From this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC, here's more of Multiple-Choice-Mitt continuing to run further and further to the right in the hopes of wooing the right wing of the Republican base that shows up to vote in their primaries.
Romney Brags AT CPAC: ‘We Prevented Massachusetts From Becoming The Las Vegas Of Gay Marriage’:
Mitt Romney touted his opposition to marriage equality at CPAC this afternoon by mocking the 2003 state Supreme Court decision which found that Massachusetts did not have a rational basis for denying same-sex couples marriage on due process and equal protection grounds.
“The Supreme court found a right to same-sex marriage in the constitution written by John Adams. I presume he would be surprised,” Romney said to great laughter, and bragged about using an obscure 1913 law (originally intended to limit interracial marriage), to keep out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts:
ROMNEY: I fought to have a stay on that decision, then pushed for a marriage amendment to our Constitution. We lost by only one vote in the legislature. And I successfully prohibited out- of-state couples from coming to our state to get married and then going home. On my watch, we fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage.
When I am president, I will defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and I will fight for an amendment to our Constitution that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.
As they noted, that's quite a shift from his remarks back in 1994 -- Romney’s Gay Rights Stance Draws Ire:
Gov. Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Republican who has built a presidential campaign on a broad appeal for conservative support, is drawing sharply increased criticism from conservative activists for his advocacy of gay rights in a 1994 letter.
Mr. Romney’s standing among conservatives is being hurt by a letter he sent to the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts saying that he would be a stronger advocate for gay rights than Senator Edward M. Kennedy, his opponent in a Senate race, in a position that stands in contrast to his current role as a champion of a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
“We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Mr. Romney wrote in a detailed plea for the support of the club, a gay Republican organization. Read on...
