Romney's Lack of Evolution on Gay Rights

       There has been a recent story in the press of Romney as a high school student engaging in what today would be considered bullying of a gay student. True it is years ago but still you might wonder what it says about his character:

      "The details of The Washington Post piece are vivid: that 48 years ago in high school, Romney led a group of teens to physically hold down and clip the hair of a young man who was believed at the time to be gay, and who came out as an adult."

         http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76217.html

       "If accurately described, the incident would be considered bullying in an era in which there are now national campaigns against such activity.

       Of course he was going to get the minority of votes from gay people anyway but this could hurt him with independents. The attitude of independents may vary on questions like gay marriage but as a whole, the median independent voter at least doesn't want a candidate that is perceived as blatantly homophobic.

      True this is way in the past:

      "Romneyland and Republicans have pushed back hard on the piece, for accuracy and for fairness. They argue that decades-old news is either irrelevant to the presidency, or unfairly applied. President Barack Obama, they note, wrote in “Dreams From My Father” about drug use, dog meat and shoving a girl in middle school because she expressed interest in him."

     True, still the question is how much does it bear on who he is today. These episodes in Obama's book don't have much to do with who he is today. For instance pushing a girl in middle school doesn't seem like much to worry about as it is not he and the Democrats but the Republican in Congress who are trying to gut the Violence Against Women Act-one thing they tried to add is some mechanism that would allow an abuser of women to know if is victim reported him.

     Compared to the GOP attitude on violence against women today what Obama may have done in middle school seems like the trivial childhood memory it was-he didn't seriously hurt her, it was middle school for Pete's Sake.

     Romney's past on the other hand seems more relevant because of his own current attitude on gays which does not seem so "evolved."

     If you follow his political career since 1994 what you see is a devolution. In 94 he claimed he'd be better than Ted Kennedy on gay rights. Now he is opposed to civil unions and actively supports DOMA. He also forced out his foreign policy advisor, Richard Grenell-who had worked on high level diplomacy for George W. Bush-for being gay.

    If Obama today opposed the Violence Against Women Act or tried to water it down by empathizing with abusers of women then maybe we might see the pushing the middle school girl incident as more relevant.