NEWS: Romney Gears Up Discrimination for Presidential Bid

POLITICS: Romney Gears Up Discrimination for Presidential Bid

Mitt Romney, the unfortunately named Republican governor of Massachusetts is one of several names that typically comes up in a discussion about possible candidates for the 2008 presidential election. A few years ago sending a Republican from "Taxachusetts," the oft-belittled "most liberal state" in the country to the White House when the country seemed to be in the throes of a neocon/evangelical revolution was laughable, however now that moderation is ruling the day perhaps a less overtly conservative candidate is just what the GOP is looking for. However, in order to become the GOP candidate one must still be approved by the Republicans in the primaries, and in order to do that you have to throw the fundies a bone or two.



Enter gay marriage, the meaningless cause du jour of the Republican party that had, until this past election, successfully riled up base voters and let them overlook failures in Iraq and elsewhere. Romney doesn't seem satisfied with the decision of the state courts endorsing gay marriage, and so he's pushing the issue to the voters in the hopes of getting it overturned and securing his conservative credentials.

In all fairness the legislature has been a little more dismissive of Romney's efforts to enshrine discrimination in the state law than they really needed to be; rather than voting on the issue presented by Romney the state legislature instead chose to recess, essentially ignoring him. Which would have been fine, except that polls show that state residents actually support the court's decision, so the legislature would have been enacting the will of the people by voting down the ban.



Regardless, it's their right to defer the decision, particularly after rejecting an earlier proposal to amend the constitution to define marriage as purely a heterosexual endeavor, it's not as if they're being deliberately evasive on the issue.

Mark it. Romney will be the candidate of record for the GOP in the' 08 general election. The Evangelic Christians will have to swallow hard to put their support to a Mormon -- but he'll be more palatable than Giuliani (friend to gays, adulterer, very pro-choice) or Mc Cain (all that shuckin' & jivin'... for naught) -- but electability, plus a sop to the South (Lindsey Graham for VP?), will rule the day.

I can only hope you are right. Because he doesn't have snowball's chance in hell of getting elected.

I wouldn't go that far... He's not Dukakis, though superficially, he is. Massachusetts governor, non-Protestant (come to think of it, there are no name politicos from MA that are Protestant; Kennedys, Catholic - Dukakis, Orthodox - Romney, Mormon). He has a business pedigree though, paired to organizing skill like no other (reviving the SLC Olympiad post-bribery revelations). He would be formidable.

Now, to find that link to the Atlantic article about Romney...

I'd have supported McCain if he didn't revert back to sucking hard-line republican cock. I mean, killing Roe vs. Wade?

And Romney's mormonism will bite him in the ass. His grandfather was a polygamist mormon, and all the wierdo doctrines of the mormon cult will come to light soon enough.

I'll try to find the poll that found that more Americans would support a Muslim candidate than a mormon one.

Oh, and I was raised mormon. Recovery from mormonism

Please, let to goopers run Mitt the Twit in 08'.

he has also bankrupted the state and now is paying police overtime (yay) to give more tickets (boo)

Open_Wound... thanks for bringing nothing to the discussion.

Bigotry against Mormons is just as bad as bigotry against anyone else.

No it isn't.

Religion, as Carlin once said, is a voluntary state. It's not the same as being Black, White, Mexican or Gay. Religious leaders and public figures like to pretend otherwise whenever they're criticized for their religious beliefs, but it's bullshit. Therefore criticism, mockery and even hatred of the followers of a religion is perfectly fair. This is especially true for a religion whose founders preached that Native Americans were cursed by God. How's THAT for bigotry?

Also, he DID bring something to the discussion: he brought his own experience as a former mormon AND he gave you a link to click on. What the fuck more do you want?

mormons smell. mitt rommney smells like bad chinese food all the time. he has a musk of old vodka on him too, maybe it's in his sweat.

deval patrick ftw!

FTW = For the win?

... I don't maybe. Might that I watched too much of the Feud (with the return of Richard Dawson (after that one dude killed himself)) coming up.

So, Romney's grandfather being a bigamist (or more than that) is to be held against him?

Well, another Massachusetts legacy politician -- JFK -- had an issue with his father being a bootlegger & antisemite. Somehow, that brush of "ancestor's sin" didn't manage to tar him. (Being Catholic almost did, of course.)

I think you should reconsider that line of reasoning, then.

Also: the Carlin analogy may be fine for playground or bar-room debate & taunting, but in politics? On the campaign?

Really?

So, Glenn Beck -- whom I seem to recall being reamed here, over his questioning of Keith Ellison (D-MN) -- was not out of line asking for KE to prove he's not a Muslim terrorist?

Romney's chances in the general election don't really matter much.

The fundies hold great sway in their primaries. He's from Massachusetts, and he's a Mormon.

The South isn't like the West. In the West, being a Mormon almost always helps and almost never hurts. We had a local Congressman who got caught with his pants down (almost literally) and his last-ditch effort to avoid losing everything was to convert to LDS.

And in much of the rest of the country, the LDS church is immediately associated with polygamy, which it has banned for about 100 years.

You need to read a bit more carefully.

First, not to nitpick semantics, but it wasn't an analogy, it was a paraphrase of something someone once said.

Second, I wasn't advocating religious intolerance as a campaign strategy, if that's what you were getting at (hard for me to tell what you meant, honestly). I was pointing out (in response to someone else's comment) that it's bullshit when people claim that their religious beliefs are off limits to criticism and equate hostility toward their beliefs and ideas with bigotry, which is hatred for people based on skin colour, sexual orientation or some other accident of birth. For example, regardless of where you stand on the Israeli/Palestinian question, it's bullshit when people equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism (apologies for how far off-topic this is getting).

Religion is a volunatry association with a set of ideas and usually with the politics that often go with them. If it's ok to hate Republicans, meter maids, math teachers or Red Sox fans, then it's ok to hate Mormons, Muslims, Wiccans or Scientologists. And where does this "ancestor sin" thing come from? Who brought up Romney's grandpa? If you mean my comment on the founders of the LDS, I stand by it; God's curse on the Native Americans either is still part of church dogma or was until so recently it's shameful (someone correct me if I'm in error here), which makes the matter relevant to the question of whether Open_Wound's disdain for his former church constitutes bigotry.

While I think it's a stretch for you to bring up what happened to Mr Ellison, I'll answer that. I have no objection to a muslim like Mr Ellison or a Mormon like Mr Romney or anyone else holding office. It's a free country, and you're free to believe whatever silly things you want (no atheist has held public office in this country since Thomas Jefferson, and I'm not holding my breath for the next one). I only meant to dispute that attacking people for their religious beliefs is unfair, bigoted or otherwise indecent. My atheism, like my politics, is likewise fair game for debate or ridicule.

Lastly, while I appreciate your concession that my "analogy" is "fine for playground or bar-room debate & taunting", I have to wonder where the fuck you think we are, on the floor of the United States Senate? We're on a fucking porno site. Not much like a playground, but not too different from a bar in terms of what's appropriate.

I have held two rocks to my breast, and have had a celestial vision of Mitt NOT getting nominated. Doomy and Gloomy (the rocks) have never been wrong before.

Sorry, I just don't trust his loyalty. Just like how some people blindly support the stunningly evil and repressive acts of certain small but highly religeously-oriented countries primarily because of their religion, (some even committed treason for the same reason) I believe that a Mormon president would advance certain policies to benefit his religeous affiliation over what is best for the country. Just like Bush has.

Give me an agnostic, or give the world more religeously-inspired death.

Doomy and Gloomy have spoken.