Romney, Gays, and Kids

Murray Waas at the Boston Globe has compiled some unsurprising but troubling evidence of Mitt Romney's callous disregard toward same-sex families.

After Massachusetts extended marriage to same-sex couples in 2003, Romney fought his state's Registry of Vital Records' attempts to reflect new family forms on birth certificates. In the process, the governor demonstrated remarkable ignorance of LGBT lives, even telling Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the case that secured marriage equality in Massachusetts, "I didn't know you had families."

I can understand some people's misgivings about altering birth certificates to exclude the name of biological parents (although this concern is hardly unique to same-sex families). Biological origins may be important to people for various historical, medical, and personal reasons.

What I cannot understand, much less abide, is the persistent insensitivity to the real needs and interests of same-sex couples. Far worse is the insensitivity to their children, who are among the most serious victims of the right wing's war against gays.

"Some gays are actually having children born to them," Romney said in 2005. "It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father."

The idea that "every child has a right to a mother and father" is a common claim in the fight against marriage equality. I respond to it in this video, one in a series of nine on arguments in the marriage debate.