Florida Agenda

By JOE HARRIS

The ink on the Republican National Committee’s 2012 Party Platform wasn’t even dry (at least on the part that reads “we believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman, must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage”) when the party mandarins took the RNC Old-Timey Religious Revival show on the road, for a stop at this year’s Values Voters Summit, an event held by the family (although not “family”)- friendly Family Research Council (FRC), in Washington, D.C. FRC President Tony Perkins used the right’s boilerplate rallying cries, with calls to “limit government,” “reduce spending,” “champion traditional values,” and “protect America,” and then invited the usual suspects to declaim the gay rights agenda and the many ways it threatens those sacred bovines.

An estimated 2,500 attendees to the three-day event egged-on speakers, including Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan, who criticized President Obama’s anti-family (read: pro-gay) policies, and lionized traditional values, among the most popular of which proved to be prohibiting marriage rights for gay couples.

It was Ryan who packed the most “star power” (of the Hollywood variety that is, ironically, so outwardly loathed by his biggest fans), reassuring the assembled that, “We can be confident in the rightness of our cause, and also in the integrity and readiness of the man who leads it,” referring to running mate Mitt Romney. “He is a solid and trustworthy, faithful and honorable man. Not only a defender of marriage, he offers an example of marriage at its best.”

U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) spoke to the assembly about the many benefits that marriage provides to families and the economy alike (just as long as, we suppose, one is speaking of “Adam and Eve”). Said Cantor: “Marriage—more than any government program ever has or ever will—has lifted up people out of poverty, even those who felt there was no hope. Marriage has proven to be that formula which has been more successful at allowing for that pursuit of happiness.”

So far, so good. “And that is why we stand tall and stand proud for traditional marriage,” Cantor concluded. Uh-oh: Sorry, Adam and Steve. (President Obama announced last year that the Justice Department would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] in court. Cantor, you may recall, was part of the House GOP leadership that established the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to take up the slack, a move that was widely seen as a stab in the back to gay Republicans.)

Although the Man-Who-Would- Be-President did not make a live appearance, he spoke via recorded video, telling the assembled that a Romney Presidency “will defend marriage, not try to redefine it.”

P H I L A D E L P H I A , PENNSYLVANIA – Saying that the Republican presidential nominee is “out of step” with “public opinion,” the LGBT civil rights organization Equality Forum is calling for Mitt Romney to support federal legislation to protect LGBT Americans from workplace discrimination.

In a statement this week, the Philadelphia-based advocacy group noted that although in “2007, Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan voted in favor of the unsuccessful attempt to amend the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] to include sexual orientation and gender identity,” Romney himself “has taken no position on including [these] in ENDA.”

“With Gov. Romney’s support, amending ENDA to include sexual orientation and gender identity would be a slam dunk,” said Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum’s executive director. “His equivocation on amending ENDA makes Gov. Romney out of step with the Fortune 500 and public opinion.” Lazin noted that while both President Obama and the GOP’s own vice presidential candidate support amending ENDA to include sexual orientation and gender identity, the Republican platform takes no position on it. He added that recent polls show over 75 percent of Americans supporting the inclusion of sexual orientation in federal ENDA, including a majority of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, seniors, Catholics and small business owners.

By Joe Harris

The decision by Mitt Romney last weekend to name U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as his presumptive vice presidential nominee may be the kind of political cover the Republican presidential contender needs as he shifts his campaign from primary season-mode to a general election campaign status—a “calibration” the former Massachusetts governor may find more to his liking, especially as it relates to the values stuff with which he seems most uncomfortable.

Despite his credentials as a returned Mormon missionary, a graduate of Mormon Church-owned Brigham Young University, a captain of finance, and an active Republican (since 1993, anyway; prior to that, he was a registered Independent, who had previously voted for some Democrats, including the late Paul Tsongas during the 1992 Massachusetts presidential primary), Romney has been viewed with suspicion by the social Right and other values voters.

