I guess roughly half of American voters will cast a ballot for a cruel homophobe, who will have, if elected, the opportunity to pack the Supreme Court with justices that share his “vision” or American society. As I blogged last week (“The real, nasty, anti-gay Romney: as governor he rejected new birth certificates for gay parents“), Murray Waas reported in Boston Globe that while as governor, Mitt Romney had no problem denigrating LGBT  families with a discriminatory policy. Now, for the first time, as Michelangelo Signorile reports, the video of his cruelty surfaces for the first time in this presidential campaign.

One of two video clips that Waas has now uploaded to YouTube shows Romney speaking to conservative voters in South Carolina in 2005, as he was testing the waters for a presidential bid, discussing his battle with the Registry of Vital Statistics and Records regarding the birth certificate forms. Romney distorted the Registry of Vital Statistics’ plan, which was to change the labeling of boxes on the forms from “father” and “mother” to “father or second parent” and “mother or second parent.” He claimed the plan was to change the form to have “Parent A” and Parent B” boxes, when, as the documents Waas obtained show, those terms were not in fact used:

Today, same-sex couples are marrying, under the law, in Massachusetts. Some gays are actually having children born to them. We’ve been asked to remove the phrase “mother” and “father” and replace it with “parent A” and “parent B.” It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has the right to have a mother and father.

Clip #2 is from CSPAN. Critical point is at 6:11.

The children of America have the right to have a mother and a father. Of course, even today circumstances can take a parent from the home, but the child still has a mother and a father. If the parents are unmarried or divorced, the child can still visit each of them. If a mother or a father of a child is deceased, the child can learn about the qualities of their departed parent. His or her psychological features can be developed by the contrasting features of both genders. Are we ready to usher in a society indifferent about having mothers and fathers? Will our children be indifferent about a having a mother and father?”

In his 1994 Senate run, Mittens promised to be better on LGBT issues “than Ted Kennedy.” We all know it was hogwash. As Mike noted, promises and actions are quite different, and when he had the opportunity to act:

 The real Romney is the guy who actually delivered to cultural conservatives and sought to harm the children of gay couples, and who is now running for president with the backing of those very same religious extremists.