I've thought since about the summer of 2005 that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney - smart, articulate, telegenic -- had the best chance to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008. While his Mormon faith will turn off some Christian conservatives, he's the only social conservative with a decent chance to win. And while Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) will be a real challenge, McCain has a way of getting testy and saying things that get him into trouble. Before Romney is crowned, however, he needs to answer more questions about his position on gay civil rights.
As someone who knows grassroots Republican politics from some experience, I've been amused at the media's coverage of the race for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. The idea, for example, that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has any chance of getting the nomination is laughable. Yes, he was mayor when 9/11 happened and didn't start screaming hysterically (though what his credentials are for "leadership" beyond this have always eluded me). Yes, he's the Republican lots of Democrats could vote for. Yes, the mainstream media seem to like him.
Believe it or not, CBS News is not going to pick the GOP nominee. The nominee will be chosen by a disciplined and hard-working core of religious conservatives for whom two issues matter more than anything else. Those issues are abortion and gay rights. Giuliani is for both; the party's primary electorate is vehemently against both. End of candidacy.
Just a decade ago, Mitt Romney also favored abortion and gay rights. He was one of those Republicans that Log Cabin used to tout as a model. In a 1994 Senate race debate, Romney even argued he'd be a better advocate for gays than would Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). As governor of Massachusetts, Romney hired openly gay people to serve in his administration and on state commissions. He supported the state's law protecting gays from discrimination.
Then came the Massachusetts high court decision in 2003 ordering the state to recognize gay marriages. It would have been one thing for Romney to oppose such an important decision being made by judges. But Romney went much further.
Already thinking about running for president and thus about the Republican electorate he'd have to face, he came out swinging in full traditional-values mode. He not only supported a state constitutional amendment reversing the decision but favored a ban on civil unions. Unlike McCain, Romney supports a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It's not clear that he supports any kind of legal protection or standing for gay families. It's his signature issue with religious conservatives.
At the same time, Romney's reversed himself on civil rights laws for gays. He now opposes laws that forbid employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
How does he square the old Romney - left-of-Kennedy gay-equality champion - with the new Romney - traditional-values guru?
In a recent interview with National Journal, Romney was asked to explain his shift on gay issues. His answers deserve a close look, both for what they say about him and for areas that need to be further explored.
Here is his current view on laws forbidding anti-gay employment discrimination:
I do not support creating a special law or a special status. I've learned through my experience over the last decade that when you single out a particular population group for special status, it opens the door to a whole series of lawsuits, many of them frivolous and very burdensome to our employment community, and so I do not favor a specific law of that nature. What I do favor is people doing what I did [as Massachusetts governor], or what I tried to do, and not discriminate against people who are gay.
So he opposes discrimination but not a law forbidding it. There is nothing necessarily inconsistent in this. There are many people who believe homosexuality is unrelated to job performance but who question the wisdom of antidiscrimination laws. They do so on the grounds that such laws invite not just meritorious claims but also false and strategic ones. That's costly to business and thus to the economy, and thus to all of us.
Now, there are two fair lines of questioning in response to Romney's stated position.
First, is it sincere? Or is it cover for bigotry or for a politics-driven conclusion? I don't get the sense that he's a committed bigot, but it might be unprincipled opportunism on his part. He might be opposing gay civil rights laws because he knows this is what the Republican primary electorate will demand. That's not exactly bigotry, but it's soft-on-bigotry. It would not augur well for a President Romney.
So, let's hear an answer: Does he oppose laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, age, etc.? These laws can also be abused and thus be costly to us all. If he doesn't oppose them, and I'd guess he doesn't, he should explain why he draws the line at protecting gays from discrimination.
Second, if he's sincere about his reason for opposing laws that protect gays from discrimination, what is his evidence for the harm they cause? He was governor of a state that has long had such a law. What is the "experience" that led to his change of heart? Where available, anti-gay discrimination claims are such a small part of discrimination claims overall that it's hard to believe they've been very burdensome in relation to the rest. Perhaps Massachusetts has attracted unusually litigious homosexual employees. I don't know.
What about it, Governor?