Dear Mitt. Please stop making me use this picture. Even I'm feeling sorry for you at this point.
(Orig. photo: Pool/Reuters)
Covering Mitt Romney gets old fast. The other candidates are at least entertaining, but Romney is boring. Even when he's making a fool of himself, he's boring. For a long while we all supposed it was an intentional strategy (being boring, that is) but I don't think so. I think he just doesn't have much going on in that head of his.
Via TP, from the Boston Herald:
[Romney] Expressed support for a constitutional amendment that could create a complex three-tier system of marriage — maintaining marriage rights for straight couples, allowing gays who have already married to remain married, but barring future same-sex marriages.
“I think it would keep intact those marriages which had occurred under the law but maintain future plans based on marriage being between a man and a woman,” Romney said.
Both-Ways Mitt strikes again. Gay marriage is somehow threatening the "marriage rights" of straight couples, which need to be protected. But at the same time, he'll let already-married gay Americans stay married, which seems an odd thing to do if you're worried about gay people destroying the institution. Translation: Well golly, can't we just have it both ways? Let's just say that these current gay Americans should be safe from discrimination, but I promise we'll reintroduce discrimination against everybody else.
This is a nonsensical position. If current gay marriages can be recognized (and by constitutional amendment, no less), it seems rather ridiculous to say at the exact same time that future ones are somehow so threatening that we need to prevent them from being recognized, via that same constitutional amendment. (If you're going to discriminate against people, Mr. Romney, at least have the guts to be consistent about it.) It's just the usual pandering, trying to court the votes of bigots and the votes of moderates at the same time by taking both sides of every position.
Romney continues to be the most transparent panderer in the race. Not the biggest panderer, but the most transparent. Still, I don't think this does anything to endear him to the GOP crowd that he's having so much problem courting, because mere halfway steps in discriminating against gay Americans are only going to enrage them, not impress them.
