Romney rejects gay marriage pledge

[brooklynite]

Source: Deseret News

DES MOINES, Iowa — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign said Tuesday that he will not sign a conservative Iowa Christian group's far-reaching pledge opposing gay marriage, making him the first Republican presidential candidate to reject it.

Two of Romney's rivals for the Republican nomination, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, have signed the The Family Leader's 14-point pledge, which calls on the candidates to denounce same-sex marriage rights, pornography, same-sex military accommodations and forms of Islamic law.

When it was first circulated last week, the introduction to the pledge stated that African American children were more likely to be raised in two-parent households when they were born into slavery than they are today. The group struck that language and apologized after black ministers complained, but it said it stands by the rest of the document.

Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for Romney, told The Associated Press in a written statement Tuesday that Romney "strongly supports traditional marriage," but that the oath "contained references and provisions that were undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign."

Read more: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700151241/APNewsBreak-Romney-rejects-gay-marriage-pledge.html

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Tough call for T-Paw: do you run as the "sane" alternative to Mittens by rejecting the pledge, and likely give up Iowa to Bachmann, or keep up the fight with Michelle for the nutcase conservatives by signing the pledge and likely burning your bridges against Romney in New Hampshire?

[Devil_Fish]

1. Any one named Santorum has no buisness opposing any thing same-sex or porno.NT

[jmowreader]

2. IOW the Romney campaign is over

The teabaggers are going to demand fealty to 100 percent of their program: no same-sex marriage, no taxes, no healthcare reform, no porn, no gays in the military (they wouldn't just roll back the Obama action of last year, they'll go back to before DADT and reinstate the witch hunts Because That's What Jesus Would Do), no Sharia, no separation of church and state (which makes me wonder what they've really got against Sharia!), no booze, requiring women to not cut their hair or wear cosmetics, "revealing" outfits or jewelry...

We need to start Tea Party Tours, which will show our friends on the extreme right the joys of living in a paradise with no taxes and no government. We'll just take 'em to Somalia, drop them off and pick up the survivor six weeks later.

[LetTimmySmoke]

3. Romney understands he is campaigning in the digital age...

...where everything you say and do is recorded, on youtube, and instantly accessible. Whatever he wants to say in the general election, he has to say now, and he knows this. Careening about from the nomination to the general race is no longer possible.

[No Elephants]

5. He understands this oath made all the media a week ago. Not sure what else he understands.

He lies so much, no one can possibly figure that out.

[No Elephants]

4. Big deal. By the time Romney declined, the pledge had become too controversial

to touch. Headline may as well read, "Romney still wants to be President."

If the thing hadn't already hit the fan, the devout Mormon may well have signed it. The Mormon Church is not known for its sensitivity on racial or ethnic issues--and neither is Mitt.

Lied about having marched with Mlk, Jr. and, when caught in his lie, never apologized. Just gave some nauseatingly smarmy bs about having marched with MLK, Jr. in his mind.

Also lied about having pulled over to the side of the road on his way to Harvard and cried when he first heard on his car radio about the Mormon Church's change in its racist policy of not allowing African American clergy. (Wonder how many there are now, after all these years.)

I googled. Mitt had been out of Harvard for two or three years by then, merrily working to buy up and bust up American companies, ala Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, but without Michael Douglas's charm. (AFAIK, no one has called him on that lie yet.)

For another, the Mormon Church takes a leading role in creating and inflaming anti-GLBT bigotry, which they consider anti-family--and so does Mitt. He ran for the U.S. Senate and for the governorship of Massachusetts as a liberal. However, once fundie spouting Dummya became popular and Mitt had nothing to lose in Massachusetts, he opposed adoption by gays.

How low can you go, to condemn a child to an orphanage or loosely supervised foster families, rather than let a homosexual man, woman or couple adopt?