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Mitt Romney: Vegetarian in Chief
by Gary Glenn, Chairman
Campaign for Michigan Families

The Washington, D.C. conservative weekly Human Events last year listed Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in its Top Ten list of RINOs (Republicans in Name Only), ranking him at number 8 in the nation with the following entry:

"Has said, 'I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.' Supports (homosexual) civil unions and stringent gun laws. After visiting Houston, he criticized the city's aesthetics, saying, 'This is what happens when you don't have zoning.'"

http://www.humanevents.com/sarticle.php?id=11129

Romney should have ranked even higher on the list of RINOs. He famously likes to tell conservative audiences in Iowa and South Carolina that being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts is like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention.

I attended last fall's GOP conference in Michigan, where Romney continued his masquerade as a "conservative," even daring to tell the assembled activists: "I am pro-life" -- knowing full well that he does not mean by that term what those listening would think he meant.

Romney's ten-year political career has occurred from his late 40s to his late 50s, yet he asks pro-family conservatives to naively believe that he's just now figuring out his core beliefs.

During that decade, he has insistently supported legal abortion-on-demand. In a televised 1994 campaign debate, Romney said: "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time when my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it, and I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice. ...Since that time, my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter, and you will not see my wavering on that."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/02/romneys_revolving_world

His 2002 gubernatorial campaign web site stated: "As Governor, Mitt Romney would protect the current pro-choice status quo in Massachusetts. No law would change. The choice to have an abortion is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government's."

http://web.archive.org/web/20021218005104/www.romneyhealey.com/issues

Romney's response to the National Abortion Rights Action League's 2002 candidate survery: ''I respect and will protect a woman's right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one. Women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not mine and not the government's. The truth is, no candidate in the governor's race in either party would deny women abortion rights." (Notably, Romney refused to answer Massachusetts Citizens for Life's candidate questionnaire.)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/03/clarity_sought_on_romneys_abortion_stance/?page=2

Not surprisingly, Romney's clearly stated support for Roe and "a woman's right to choose" -- i.e., abortion on demand -- earned him the endorsement of the pro-abortion Republican Majority for Choice PAC.

He was also endorsed, twice, by the homosexual "Log Cabin Republicans," the same group that in 2004 spent $1 million attacking President Bush for his support of a Marriage Protection Amendment.

Romney believes the Boy Scouts should allow openly homosexual Scoutmasters: "I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts regardless of their sexual orientation."

http://www.888webtoday.com/bresnahan6.html

He endorses Ted Kennedy's federal "gay rights" legislation. He endorses taxpayer-financed same-sex benefits for the homosexual partners of state employees, and even attacked some Democratic legislators for not supporting such government benefits.

According to the Associated Press, he has appointed at least two openly homosexual lawyers to state judgeships, one a board member of the Lesbian & Gay Bar Association. Imagine how that will fly in Republican presidential primaries in the South, the prospect of a president with a record of appointing homosexual activists to the bench. (See copy of gubernatorial news release below.)

In 2002, before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized so-called homosexual "marriage," Romney denounced a preemptive state Marriage Protection Amendment prohibiting homosexual "marriage," civil unions, or same-sex public employee benefits as "too extreme," even after being advised by the media that his own wife and son had just signed a petition to place it on the ballot.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multipage/documents/03827930.asp

Now, as he postures to run for president, Romney travels to Iowa and Michigan and South Carolina to claim he's "pro-life" and brag about fighting homosexual "marriage," saying that at age 59, his position on such issues has "evolved."

(No flip-flop so far, however, on his stated support for homosexual Scoutmasters, forcing taxpayers to fund spousal benefits for the "partners" of state employees involved in homosexual relationships, or Kennedy's federal "gay rights" legislation.)

Regardless, most pro-family voters don't believe in the theory of evolution -- including as it applies to politicians, and especially when the alleged "evolution" seems so conveniently timed to produce political benefit.

Gov. Romney can tell all the cattle-rancher-at-a-vegetarian-convention jokes he wants about Massachusetts. But they're going to fall flat when social conservatives learn -- and they will -- that his long-term record on abortion and elements of homosexual activists' political agenda has been that of Vegetarian in Chief.