His single term as governor of the Bay State (2003 to 2007) did not endear him to fiscal and small governmentconservatives outside—or frankly, inside—of “Taxachusetts,” especially after his 2006 signing into law of the state’s health care reform legislation (or, more informally, “Romneycare”), the first of its kind in the U.S., which provided nearuniversal health coverage access via statelevel subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance.

Although in Massachusetts he presided over eliminating a projected $3 billion deficit—in part by reducing state funding for higher education, and cutting aid to municipalities—the pragmatic Romney approved the raising of fees, and his public austerity was aided by an unanticipated windfall of federal funds, and unexpected revenues generated via a capital gains tax hike.

Conservatives can be forgiven for being confused about where Romney actually stands on the subject of gay civil rights, and Democrats like to point to the candidate’s perceived contradictions on the subject, as when, during his 1994 campaign against Ted Kennedy for the late Liberal lion’s U.S. Senate seat, Romney promised the Log Cabin Republicans of Massachusetts that he would seek “full equality” for LGBT persons, and went so far as to say that he was more supportive of gay rights than Kennedy.

In May, when President Obama announced his support for gay marriage, Romney acknowledged that, “Benefits of that nature may well be appropriate, and states are able to make a provision for the determination of those kinds of rights.” The practicing Mormon has said that his opposition to marriage equality stems from his religious beliefs.

In 2003, when the Massachusetts courts legalized same-sex marriage, the governor complained that the state was becoming “San Francisco East.” He also warned in (mock?) horror a conservative audience that “some are actually having children born to them.”

How will his Ryan selection impact this election cycle’s yet-to-be-seen Romney, particularly for gays? It may have already started, with the announcement last week by a Romney campaign spokesperson confirming the candidate’s opposition to the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay leaders, something which he publicly expressed during his failed 1994 Senate bid. Andrea Saul told reporters that the former governor believes “all people should be able to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.” That won’t play well with the people most uplifted by Ryan’s selection for the ticket. Stay tuned.

By Joe Harris

In a new TV ad, Mitt Romney’s campaign calls “Obama’s Florida” a state with “8.6 percent unemployment, record foreclosures, [and] 600,000 more Floridians in poverty.”

Not according to Rick Scott, who calls that same 8.6 percent unemployment a signal that the Sunshine State is turning an economic corner, posting online that the number vilified by Romney is “the lowest it’s been since December 2008!” and adding that “the number of unemployed has gone from 568,000 to 320,000,” and job growth “has been positive for 23 consecutive months.”

Using the same data, Gov. Scott has touted the numbers to promote his administration’s economic policies. The two men may get a chance to add up the numbers later this month in Tampa, during the Republican National Convention, August 27-30.

Mitt Romney (L) Rick Scott Florida(R)

Mitt Romney Offers Praise for Anti-Gay “Chick-Fil-A” Founder During Commencement Speech

LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA – During a May 12 commencement speech at Liberty University— the largest Evangelical Christian institution of higher learning in the world—Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney offered praise for the school’s late benefactor, Rev. Jerry Falwell, along with the founder of fast food chain Chick-Fil-A, a company that LGBT rights advocates say has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay organizations, and other reactionary groups.

“The calling Jerry answered was not an easy one,” Romney said of the late minister and founder of the Moral Majority, who died in 2007. “Today, we remember him as a courageous and big-hearted minister of the Gospel who never feared an argument, and never hated an adversary.

Jerry deserves the tribute he would have treasured most, as a cheerful, confident champion for Christ.” Along with founding Liberty University, Falwell was an outspoken opponent of gay rights. During the 1970s, Falwell joined former Miss America runner-up and singer Anita Bryant in her efforts to fight a Miami-Dade County ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Falwell went to Miami and told supporters that “so-called gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you,” and referred to gays as “brute beasts,” and “part of a vile and satanic system.” Romney also took time to mention Truett Cathy, the founder of the Chick-Fil-A fast food chain, who was present to receive an honor during the Liberty University commencement. Since last year, gay rights groups have boycotted Chick-Fil-A for its financial support of groups that oppose marriage quality and LGBT rights.

