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.
