Box Turtle Bulletin

Former Classmate Says Romney is Lying About Bullying Incident

One of Gov. Mitt Romney’s closest friend and high school classmate — and who threw the party where Romney met his future wife, Ann — says that Romney’s campaign is trying to round up former classmates to defend him against accusations that he bullied a gay student. He’s still mulling it over, although he says he wasn’t present when the assault took place. Another former classmate and old friend of Romney’s throws cold water on Romney’s claim he doesn’t remember the assault:

One former classmate and old friend of Romney’s – who refused to be identified by name – said there are “a lot of guys” who went to Cranbrook who have “really negative memories” of Romney’s behavior in the dorms, behavior this classmate describes as “like Lord of the Flies.”

The classmate believes Romney is lying when he claims to not remember it.

“It makes these fellows [who have owned up to it] very remorseful.  For [Romney] not to remember it? It doesn’t ring true.  How could the fellow with the scissors forget it?” the former classmate said.

Exactly.

The Apology of an Eighteen-Year-Old

The Washington Post’s lengthy profile of Gov. Mitt Romney’s years at an exclusive boarding school opened with this explosive revelation:

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

Laubner himself was deeply affected. One of the five witnesses to that assault ran into him several years later:

“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” (David) Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Lauber died in 2004 of liver cancer.

This revelation opened a huge can of emotional worms for me. But I also had to ask myself how much bearing the actions of someone who was just turning eighteen year old had on a man who today is now sixty-five and running for President? People — a lot of people — do really stupid things when they are in high sch0ol. I don’t know about you, but I’ve done things that I still need to apologize for.

I think we can all understand that. Romney was a first-class douchebag in high school. So are half the boys in high school. It’s serious, but what does it say about him now?  His apology today to Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade  answered that for me:

Back in high school, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney said in a live radio interview with Fox News Channel personality Brian Kilmeade. Romney added: “I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.”

Hijinks are what happened on The Patty Duke Show and pranks were the staple of Bewitched. This wasn’t just a “dumb thing,” unless by “dumb thing” he means assault.  This tells me that he hasn’t the slightest clue as to the seriousness of what he did. But what really stuck in my crawl was this:

 “I don’t remember that incident,” Romney said…

I’m afraid I’m going to have to call bullshit on this. The others clearly remembered it and were haunted by it. And let’s be honest. Who wouldn’t remember pinning down another kid with bleached blond hair and taking scissors to his hair while the kid cried and screamed for help?  You’re going to try to tell me he doesn’t remember that?

Of course he does:

“I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual,” Romney told Kilmeade. “That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.”

If he didn’t remember the incident, how would he “not believe he thought” — and how’s that for densely-packed weasel words? — that Lauber was a homo?

This makes his whole “to whom it may concern” apology not only weak, but embarrassing to the rest of us who have to hear it. This apology doesn’t sound like it came from a responsible adult who committed an assault and reflected on it for almost five decades afterward. It sound more like an apology from an eighteen year old kid who was dragged to the headmaster’s office after having just been caught leading a sight-impaired teacher into a closed door. And like most apologies from eighteen-year-old kids caught red-handed, it’s weaselly and pathetic.

Maggie: The Harms of Same-Sex Marriage (part 1)

Andrew Sullivan has another video in the Ask Maggie Gallagher Anything series. In this one, she is asked:

In states where same-sex couples have been allowed to marry, what harm has been brought to individuals or society at large?

Maggie names a few issues, but for now I want to focus on this one:

You see the idea and the ideal that children need a mother and father beginning to be redefined as the equivalent of a racist or mean or hateful idea. That’s on top of the problem of the silencing or the — which I’ve already talked about — the way religious institutions and religious people who in good conscience can’t treat same-sex unions as marriages begin to be treated as pariahs.

This is Maggie’s persecution theme, one that our opponents are pushing like crazy, one that I think they’ll use in their next strategy:  Overturn marriage equality in the courts as a violation of their religious freedom. But I want to tell Maggie this:

If people are calling you a bigot and equating you with racists, the problem may not be with same-sex marriage, but with the quality of your crusade against it.

So here, Maggie: these tips may help you and the National Organization for Marriage and the rest of your allies in your quest for gentle and civil treatment.

• Don’t denigrate same-sex parenting with studies that didn’t examine same-sex parents.

• Don’t pretend people are denounced merely for opposing same-sex marriage, when in fact they’re calling gays and lesbians immoral, depraved, America-hating creatures comparable to murderers and rapists, who reduce their children to trophies and cannot love their partners.