The presumptive GOP nominee praised the restaurant chain. “The Romney campaign comes to a sudden stop when we spot a Chick- Fil-A,” Romney said to Cathy. “Your chicken sandwiches were our comfort food through the primary season, and there were days that we needed a lot of comforting.

So, Truett, thank you, and congratulations on your well-deserved honor today.” LGBT advocates report that in 2009 alone, the WinShape Foundation—the charitable arm of Chick-Fil-A—donated over $1.7 million to groups that oppose gay rights.

The beneficiary groups include Focus on the Family, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Eagle Forum, the Family Research Council, and Exodus International, one of the world’s largest promoters of “ex-gay,” conversion therapy.

Vatican Denounces Nun’s Book that Justifies Same Sex Relationships

VATICAN CITY, ITALY – The Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog has denounced a book written by an American nun who taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, in which she presents a theological justification for same sex relationships, as well as masturbation, and remarriage following divorce.

According to Vatican officials, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,” by Sister Margaret A. Farley, is “not consistent with authentic Catholic theology,” and should be avoided by faithful Roman Catholics. The book by Farley, who is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, includes an endorsement of marriage equality, which she writes “can also be important in transforming the hatred, rejection, and stigmatization of gays and lesbians,” adding that “same-sex relationships and activities can be justified according to the same sexual ethic as heterosexual relationships and activities.”

“This opinion is not acceptable,” the Vatican said. According to Roman Catholic dogma, homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity,” “intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” In addition to gay relationships, Farley’s book praises the practice of female masturbation, which she says “usually does not raise any moral questions at all.”

The nun, a member of the Sisters of Mercy of America, which operates Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, writes that “many women” find “great good in selfpleasuring— perhaps especially in the discovery of their own possibilities for pleasure— something many had not experienced or even known about in their ordinary sexual relations with husbands or lovers.”

The Vatican condemned Farley’s suggestion, saying that “the deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” Farley’s book was published in 2006, but the Vatican first notified the nun’s superiors of its concerns in 2010, saying that “Just Love” was “a cause of confusion among the faithful.” According to Cardinal William J. Levada, an American prelate who heads the Vatican office that deals with matters of doctrinal purity—and which has historical roots in the Church’s medieval Inquisition—Farley’s book “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling and formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.”

Levada’s statement was approved by Pope Benedict XVI who, on Sunday, ended a threeday meeting in Milan, that had been organized to promote family values. Farley, an award-winning scholar, responded to the Vatican’s censure. “I can only clarify that the book was not intended to be an expression of current official Catholic teaching, nor was it aimed specifically against this teaching. It is of a different genre altogether,” said Farley.

She added that “Just Love” provides “contemporary interpretations” of its subject matter, and seeks to replace antiquated and “taboo morality” with ideas based upon “present-day scientific, philosophical, theological, and biblical resources.”

By Joe Harris

President Barack Obama’s endorsement last week for marriage equality is only the most recent sign of a major shift in attitudes towards same-sex marriage more than 15 years ago, when the first indications appeared that American attitudes were changing towards gay marriage.

In 1996, the year President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), barely a quarter of Americans—27 percent— said that same-sex matrimony should be legalized, a far cry from last year, when 53 percent voiced support for marriage equality. In the 2008 presidential election, Obama won 17 states which have passed laws that define marriage as the union of a man and a woman— including Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, with a combined 82 electoral votes, nearly a third of the 270 needed to win the presidency; the Sunshine State alone bring over 10 percent of that total, with 29 electoral votes). Another 21 states have similar laws—including North Carolina, which Obama won in 2008 and which last week enshrined that law in the state constitution.

