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Schiz Romney (continued)




ACTIVIST OR NOT, Romney has undoubtedly moved further to the right with each public pronouncement against gay marriage. But whether this shift will be good or bad for his future remains an open question. On the national front, his actions cannot help but bolster his image as a social conservative within the Republican Party. Back home, however, his handling of this debate entails risk. On the one hand, the governor’s attempts to block same-sex marriages fetch high marks from gay-marriage opponents. Says Ray McNulty, of the Coalition for Marriage, the umbrella organization that has championed the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, "Those who support traditional marriage applaud his actions." On the other hand, Romney’s actions on this issue have alienated many of his socially moderate supporters. The Log Cabinites, to take one example, have strong reservations about endorsing the governor again. According to Ken Sanchez, the group’s current president, he and his colleagues remain disappointed that the governor has chosen "to pitch the state into a divisive debate on gay marriage and align with hard-right conservatives." Since the amendment passed last March, their disappointment has only intensified. "The governor couldn’t be happy writing discrimination into the constitution," Sanchez says. "He had to be on record as the guy who went after gay people."

Though Sanchez says he personally "cannot forgive the governor on this one," he stresses that the Log Cabinites have yet to decide whether to withdraw support from Romney. But any future relationship hangs in the balance. At this point, he says, "Any potential endorsement is seriously jeopardized. The governor would have to cease his assault on the SJC decision and recant his support for the constitutional amendment."

Senator Barrios also believes Romney’s handling of this issue has strained his base of social moderates. The day after the SJC ruling came down last November, the senator attended a fundraiser for a nonprofit group funded by many of the state’s business leaders, a core Romney constituency. Barrios sat at a table with chief executive officers of financial firms and presidents of biotechnology companies. "All they could talk about was the marriage decision," he recalls — or, more specifically, Romney’s response. "People were shell-shocked to hear what sounded like a right-leaning person. They were taken aback because it was such a contrast to his image as the moderate reformer."

Romney’s advisers discount such stories, however, pointing to the fact that the governor still enjoys high approval ratings. Throughout the gay-marriage debate, according to the April 8 UMass polling data, Romney’s favorability rating has remained at an enviable 62 percent. But DiNatale, of the McCormack Institute, believes that Romney must navigate this explosive issue with care so as not to alienate the state’s unenrolled voters, who overwhelmingly support gay rights. To get re-elected here, he explains, the governor cannot be seen as "unalterably opposed to gay rights." More important, he cannot appear hostile to gay men and lesbians. "When Republicans go too far right, they turn off the unenrolled voters," he says. "I think Romney could be doing that as we speak."

Yet no one can argue that the governor has come across as a red-meat Republican who baits his opponents by railing against the "homosexual lifestyle." When he talks about how same-sex marriages will lead to "chaos and confusion," he does so in a mild-mannered, earnest, golly-gee sort of way. And he has distanced himself from the radical members of the anti-gay-marriage camp, like those behind the last-ditch and ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to halt implementation of the SJC ruling. Or the long-shot efforts to remove Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the Goodridge opinion, from the bench. As one pundit who backs gay marriage notes, "There is not much evidence of a drooling Pat Buchanan here."

Even so, public opinion on the issue is constantly evolving. Only a slim majority of Massachusetts residents currently opposes same-sex marriages enough to back the proposed constitutional amendment banning them. Once gay and lesbian couples begin getting married for real, the public attitude will likely shift toward the other side.

"This is a tricky issue," DiNatale says, "and the governor may be misplaying it." If Romney becomes too much of an obstructionist, he adds, "he may come out looking foolish."

Even if Romney looks good in the short term, he still must contend with history. And supporters of gay marriage are already likening him to Southern resisters to court-ordered desegregation in the 1950s and ’60s. In his April 28 column, the Herald’s Keane compares Romney to officials in Jackson, Mississippi, who decided to close the public swimming pool rather than integrate it. Or the officials in Prince Edward County, Virginia, who shut down the public schools rather than desegregate them. Joshua Friedes, a prominent gay-rights advocate and the director of the local Freedom To Marry Coalition, agrees that Romney will be viewed in much the same way. "That is his historic epitaph."

Marriage supporters like Michael Goldman, a Democratic political consultant, even compare Romney’s position on gay marriage to the virulent segregationism of former Alabama governor George Wallace, who, in 1963, stood in a University of Alabama doorway in an attempt to block black students from enrolling at the school. History will paint Romney, like Wallace, as a "sad, pathetic opportunist who chose to play to the bias of the crowds rather than lead them," Goldman says — a comparison Romney defenders call "outrageous." (Says Manning, "Whenever you accuse anyone who disagrees with your position of being a bigot, then you’re really the bigot.") But the governor’s actions effectively perpetuate the cycle of discrimination, just as Wallace’s did. Says Goldman, "Wallace pandered to prejudices when he said, ‘Segregation today, tomorrow, and forever.’ What has Romney said with his acts if not ‘Straight marriage today, tomorrow, and forever?’"

However history regards Romney, his immediate response to the imminent same-sex marriages in this state will prove critical to how Massachusetts residents view him on the issue. Will the governor seize the spotlight to denounce the same-sex weddings? Or will he fall silent and let gay and lesbian couples have their day?

"On May 17," South End state representative Byron Rushing, a leading gay-marriage supporter, said recently, "I like to say that Massachusetts residents will wake up and find the sun has risen and the milk hasn’t curdled." Rushing has now added a third element to the sequence: "I say, ‘The sun will rise, the milk won’t curdle, and Governor Romney will remain silent. At least two of those things will happen."

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com

page 3 

Issue Date: May 14 - 20, 2004
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