First up "gay = bad" crusade was the revelation that Romney will ask the state's highest court to order a ballot question on same-sex marriage if legislators fail to vote on the matter when they reconvene in January.
Romney said he will ask a justice of the state's Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers do not vote directly on the question Jan. 2, the final day of the current session. Romney's term as governor expires Jan. 4.The legislature is in recess and, because it did not adjourn, Romney has no legal authority to call legislators back into session.
Romney, an opponent of same-sex marriage, made his announcement to the cheers of hundreds of same-sex-marriage opponents at a rally on the Statehouse steps. A counter-protest was held across the street.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November 2003 that same-sex marriages are legal. Since then, more than 8,000 gay couples have tied the knot in the state.
Yes, faithful readers, gay couples have had the right to marry for three years now and there has not been a single report of a civilization-ending flood or fire come to wipe the unholy land of Massachusetts off the globe. And no, there's been no enormous hole opening up underneath Boston either to swallow our modern day Sodom and Gamorra. Yet there's Mitt, out there like some deranged nitwit holding up his metaphorical "The End is Near" sign.
Of course, Romney isn't satisfied with simply stripping gays of their civil rights; now he's hoping to up the suicide rate among gay teens. At least, that's what it looks like to me when he decided to cut funding to gay youth suicide prevention programs.
Last week Bay Windows reported that Gov. Mitt Romney’s $425 million in budget cuts announced this month included extensive cuts to HIV/AIDS and LGBT-related programs, but that the extent of those cuts was not completely known. One of the question marks was the Department of Public Health’s (DPH) Supportive and Healthy Communities for Gay and Lesbian Youth (SHCGLY) programming aimed at reducing LGBT youth suicide, which had originally been allocated $350,000 for the Fiscal Year 2007 (FY07). Kathleen Henry, chair of the Massachusetts Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, said this week the commission has learned that the cuts will include $100,000 from the SHCGLY program budget.
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“[Those cuts] coupled with the events over the weekend about ‘letting the people vote,’ that whole issue, it certainly seems like our community is being used as some kind of target practice for future political ambitions,” said Henry, referring to Romney’s Nov. 19 rally at the State House in support of an amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Hmmm, methinks Ms. Henry may be onto something there. An outgoing governor is doing everything he possibly can to wring every last bit of gay hate out of his agenda before leaving office January 4 by rehashing what is to many people a dead issue while also cutting funding to social programs primarily beneficial to gays. I think about the only other thing he could do to convince the anti-gay voters in the coming primaries of his sincerity to their plight is to actually start lighting random gay people on fire. Of course, I probably shouldn't be giving a hatemonger like Mitt such ideas. I know it's far to early to make too many predictions about the upcoming presidential primaries, but I think Romney's got the "I hate gays" voters locked up. Either that, or the other GOP contenders have got a lot of ground to make up if they hope to court this crucial swing vote.
2 comments:
Steven Wright said, “A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.” Some people get tired of thinking after about 3 seconds. For example, some people don’t want to think any more after hearing that Mitt Romney apposes same sex marriage. It takes about 3 seconds for them to digest this bit of information and come to the conclusion that Mitt Romney is a flaming bigot. If you try talking to them, it will do no good, they are tired of thinking. They have come to their conclusion. It is now time to act. So they start websites called, “Romney is a Fraud” and will post messages on a Dailey basis calling him a bigot. These people are not interested in the truth. They will call him a fraud, even though he stated his opposition to gay marriage in his candidacy for Governor, and attributes his more moderate stance to one of the reasons why he won.
These people are not interested in discovering if Romney is a bigot or not. They are not interested in hearing what he has to say on the matter, they have made their conclusion, and reading something like this from Romney will not sway them; “This is a subject about which people have tender emotions in part because it touches individual lives. It also has been misused by some as a means to promote intolerance and prejudice. This is a time when we must fight hate and bigotry, when we must root out prejudice, when we must learn to accept people who are different from one another. Like me, the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians.”
Thomas H. Huxley has said; "Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." I agree with him. If we throw out logic, if we come to conclusions without using facts then we destroy the systems in which truth can be advanced.
So here is a hint for those of you who want to keep calling Mitt Romney a bigot. You are going to have to do more than just call him one, or assume he is one, when you tell us what was going threw his bigoted mind when ever he decided to do something.
The following exchange took place in the Movie, “A Man for All Seasons”.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
We can not determine if Mitt Romney is a bigot in a court of law, and so we are going to have to do the next best thing. We are going to have to use truth promoting techniques, used in effective judicial systems, such as hearing both sides.