Unlike the presidential election years 2004 and 2008, when several states created laws or amendments to their state constitutions that banned all but male-female marriages, the issue is not likely to define statewide races or to motivate voters to cast their ballots for one party or another because of personal bias about marriage equality. Meanwhile, the fight over DOMA continues to work its way through the federal courts.

Under the law— passed by a Republican-majority Congress and signed reluctantly into law by Clinton, who faced reelection that year—no state or other U.S. political subdivision (overseas territory, possession, etc.) is required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state. DOMA also codifies nonrecognition of gay marriages for federal purposes, which includes survivor benefits under Social Security, the filing of joint tax returns, as well as insurance and other benefits for federal employees.

In two Massachusetts court decisions and a California bankruptcy court ruling, Section 3 of DOMA, which deals with such matter, has been ruled unconstitutional. All three cases are currently under appeal. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney raised the ire of LGBT advocates in February when he told attendants at the conservative CPAC convention, “When I am president,” Romney continued, “I will preserve the Defense of Marriage Act and I will fight for a federal amendment defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman.”

Romney is toeing a difficult line, trying hard to energize the GOP’s conservative base to support him in November while still attempting the political legerdemain necessary to hold onto centrist and independent voters, who are more concerned with bread and butter issues than denying a right of citizenship to their fellow countrymen and –women.

With the nod from Obama, the Democrat mandarins are rushing to voice their support for marriage equality. Although some of the party’s most eminent names—including former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as Al Gore, John Kerry, Andrew Cuomo, and Howard Dean—have previously endorsed marriage equality, some earlier holdouts have begun to sing a different tune. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader and the highestranking Latter Day Saint (Mormon) in U.S. government, said last week, “My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman.

But in a civil society, I believe that people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married.” And Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and, under the Constitution, third in line for the presidency, announced his own support last week for same-sex marriage .

By Marc Paige

When Mitt Romney selected a gay man, Richard Grenell, as his Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman, the Log Cabin Republicans, GOProud, and LGBT conservatives everywhere hailed this appointment as proof that Romney, in his heart, was a fair man who will do right by the gay community.

But it took only ten days for Grenell to be gone, and Romney’s anti-gay bona fides to be stronger than ever. Grenell’s decision to leave the Romney presidential campaign came after a busy week of foreign policy news. While Grenell was allowed to listen in on a key press call on foreign policy, the New York Times reported that he was neither introduced at the beginning of the call, nor allowed to speak during the conversation.

Apparently, this humiliation was too much for Grenell, appointed to a position where relationships with reporters are vital to success. Grenell’s letter of resignation thanked Romney “for his belief in me and my abilities and his clear message to me that being openly gay was a non-issue for him and his team,” and placed the blame for his departure on “the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues.

Furious voices on the right came fast to condemn Romney when he initially selected Grenell, the loudest being Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. After Fischer took credit for Grenell’s resignation, his directive to Romney going forward was unequivocal: “I will flat-out guarantee you Romney is not going to make this mistake again. There is no way in the world that Mitt Romney is going to put a homosexual activist in any position of importance in his campaign.” At no point during the Grenell affair did Romney publicly speak out against the ugly voices of bigotry coming from the right. That would have taken conviction and leadership.

In his statement of regret over Grenell’s resignation, Romney’s language contained a dog whistle to the right to reassure them that he remains one of them: “We select people not based upon their ethnicity or their ‘sexual preference’…” (to be read as a choice and changeable), avoiding the accurate “sexual orientation” (derided by the right for its intrinsic and unchangeable connotation). What does all this mean for the November election? LGBT voters are a small constituency, representing perhaps five percent of the voting population.

But a growing number of young heterosexuals see LGBT equality as the civil rights issue of our time. The Grenell debacle has reminded young voters, as well as those with gay loved ones, that a Romney presidency, ruled by the right, will reverse the forward trajectory of LGBT equality in America. After his victory, an emboldened Bryan Fischer told The Nation magazine that candidate Romney must commit to other anti-gay measures, including vetoing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) if it reaches his desk.