• Don’t invite speakers onstage to say gays are “worthy to death.”

• Don’t use your website to promote the message that same-sex marriage represents the modern day evil works of Satan.

• Don’t use bizarre and horrifying contortions of logic to argue that giving marriage to same-sex couples will obscure its connection to children, but giving it to infertile opposite-sex couples will not.

• Don’t raise money by lying to your own supporters about same-sex marriage.

• In fact, just don’t lie. Really. I’m not kidding. At all.

• Don’t refer to same-sex couples as sinful, unfortunate, dysfunctional people who can’t love each other — or their kids — the way straight couples can.

• Don’t congratulate someone for their courage in saying gays “shall surely be put to death.”

Maggie, when your conduct is cruel, insulting, irrational, and downright dishonest, people may start to wonder about your character. What else are they to do? This is not an ad hominem attack. That’s when people criticize the speaker instead of examining their arguments. No, this is opposite: people are criticizing you because they’ve examined your arguments.  The problem is not inherent to the issue. It’s not us, Maggie, it’s you.

And Maggie, if we are sometimes too quick to paint our opponents as hateful and bigoted when they don’t deserve it — well, that’s wrong, but you have to share in the responsibility. You’ve made yourself the most vocal and famous warrior against same-sex marriage. That makes it hard to distinguish you from those of our opponents with kinder, gentler, and truer hearts.

Okay. Take a breath. I have more to say on that video, but I wanted to give this a blog post all its own.

Obama’s Running On It

It looks like it’s not just a one-time interview.

Walking My Bummer Back. A Bit.

I wrote yesterday that Barack Obama does not believe we are covered by the Equal Protection Clause, and that he would vote against us on the constitutionality of Prop 8. I’ll have to walk that back — though not as far you might like, and not for the reasons you might expect.

A friend has pointed out that when the 9th Circuit agreed that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, it did so because the proposition removed an existing right from California citizens. The Court declined to state that all bans on same-sex marriage violate the Constitution. From its decision:

Proposition 8 singles out same-sex couples for unequal treatment by taking away from them alone the right to marry, and this action amounts to a distinct constitutional violation because the Equal Protection Clause protects minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of an existing right without a legitimate reason. Romer, 517 U.S. at 634-35.

And:

Withdrawing from a disfavored group the right to obtain a designation with significant societal consequences is different from declining to extend that designation in th first place

Finally:

We therefore need not and do not consider whether same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry, or whether states that fail to afford the right to marry to gays and lesbians must do so. Further, we express no view on those questions.

In other words, taking Obama’s statement seriously, if he were on the Supreme Court he might very well vote to strike down Prop 8 based on the Equal Protection Clause — but also vote to uphold bans on same-sex marriage in states that have never offered its citizens that right.

Some people have told me none of this matters. Obama supports equality exactly the way we want him to, and is just making a careful political calculation when he talks about leaving it up to the states.

But there’s so much irony in that reply! After all, we knew (didn’t we?) that Barack Obama supported marriage equality in his heart of hearts. Our celebration yesterday came entirely from the fact that he said it publicly. Public statements matter — that’s the point of yesterday’s rejoicing. And that holds true, not just for Obama’s personal views on marriage equality, but for whether he thinks it’s okay for the states to decide this on their own, against us, if that’s what they want.

And for everyone who’s telling me what a great victory this is, despite the legalese? Yes. I know. I sent Obama $100.  I lifted a couple glasses in celebration. Well, three. Actually, four. And I wrote this:

Obama can claim another civil rights first. He hasn’t just broken the color barrier — he’s opened the yellow brick road. He’s giving back, repaying the fighters and activists of previous generations who made his own election possible, so that now, somewhere, in a tiny little no-name corner of the nation, a bright and talented gay kid has suddenly realized: I can be president.

Now I can think of one justifiable complaint: Damn it, Rob, can’t you let us have one whole day of unalloyed celebration before starting in on what’s wrong? And, yeah, I can see that.

Because the world truly did change yesterday.

House Approves Amendment Barring Justice Dept From Opposing DOMA

The U.S. House of Representatives voted last night to add an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act to prohibit the Obama administration from taking any action that could be seen as violating the Defense of Marriage Act. Specifically, the amendment prohibits the Justice Department from spending any money to oppose the Defense of Marriage Act. Sixteen Democrats joined the Republican caucus in approving the measure in a 245-171 vote. Seven Republicans opposed the measure: Reps. Mary Bono Mack (CA), Richard Hanna (NY), Nan Hayworth (NY), Steven LaTourette (OH), Jerry Lewis (CA), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), and Rep. Lee Terry (NE).