No one likes being called names, so why are those who often called names, willing to be so quick to call Romney a bigot? I assume most gay people like both their parents. Can they accept that someone would want kids to have both a mother and a father without calling them a bigot? Can they accept that most kids would proffer a mother and father. When the interest of adults who want to adopt children, comes in conflict with the assumed interest of children, do you have to side with the adults in order to avoid being called a bigot? Well of course you do! Between the two motivated parties: children who need adopting, and adults who want to adopt them, the only ones who are politically active, and have a voice are the adults.
But see, I don’t want to do more damage defending Romney, than if I wouldn’t have become involved. So if you got tired of thinking and made your conclusion before reading my next paragraph, you may be mislead of my intentions.
Believe me or not, I am not trying to say that gays should not be able to adopt children, I am just saying that Romney should not be called a bigot because he doesn’t think Catholic charities should be punished for not letting gays adopt the children within their system.
If we are going to throw words around, we should understand what those words mean. A bigot is: “One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.” Catholic charities and Mitt Romney are not intolerant of those with different beliefs. They are not trying to stop gays from adopting children in Massachusetts. They just want Catholic charities to do good for the community within their belief system that places a preference on families with both a mother and a father. From my perspective, it is the other side in Massachusetts that is intolerant of catholic charity’s mother and father centric belief system. Catholic charities harms no gay couples, when they only place their children within families that have both mothers and father. However it is their mother and father belief system that is being eradicated in Massachusetts, not the gays.
An example of a well reasoned argument trying to assert the conclusion that Mitt is a bigot would not omit quotes where Mitt Romney attacks bigotry. When we not longer advance well reasoned arguments, we are just throwing bombs at each other and no one is safe.
A well reasoned argument that Mitt is an opportunist and a fraud regarding his opposition regarding gay marriage will not omit the fact that Mitt has always been against gay marriage.
A well reasoned argument that Romney is traveling too much advances some sort of argument, instead of assuming everyone knows he travels too much. A well reasoned argument would acknowledge that there are times when it is less important to be within the boarders of the state of Massachusetts, like when the legislature is out of session. A very well reasoned argument would somehow prove that Mitt Romney is no value to his state when he is talking to people in other states, by proving that there are no similarities between people in Massachusetts and those that live outside of Massachusetts. An honest argument would acknowledge that Mitt Romney has spent more time in Massachusetts than Hillary Clinton has spent in the State of New York. They would acknowledge that Romney has planted deeper roots in Massachusetts than Hillary has in New York. That he has raised his children in Massachusetts, done his business, and gone to school in Massachusetts. If the Boston newspapers really want to ensure that their state matters nothing to the rest of the country, and that no one ever attains national office from their state again, they can keep up their hatred of anyone who dares visit other places.
A well reasoned argument would somehow prove that Mitt Romney is unable to use his phone to conduct business back in Massachusetts while he travels. Or perhaps he is unable to work on legislation that affect that blessed state, unless he is within its boarders. Or at least that he has spent less time serving the people of Massachusetts, than other Governors have in their 4 years of office.
A well reasoned argument that he is a “do nothing governor” would at least on the surface try to assert that the things he has done, including the most significant reform of emergency room and health insurance funding, and balancing an enormous budget deficit, amount to nothing.
You can not start with the conclusion, you must start with the facts. If you want to be taken seriously, you can not or ignore things can easily be found like in Romney’s Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney.
I’m an electrical engineer. I have to start with Data. I can’t say, I believe this op-amp will operate in this way, and so I will go from there. I have to research how the op-amp performs. The same with Romney. When I was trying to figure out if I wanted to support Mitt Romney or not, I wanted to find out where he stood on the issues. Americans for Mitt gave me a good start, of a list of quotes from Romney on each subject. Romney’s wikipedia article gave me some good background information, and the blogs that existed gave me a lot of what other people thought about Romney. But I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to find a comprehensive list of Romney quotes, and actions organized by each subject. So I created a website and have been organizing his quotes, Quotes, Press Releases, and actions, all by subject and by date.
Our concern should not be that our side wins, but that we are on the side of truth. Lincoln said, “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right." It is not important that we speak the loudest, or post the most posts, it is important that we do the most research and always use logical arguments to advance our cause. We can not stoop to the other side’s technique of calling anyone who disagrees with them a bigot. We can not use un-supported claims or slogans like Romney is a do nothing Governor, without examining what he has done, and trying to prove that it amounts to nothing. I think Hillary Clinton is a do nothing senator, but I’m not going to make that assertion without doing at least a little research into what she has done, and tried to do.
Using Google, I can not find the article (I guess they need to do a little more work) that explains how Google uses a “follow the data” corporate culture. From what I understand, they make it very clear that they don’t care what any of their employees think, unless they bring the data to the table to support their conclusions.