During his failed U.S. Senate run in 1994, Romney made a commitment to Massachusetts’ Log Cabin Republicans to co-sponsor ENDA at the federal level. But in 2007 Romney told Tim Russert on “Meet The Press” that he would not support ENDA at the federal level.

When Russert challenged this about face, Romney was unfazed: “Oh, Tim, if you’re looking to someone who’s never changed any positions on any policies, then I’m not your guy.” Now there’s a solid Romney conviction.

By Phoebe Moses

WASHINGTON, DC – Less than a week after being appointed to serve as the foreign policy face of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, openly gay spokesman Richard Grenell is under fire for hundreds of online comments he had posted which reflected less than flattering personal opinions of women in politics from both sides of the political aisle.

Although he jibed on Twitter that Secretary of State “Hillary [Clinton] is starting to look liek [sic] Madeline Albright,” a reference to the first female secretary of state, who served under Bill Clinton, he likewise quipped that Republican candidate New Gingrich’s third wife, Callista “stands there like she is wife #1,” and wondered if her hair snaps on.”

Grenell also attacked Michelle Obama, who has waged a national campaign against childhood obesity, claiming that the First Lady was “sweating on the East Room carpet” after a workout, and called MSNBC host Rachel Maddow a “dead ringer for teen idol Justin Bieber. Grenell, a former Bush aide, apologized last Friday for the posts, and said that he would remove the offensive comments.

“My tweets were written to be tonguein- cheek and humorous but I can now see how they can also be hurtful,” Grenell told Politico. “I didn’t mean them that way and will remove them from Twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused.” Approximately 800 tweets were removed from Grenell’s accounts over the weekend.

MSNBC’s Maddow speculated on Friday’s broadcast about the long-term impact on the Romney campaign, and if the presumptive GOP nominee and his advisors “understand that a long string of really nasty, sexist tweets about Callista Gingrich’s appearance might be alienating to people who might otherwise consider voting for Mr. Romney.”

Democrats have had their own perilous week, with David Parker, the chairman of North Carolina’s Democratic Party announcing last week that he will not seek re-election after a week of pressure from party elders—including the state’s outgoing governor—to resign after allegations of male-on-male sexual harassment surfaced last week in the state party’s Raleigh headquarters. Those allegations concern former state party executive director Jay Parmley, who himself resigned last week after it was disclosed that a complaint had been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against him by Adriadn Ortega, a former party employee who alleged he was fired from his job after Parmley sexually harassed him, despite assurances from party officials that he would not be punished for coming forward with a complaint.

Parker, the state chair, had resisted a week’s worth of cajoling from Democratic leaders to resign because his leadership of the party had become a distraction so close to the May primary and the election of a successor to Gov. Bev Perdue. “The party must move quickly to select a new chair and a new executive director,” she said. “It’s time to resume our focus on the core mission of the Democratic Party: strengthening our schools, creating jobs, and ensuring more opportunity for all North Carolinians,” said Perdue after Parker’s announcement.

In his EEOC complain, Ortega said that he was sexually harassed between early September and late November. He claims that he spoke to the party’s administrative director about the harassment in September, and that after speaking with another party official he was told that there would be no retaliation for his actions. Although Ortega says he was subjected to no further harassment, he was fired from his job in November.

Parker said that an investigation into Ortega’s claims found several of his allegations to be either false or open to interpretation, noting that they weren’t included in Ortega’s EEOC complaint. All that was left were allegations of Parmley touching Ortega’s leg while the latter slept during a road trip and of the executive director giving Ortega inappropriate shoulder massages. “We’re down to a whack on the leg to wake him up,” said Parker, “and unwanted shoulder rubs that don’t amount to a hostile environment.”

Democratic National Committee Executive Director Patrick Gaspard said that Parker’s decision was “in the best interest of the party,” as the scandal’s backlash threatened to hurt preparations for the Democratic National Convention, which will be held in September in Charlotte. Strategists for both parties also note that the Tar Heel State will be a battleground in November’s presidential election, and that President Barack Obama won the state in 2008 with just a 0.3 percent margin of victory.

