Boston Spirit magazine has dug a bit deeper into Mitt Romney’s past interactions with LGBT people, particularly during his time as governor. Many of these stories are known: his firing of two state employees ostensibly for marrying their same-sex partners, his dissolution of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, his blocking of an anti-bullying guide because it contained the words “bisexual” and “transgender,” and his testimony against marriage equality to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled the state’s ban was unconstitutional. But this new profile illustrates a more profound level of insensitivity to the experience of LGBT people than his past position statements suggest.
David Wilson and Julie Goodridge, two of the plaintiffs whose case led to the legalization of marriage equality in Massachusetts, described meeting with Romney to discuss their experiences. According to Wilson, “it was like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling.” At one point, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Goodridge recalls her final exchange with the governor, which proved to her that he had “no capacity for empathy”:
GOODRIDGE: Governor Romney, tell me — what would you suggest I say to my 8 year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can’t get married because you, the governor of her state, are going to block our marriage?
ROMNEY: I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.
Romney described the meeting to the press as “pleasant,” as Goodridge cried.
“I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughters.”
What a jackas