In order for Mitt Romney to win, we are going to have to do the same thing. We are going to have to do more than tell each other how great Mitt Romney is, and how stupid everyone else is. We are going to have to do more than call names. We are going to have to do research. True, it shouldn’t take too much research to prove that Mitt Romney would make a better chief executive officer of the nation. It could be said that Romney’s record speaks for itself, but not everyone is interested in finding Romney’s records. Many people are more interested in calling names. We are going to have to organize, condense, expand, ferment, and fully explain Romney’s record, and distribute it to the name callers and stone throwers.
We are going to have to speak truth to power. We are going to have to confront the Boston Globe when they keep asserting that Romney hates Massachusetts, with the following quotes:
* "There's no question I do love jokes," Romney answered when queried on this point. "Indicating that there are very few conservative Republicans in Massachusetts, I do not think is a surprise to anyone inside or outside of Massachusetts and is in no way an indictment of the state. If anything, it's a recognition that I have to do a better job of recruiting Republicans."
o Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator, 04-21-2006
As for Democrats' complaints about the amount of out-of-state traveling he's done, Romney refuses to repent. "My guess is my travel outside of the state has been far less than either Michael Dukakis or Senator Kerry," he said, adding, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and I would encourage my Democratic friends to remember that."
o Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator, 04-21-2006
So, to be clear, did Romney -- who came here in 1975 to seek degrees from both Harvard Business and Law schools -- pursue the governorship out of some Machiavellian plan to attain higher office, or does he love the state he leads?
o Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator, 04-21-2006
* "We've lived here now 34 years, raised all five of our sons here, and paid a mountain of taxes here," Romney noted. "You don't do that unless you enjoy the state and the economic, social, and cultural opportunities which it provides."
o Governor Mitt Romney, Mighty Mitt Romney, By Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator, 04-21-2006
We are going to have to speak truth to power when people say that he is a do nothing governor. We are going to have to ask them were their data is. We are going to have to ask them were their logic, and arguments are. We are going to have to tell people we don’t care about there conclusions, we want to hear their well thought out arguments. Broadcasting your conclusion should not be allowed to stand as a valid way of sharing your beliefs. You are going to have to do better than that. You are going to have to use some sort of logic. You are going to have to list reasons to agree with your conclusion, and disprove reasons to disagree with your conclusion.
Hillary Health care is one of the biggest problems our country faces. China and India are standing up with power, as they embrace capitalism. We must remain strong in our acceptance of personal responsibility, and choice, as we help them stand up in a responsible way as world powers. We have a lot of important truths to advance. We can not waste any time by not using bulletproof logic, and we can accept no less by those who appose us.
We have to explain how Romney was right to stand up to bi-lingual education, and advance English Emersion for adults and children. These are difficult issues, Romney is right, but we have to do a good job of explaining why.
Einstein said things should be made as simple as possible, but not more so. We need to embrace all perspectives of an issue. We should not ignore the points of those who disagree with us, we need to refute them. We should not ignore those who disagree with us, and call Romney a bigot, we need to engage with them.
We shouldn’t delete comments in our blogs by those who disagree with us, we need to win in the war of ideas.
We can not let people over simplify the issues. No one is a do nothing Governor. Everyone is trying to advance a cause, and either you like what they did or didn’t like what they did, and you can’t summarize what an individual did in 4 years with two words: “Do nothing”. You are going to have to defeat Romney on an issue by issue basis. Things should be made as simple as possible, but not more simple.
Help me organize Romney data for each subject. Help me address each issue. Help me research Romney’s positions, and help me engage with those who hate him, call him names, are miss-informed, or no nothing about him. Look at data first, and then come to conclusion. Don’t let others think for you.
Its thanksgiving. We have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful that I can try to fight stupidity were ever I confront it, even if I never win. I also have a wife and kid that I am thankful for, but I might not have them much longer if I don’t get off this stupid computer.
~~~Mike
I recognize that I am not fully 100 percent educated about Mitt Romney, however i do feel to come to the conclusion, since we are all in the mood here on making conclusions, that he can never ever hate another person. Its not in him. He lacks the mean-spiritededness that always accompanies such hate.
His position is simply to vote, i really don't think he thinks the world will come to a stammmering halt if the legislature came back and voted and decided together that Mitt is off on this one and voted to keep gay marriage legal. Miracle of Miracles, lo and behold they voted, but such is not the case. To promote this kind of hate as becoming of one such as Mitt Romney could not be farther from the truth. Please, do more research, what you beleive is completely false the fact is Mitt Loves all people, including gay people, to him, all are his brothers and sisters and thats how he treats everyone.
-----------Karl
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