Campaign Challenges Romney’s Record on Gay Rights
A new campaign is taking direct aim at Mitt Romney’s record and agenda on LGBT issues.
Announced on Wednesday and playing off of the wildly popular “It Gets Better” campaign, the “Mitt Gets Worse” campaign hopes to shed light on the presumptive Republican nominee’s “extreme anti-LGBT agenda.”
The project is a joint effort by American Bridge to 21st Century and Courage Campaign Super PAC and vows to post an “oral history of Mitt Romney’s efforts to diminish the rights and the freedoms of LGBT Americans, told by the brave people who have fought back against Mitt’s anti-equality agenda,” according to their website.
Several videos have already been posted to the project’s website, including an interview with Julie Goodridge, whose lawsuit legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.
“There is no doubt in my mind that if Mitt is elected president, it’s going to get a lot worse,” Goodridge says in her interview. “Gay marriage is a thorn in Romney’s side. His goal is to make it go away.”
Although when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994 Romney said he would be better than his opponent, Ted Kennedy, on gay rights, Romney’s stance on LGBT issues has largely been viewed as anti-gay. That sentiment has increased since Romney stepped onto the national stage with a more conservative ideology overall.
Indeed, Romney, who is opposed to marriage equality and to civil unions with the same benefits as marriage, is more conservative on LGBT rights as a whole than George W. Bush.
David Brock, a gay journalist who left the conservative movement to found the liberal think-tank, Media Matters for America, runs American Bridge to 21st Century. In a statement, Brock said a Romney presidency would be a step backward for gay rights.
“The march towards equality in America’s civil rights history has been long and difficult, but we have always moved in the right direction,” said Brock. “The majority of Americans don’t want to reverse that trend, which is why they need to know that on LGBT issues, under Mitt Romney it will get worse.”
WATCH Goodridge’s video for the campaign:
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