In 1994, Mitt Romney called for “full equality” for LGBT Americans, but this afternoon his presidential condemned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling against Proposition 8.
“Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court,” Romney said. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”
Romney, who’s name has become synonymous with “flip-flop” has changed his position with the LGBT community many times in the past several years.
In 1994, Romney met with the Log Cabin Republicans and pledged, “I’m with you on this stuff… I’ll be better than Ted Kennedy.” Romney promised, in writing, to fight for “full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens,” co-sponsor a federal employment nondiscrimination act, and characterized Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as “the first in a number of steps that will ultimately lead to gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly in our nation’s military.”
While serving as head of the 2002 Utah Olympics, he approved an amended workplace nondiscrimination policy that covered sexual orientation and “later reached out to Salt Lake’s gay community as part of the committee’s effort to enhance diversity in the Olympic workforce.”
As a gubernatorial candidate in 2002, he promised to “promote tolerance and fight discrimination….[and] proposed a thorough review of state laws to see where lifelong gay and lesbian relationships were negatively affected, and how the state could change its practices to make them nondiscriminatory.”
Still, from the very beginning there were signs that the embrace of gay equality represented a calculated attempt to win over votes in a moderate to liberal state, rather than a principled belief in civil rights. Several 1994 accounts published in the Boston Globe reported that just before launching his senate run, Romney told an audience of Mormon Church members that homosexuality was “perverse” and “reprehensible.”
