smith, the dissenting judge, is a Mormon. I guess voting his prejudices is ok to Mitt? nt

[gratuitous]

15. I thought Willard's expertise was in business and creating jobs?

Now he's a lawyer, too? Wow! How can America possibly turn its back on such a renaissance man and his dazzling array of talents?

[Zoeisright]

17. In other words, Romney don't know shit about the United States Constitution.

Prop H8TE is clearly unconstitutional to anyone who isn't pimping for the hard right loony tunes voters.

[onager]

18. Anybody else catch Ted Olson on Maddow tonight?

Olson's been wrong about most things, IMO, but he's sure getting this one right.

Maddow pointed out that EVERY GOP candidate in this race lined up to blast the 9th Circuit decision.

Olson said he was very disappointed by that. Repeated several times that marriage is a basic right for ALL Americans, and mentioned "our gay brothers and sisters." IIRC, he even said the Republican Party is "on the wrong side of history."

Olson also noted that anti-gay marriage laws are very similar to the old anti-miscegenation laws in the South. Pointed out the irony that the parents of the current President would have been jailed as felons under those laws.

Both Maddow and Olson noted that today's decision seemed to be aimed directly at S.C. Justice Kennedy. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court decision that killed Colorado's Amendment 2 in 1996.

The language of today's 9th Circ decision seemed to echo Kennedy's words about the sheer irrationality of these laws:

Instead of applying "strict scrutiny" to Amendment 2 (as Colorado Supreme Court had required) Kennedy wrote that it did not even meet the much lower requirement of having a rational relationship to a legitimate government purpose:

"Its sheer breadth is so discontinuous with the reasons offered for it that the amendment seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class that it affects; it lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romer_v._Evans

[ScottLand]

19. He wants a judge that will forego his own prejudices and promote the prejudices of the majority.

If I and the most of the people voted that a certain minority shouldn't have the right to drive cars, shouldn't that be passed into law too? It would be the will of the people, and keep those people from driving to places where we'd have to see them.

[The Wizard]

22. Representative democracy

as propounded by Aristotle means 51% of the people can't march 49% of the people into the sea. Mitt is a sociopath and will say anything, even if he contradicts what he said a minute earlier.
Cognitive dissonance is in the Republican DNA.

[d_r]

23. "Cognitive dissonance is in the Republican DNA."

+1

[LiberalFighter]

24. If marriage is considered to be a religious institution

then it should be determined entirely by the respective churches. AND all government entities should not consider marriage as a legal act. Rather, the government should consider what is a legal act that recognizes couples for the purpose of having children and/or having a long term relationship that would also include ownership of property. Such act would not recognize a marriage ceremony performed by any clergy and would require a civil ceremony that can only be performed by a legally permitted government official. And be performed without any religious wording.

Personally, after research I don't consider marriage to be a religious institution that was created first by the Jews. More than likely, they copied it from another group of people.

[MACARD]

26. Exactly we need to separate the Religious and Legal institutions of marriage

Due to the Separation of Church and State which i am afraid the GOP would be more than happy to turn us into a theocracy.
The Government should not be allowed to interfere in the religious institution of Marriage, similarly the church should not be allowed any say in the legal institution of marriage. especially think of the Atheists, they should not be forced to marry through clergy they should be allowed the Legal institution of marriage.

When will the Subsidized Segregation (in reference to LGBT) stop!!!!

[AllyCat]

25. Yeah, like the unelected judges that went against the will of the people in Citizen's United...

...oh wait, I bet you like that ruling, don't you Mitt?

[aggiesal]

27. What Romney really believes is ...

that marriage is between a man and a woman and a woman, and another woman and another ...

[christx30]

28. Wow...

The one time that they think the relaxing of government control over the lives of individual Americans is unconstitutional.

[cstanleytech]

29. Mitt needs to stop pandering to the far right because the fact is

the judges in the case made the correct ruling as is their job when it comes to question of what laws are or are not constitutional.
Now mitt might not agree with the ruling but nonetheless he needs to stop the pandering and accept that the judges did their jobs.