Mitt the homophobe

I’ve often said that because Mitt Romney has held and advocated every possible position on every possible issue, I’m not really sure what he thinks about anything. It is now evident, however, that he really is anti-gay (which means that when he claimed he’d be more pro-gay in the US Senate than Ted Kennedy, he was lying).

I came to this conclusion not merely because he wants to amend the US Constitution to forever ban marriage equality in all 50 US States, including those where it is now law, but because of his recent paternalistic, condescending and extremely offensive positions that reveal his true feelings about gay people.

One of Mitt’s chief campaign advisers, the truly vile Bay Buchanan, told reporters that Mitt “very much supports traditional marriage, but he's also a very strong advocate for the Tenth Amendment. It's a state issue." That sounded to many people like Mitt was softening his newly re-rediscovered far-right extremism. Of course, the American Taliban made sure that impression couldn’t endure.

Bay “clarified” her remarks (politician-speak for “I totally fucked-up and now I have to pretend this is what I meant all along”) by saying that of course Mitt still wants to amend the US Constitution to forever ban marriage equality in all 50 states, but he “also believes, consistent with the 10th Amendment, that it should be left to states to decide whether to grant same-sex couples certain benefits, such as hospital visitation rights and the ability to adopt children. I referred to the Tenth Amendment only when speaking about these kinds of benefits—not marriage." No, but that sort of obfuscation par for the course for her.

“Certain benefits”? Only an arrogant, elitist homophobe would think that the only rights that GLBT people should have are “certain benefits”, and if states choose not to allow any rights at all, well, good golly, that’s okay, too. Only a sick, inhuman monster would think it’s okay for states to refuse to guarantee that a gay person won’t be banned from the hospital bedside of their ill or dying partner. Only a rich, entitled elitist would think that it was okay to force same-gender couples to spend thousands of dollars for a weak approximation of the protections that marriage grants in one fell swoop—and that’s especially disgusting when he also thinks it would be perfectly okay for states to refuse to recognise all those legal papers and documents.

The deep offensiveness of Mitt’s position is obvious to anyone if instead of “gay” you insert any other minority in the US, like, say, oh, I don’t know, Mormons, for example. For Mitt to think that enshrining bigotry in the US Constitution is okay, and then to actually welcome states to permit cruelty to citizens—who, of course, in Mitt-land wouldn’t even be protected enough to be considered second-class citizens—for Mitt to think that this gross, theocratic-based attack on fundamental human rights can ever be excused reveals him to be a sick, hate-filled and even evil man.

If Mitt wins, all of America loses, but LGBT Americans will lose even more. The Republicans must be stopped.