Murray Waas broke an important story and one which goes to the very core of Mitt Romney's beliefs and who he really is.

It's been hard to figure out during this presidential campaign just what Romney wants to do as president. He was vehemently against same-sex marriage and parents after the law was passed in Massachusetts to legalize gay marriage in 2003. But it went deeper than that. He believed gay parents were unfit to be parents and that children born to same-sex couples could be developmentally impaired.

After presenting their proposal for revised forms to Romney’s chief of staff Beth Myers in May 2004, Department of Public Health officials were told by a Romney staff lawyer via e-mail that “there appear to be many complicated issues that should be discussed with many different communities before the changes are made.’’ The next month, Romney delivered remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington in which he decried the state Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling and its effect on child-rearing. He outlined his misgivings about the request from the Registry of Vital Records.

“The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother,’’ Romney said in his prepared remarks. “What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not ‘parent A’ and ‘parent B,’ but a mother and a father.’’Romney also warned about the societal impact of gay parents raising children. “Scientific studies of children raised by same-sex couples are almost nonexistent,’’ he said. “It may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.’’

Romney expressed similar beliefs during a speech in 2005 to socially conservative voters in South Carolina, as he was beginning to be viewed as a serious candidate for president.

“Some gays are actually having children born to them,’’ he declared. “It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.’’

The birth-certificates episode reflects a constantly evolving approach on gay rights for the former Massachusetts governor. Romney ran for Senate in 1994 promising to be a moderate champion of homosexual rights.

Mitt strongly believes that gay parents would hurt society as a whole. That's insane. I believe his Mormonism has a lot to do with his deep-seated hatred of gays.

After the Supreme Judicial Court ruling, he actively supported efforts in Massachusetts for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Those efforts never bore fruit.

Romney has to be judged by his actions; period. In the story itself, Waas also reports on how horrible Romney was to all the new gay parents in his state.

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for “father” would be relabeled “father or second parent,’’ reflecting the new law.

But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father’’ on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,’’ in ink.

He lied when he ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994 promising to be a moderate champion of homosexual rights and he lied when he ran for Governor in 2002. Remember when he scored a perfect 100 on a Planned Parenthood questionnaire? In '02 Romney Supported Roe v Wade Decision and Spending State Funds For Abortion Services

He also lied when he said he would never try try to force his religious beliefs about abortion on other people -- a position he's again trying to claim. Of course, during the GOP primaries, he was eager to help overturn Roe v. Wade and vowed to sign a constitutional amendment declaring life to begin at conception. But that was then, and this is now.