Cliff Dunn

I know what kind of week Mitt Romney has had. The former more-or-less unquestioned GOP nominee began last weekend offering nervous conservatives assurances that he has what it to takes to be the heir to Ronald Reagan. In a similar fashion, I spent last week trying to be an honest broker and explain to friends, gay and straight, why Romney isn’t exactly bad for “the gays,” but lacks the testicular fortitude to tout his true feelings to his gay supporters, and so sucks up to our political enemies. In this, he resembles in some ways his hoped-for opponent, President Obama.

“My family, my faith, my businesses– I know conservatism because I have lived conservatism,” the candidate told delegates last Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC) in Washington, DC.

The former Massachusetts governor told the thousands assembled that, “I understand the battles we conservatives must fight because I have been on
the front lines.” Romney called on the delegates to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and ultimate victory over President Barack Obama  in November.

I sympathize with Romney in a way I sympathized with the now-defunct candidacy of his distant cousin and GOP rival Jon Huntsman, who was also not a “red meat” baiter of the far right fringe (who vote in droves during primary season and who have taken turns playing footsie first with fellow candidate Newt Gingrich, and then Rick Santorum). Unlike Huntsman, who never engaged in the politics of hate speech, Romney is forced to give lip-service to bigots (who would despise his Harvard education if they knew he possessed it) in a language that dishonors that Ivy League foundation for his political leadership.

I likewise blame “insider” Ron Paul for lacking the honesty to call his bigotry what it is. I admire his libertarian assertion that all citizens should be entitled to the same rights and benefits, while at the same time I despise his cowardly use of DOMA to Keep Gays Out of federal recognition, while he weakly invokes states-rights as his excuse. Paul, Paul: why do you persecute me?

Last week, Romney’s campaign took it on the chin after the candidate lost a triple crown of primary races to challenger Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator won first-place in Republican caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a non-binding primary in Missouri. Of the remaining contenders, Santorum, who has compared “consensual sex within your home” to “bigamy” and “incest,” has positioned himself as the guardian of the GOP social conservative wing’s agenda.

Romney refuses to concede the right side of the playing field. “I was a severely conservative Republican governor,” Romney argued. Severely conservative? I thought that being conservative, like being pregnant, is a binary state: you either are or you aren’t. On Friday, Romney told the C-PAC delegates that he is a non-Washington outsider. “I am the only candidate in this race, Republican or Democrat, who has never worked a day in Washington,” he said. “I don’t have old scores to settle or decades of cloakroom deals that I have to defend.”

Although Romney took shots at the current administration’s perceived record ["If we lead with conviction and integrity, then history will record the Obama presidency as the last gasp  of liberalism's great failure and a turning point for the conservative era to come"], he did not note his own diversity of opinions on social issues, notably
gay marriage.

On Friday, the candidate touted his opposition to marriage equality while he was in the Massachusetts state house:  “I successfully prohibited out-of-state couples from coming to our state to get married and then going home. On my watch, we fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage.” Oh for the Mitt Romney who challenged then-Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994 to become one of those “insiders” who “[work every] day in Washington.” That Romney, who was 18 years away from throwing LGBT Americans under the Gingrich-Santorum bus, wrapped himself in a big-old-rainbow and announced “I am more convinced than ever before that as we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.”

It is a long way to November, and it remains to be seen if Obama is a one-term president or finishes the job he began for LGBT Americans with DADT and federal employee partner rights. A lot of politicians, Obama and Romney among them, agonize publicly over their policy positions and send the occasional “wink” to supporters they dare not address less obliquely. Romney may turn into the kind of “effective leader” that LGBT Americans need. But I wish that he was sending more winks to us than to Fred Phelps.

Cliff Dunn - Editor

Cliff Dunn is the Editor of Florida Agenda. He can be reached at Editor@FloridaAgenda.com.

By Cliff Dunn

Even as he struggles to convince mainstream conservatives that he is the logical standard-bearer to take on President Barack Obama in November, Mitt Romney’s triumph last month over the remaining GOP contenders in the Florida presidential primary has the blessing of the nation’s largest LGBT Republican organization.
“Having Gingrich out there reminding voters that Romney has stated support for gay rights will … play well in Florida,” said Clarke Cooper, executive director of the 22,000-member Log Cabin Republicans at the time of last month’s primary.

Romney’s victory over challengers Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul followed a contentious Sunshine State campaign in which the candidates made every effort to paint themselves as the natural successor to the Ronald Reagan, while utilizing every means at their individual and collective disposals to break the late president’s so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

Romney’s adoption of hardball tactics may have helped propel him to victory in Florida, just ten days after a steep loss to Gingrich in South Carolina. The former House speaker’s victory raised questions about the former Massachusetts governor’s viability as a national contender. Gingrich’s stumble paved the way for former Pennsylvania senator Santorum to claim the  far-right of the playing field, a position which propelled him to triple wins last week in the Colorado and Minnesota GOP caucuses
and the non-binding Missouri Republican primary.

In December, Gingrich signed a pledge to uphold the Iowa Family Leader’s “Marriage Vow.” In a lengthy screed, the twice-divorced former Georgia congressman promised that, if elected “President, I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted under my leadership as Speaker of the House, and ensure compliance with its provisions, especially in the military. I will also aggressively defend the constitutionality of DOMA in federal and state courts. I will support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification. I will also oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to define marriage in any manner other than as between one man and one woman. I will support all efforts to reform promptly any uneconomic or anti-marriage aspects of welfare and tax policy. I also pledge to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.”

During a conference call last month for supporters of the Religious Right, Gingrich–whose marital history includes three marriages and an acknowledged record of infidelity–compared marriage equality to paganism: “It’s pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it’s a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization.”

In August 2005, Romney—then Governor of Massachusetts—told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews with regards to marriage equality in his state, “I hope that people will be able to decide that neither civil union, nor same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts.”

Fast forward six years to August 2011, when Romney intoned during the Iowa Republican debate “I believe we should have a federal amendment in the constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and woman.”

Just before the Florida primary, officers of the Log Cabin Republicans held a caucus in which Romney beat Gingrich by a vote of 26 to 4.

The group’s Cooper noted that Florida has come long way since Broward County passed its contentious Human Rights Ordinance in 1995, which extends to persons, based on their sexual orientation, protection from discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations. “Overall, the general populous in the Sunshine State has become increasingly supportive of gay-rights related positions such as employment non-discrimination and the freedom to marry,” Cooper said.

“Any candidate attempting to use gays as a dividing rod in the 2012 election is bucking public trends of inclusion and will find themselves unable to win a general election. Politics is about addition and the long term gains are made through building coalitions, not employing wedge issues,” Cooper noted.

For his part, Romney continues to try and navigate the treacherous political waters between espousing fairness and equal protection for LGBT Americans, while not alienating “values” voters who turn out disproportionately during primary season, and who clearly turned out for Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri.

Romney said during a debate with Santorum that while governor of Massachusetts he appointed an openly-gay member to his cabinet as well as gay judges.

He qualified his progressive executive model, adding that “at the same time, from the very beginning in 1994, I said to the gay community, I do not favor same-sex marriage. I oppose same-sex marriage and that has been my view.” Then Romney seemingly qualified his qualifier: “If people are looking for someone who will discriminate against gays or will in any way try and suggest that people–that have different sexual orientation don’t have full rights
in this country, they won’t find that in me.”

The debate’s moderator asked Romney, “When was the last time you stood up and spoke out for increasing gay rights?” The candidate replied, “Right now,” although he did not list any particulars. This same Romney announced last week after California’s Proposition 8 ruling that, “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.”