Mitt Romney continues to rack up dull, begrudging endorsements from conservative organizations that would rather have had almost anyone else. This time it's the anti-everything National Organization for Marriage's turn to accept their fate:
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today announced its endorsement of Mitt Romney for President of the United States. NOM said it was making the endorsement to help focus social conservatives on the need to defeat President Obama in November.
"We are proud to endorse Mitt Romney for President," said Brian Brown, NOM's president. "Governor Romney was an early signer of NOM's presidential pledge which represents his commitment to the nation to take specific actions as president to preserve and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
NOM is one of the groups that drafted a "Marriage Pledge" for Republican presidential candidates to sign, a vow basically saying that if you become president you will hate gay people, appoint Supreme Court justices who hate gay people, do your damnedest to make sure the Constitution properly hates gay people, and conduct investigations into whether people who hate gay people
are the real victims here. This somehow "defends" marriage, presumably because Brian Brown and the rest of the NOM crew are always one inch away from gay marrying each other already and can only keep themselves in line by passing a constitutional amendment saying they're not allowed to.
Romney, Gingrich, and Pope Ricky the First all signed the pledge. Gingrich was always a dubious choice for defending marriage (cough), so now that Pope Ricky has dropped out of the race, NOM no longer has much of a choice. As the press release says, they need to "focus" social conservatives on accepting Mitt and not, say, just staying home and getting drunk on election night.
Note to the National Organization for Marriage: It doesn't get better. Sorry. You're stuck with this clown.