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) said he introduced the amendment in response to Vice President Joe Biden’s expression of support for marriage equality on Sunday. “Stating his position is fine, Huelskamp said, “but you tie that together with the issues with the lawsuit in California in which, essentially, the attorney general walked away from DOMA and said, ‘I’m not going to defend that.'”

The amendment was also introduced after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage.

The sixteen Democrats supporting the amendment were: John Barrow (GA), Sanford Bishop (GA), Dan Boren (OK), Ben Chandler (KY), Jerry Costello (IL), Mark Critz (PA), Henry Cuellar (TX), Tim Holden (PA), Larry Kissell (NC), Dan Lipinski (IL), Jim Matheson (UT), Mike McIntyre (NC), Collin Peterson (MN), Nick Rahall, (WV), Mike Ross (AR), and Heath Shuler (NC).

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, May 10

TODAY’S AGENDA:
FDA Panel To Consider Truvada for HIV-Prevention: Washington, D.C. The Food and Drug Administration concluded on Tuesday that Truvada, a combination of two anti-retroviral drugs used for the treatment of HIV, appears to be safe and effective for preventing HIV infection when taken once daily. Today a panel of FDA advisers will consider the data and vote on whether Truvada should be approved as a prophylaxis for those at risk for HIV infection.

While some AIDS advocacy groups hail the drug as an important option in preventing HIV, others point out that the trials for Truvada’s effectiveness in prevention demonstrate a cut in infections ranging from 44% to 75%, with that effectiveness dependent on how diligent patients are about taking the pill every day. Some fear that those taking Truvada may become overly confident in the drug’s effectiveness and forego the use of condoms. Last year, one trial was suspended after women taking the drug were more likely to become infected than those taking a placebo, leading researchers to speculate that women may require a higher dose to prevent infection. Truvada’s price tag at $30 per day, or just under $11,000 per year presents a significant barrier, especially to those who are uninsured.

The FDA advisory panel will weigh that information (except for the drug’s price, which the FDA is legally barred from considering) in making its decision today. The FDA is not required to follow the advice of its panels, but it usually does.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Angers, France; Bergen, Norway; Brussels, Belgium; Chisinau, Moldova; Maspalomas, Gran Canaria; New Hope, PA; Northhampton, MA and Uppsala, Sweden.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Ohunquit, ME and Stockton, CA.

Other Events This Weekend: Boston Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Boston, MA; Beach Bear Weekend, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Big Horn Rodeo, Las Vegas, NV Paradise Festival, Oahu, HI.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Book Burning in Berlin: 1933. After having raided the Institute for Sexual Research and looted its vast library and archives (see May 6), the German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft) proclaimed a nationwide “Action against the Un-German Spirit”, which culminated in the “cleansing” (“Säuberung”) by fire on May 10, 1933 of an estimated 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books. Book burnings took place throughout Germany, and the bulk of the books burned in Berlin came from the ISR. About 40,000 people watched in the Opernplatz as propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels declared “No to decadence and moral corruption!” LGBT advocacy, which had developed as a strong scientific and social institution in Germany over the past several decades, was shut down virtually overnight.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Max Lorenz: 1901. The Düsseldorf native’s powerful performances as a heroic tenor (heldentenor, in German) in Wagner’s operas is probably what saved his life in Nazi Germany — or at the very least, the life of his Jewish wife, whom he married in 1932 despite his homosexuality. The very next year, he established his dominance at the Bayreuth Festival, the annual Wagner festival began by Richard Wagner himself, just as the Nazis came to power. Later, when Lorenz was caught “in flagrante” with a young man at Bayreuth, Hitler forbad his future performances at the prestigious festival. Winifred Wagner, the festival’s director, answered that she would would close the festival because without Lorenz, “Bayreuth can’t be done.” Such was Hitler’s love for Wagner’s operas that he backed down and let Lorenz perform. In 1943, when the SS stormed Lorenz’s home while he was away to take his wife and mother-in-law off to the concentration camps, Hermann Göring personally intervened and placed the entire family under his personal protection.

Lorenz’s vareer lasted almost three decades. He was particularly renowned for his performances as Seigfried (in Seigfried and Götterdämmerung), Tristan (in Tristan und Isolde) and as Walther (in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) After the war, Lorenz became an Austrian citizen, but his reputation was sulled by the assumption that he had been a Nazi. He died in Salzburg in 1975.

Michele Van Gorp: 1977. Born in Warren, