Mitt Romney Says Dead Parent Better Than Gay One

[Red Scare]

2nd November 2007 17:20
Tony Grew

A candidate for the Republican party nomination for President of the United States has said that he thinks a child would be better off with a dead parent rather than a gay one.

Mitt Romney, a former Governor of Massachusetts, was speaking at a college in rural Iowa.

Asked what he would say to a gay couple wanting to get married, he pointed out his support for a change to the US Constitution to bar gay and lesbian Americans from marriage.

"I believe that maintaining the strength of the marriage relationship, the family relationship, is critical to the strength of an entire society," he said, according to Rocky Mountain News.

"And I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home.

"Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad.

"And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child.

"I'm in favour of promoting, as a society, the marriage of men and women and the development of children in that kind of setting."

Mr Romney is attempting to portray himself as more conservative than his Republican opponents on the issue of gay marriage.

The leading candidate, former Mayor of New York Rudy Guiliani, is pro-gay rights.

Massachusetts is the only state in America to have legalised gay marriage.

This was not the work of Mr Romney, a Mormon who once worked as a missionary in France.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts established the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry.

American liberals are worried about the candidacy of a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mormons believe that homosexuality, and homosexual desire, are sinful.

The church has opposed all efforts in America to legalise same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Mr Romney has experience in state government and in business: he was the CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

However, he has no experience in Congress, or international politics.

This may not be a barrier, as four out of the last five Presidents have come to Washington straight from state politics.

Last December it was revealed that Mr Romney once courted the gay community for their support in a 1994 campaign for the US Senate.

In a letter, published by Massachusetts newspaper Bay Windows, he promises to represent his gay and lesbian constituents.

"I think the gay community needs more support from the Republican Party, and I would be a voice in the Republican Party to foster anti-discrimination efforts," he wrote.

The revelation angered conservatives in the US.

The Republican candidate will be announced at the party's convention at the start of September 2008.

The Presidential election will be held on 4th November 2008 and a new President will take office on 20th January 2009.

More info here. (http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5944.html)

Bastard really pisses me off. Today he talke on TV about getting rid of support systems and safe places for illegal immigrants so that they could be sent back where they came from :angry:.

[midnight marauder]

Oh my god.

You'd think that we'd all have been long used to politicians saying the most astonishingly reactionary nonsense, but everytime I hear something like this it still shocks me.

It sounds like he's trying to appeal to the Christian "moral majority" voting block. They seem to have been kind of orphaned without a Republican candidate in this election.

[TC]

If you look at what he's actually saying though rather than going for the sensationalist "better dead than gay" headline (which is not really what he's saying) it reveals exactly why they're really so opposed to gay marriage.

For the conservatives, although personal bigotry towards gay people surely represents a part of it, its more than that, this is really a 'family values' issue.

Sanctifying the marriage of two working adults to get married who clearly and publicly have no intention of reproducing new workers for the labour force is a threatening idea to the class that depends on that labour force. It means that marriage doesn't have to be about having and raising children. Of course this is already the case for many opposite-sex marriages with both partners as full time equal employees but the state gives them no implied sanction to do so since the assumption remains that an opposite-sex married couple will have at least one child with the wife assuming a subordinate role in public life.
That assumption is clearly not present in same-sex marriages.

Thats why its better for them to have a divorced couple (presumably with the ex-wife with the kids and the father/husband supporting them, in reality maintaining the patriarchal family structure just with two residences and without sexual monogamy) or even a deceased parent (which is no example of an alternative form of social organisation) than recognizing gay couples on par with straight couples.

This is also why they're more willing to permit "civil unions" or other non-marriage recognitions of gay relationships than referring to their relationships by the same term. A "civil union" is no example to straight people of a different way to structure their lives the way an equal marriage without children is.


When the conservatives say that "gay marriage" is a "threat" to the "institution of marriage", a threat to their heterosexual marriages, rather than dismissing it as empty rhetoric covering up for their homophobia, we should consider the possibility that that really may be what much of their organised opposition is actually about. Its also why every straight person who doesn't want to allow the patriarchal conservatives to culturally define their lives and relationships has a personal interest in ensuring that gay marriage is recognized as such rather than leaving gay people with second-class recognition.

[Red October]

Romney is a bastard, this isn't a surprise. All of the republican candidates are competing to get the most social conservative credibility, which is why you see them comparing each other to Hillary Clinton all the time. They know that a very important section of their base is pretty damn anti-gay and won't vote for a candidate who is seen as promoting gay rights.

[counterblast]

The whole civil union concept is comparable to the Jim Crow-era "Separate but Equal" rhetoric; The powerless are even further marginalized from the powerful through strict social/political barriers.

BTW: By suggesting that having dead parents negatively effects the upbringing or happiness of a child, the title of this thread is as offensive as what Mitt Romney said.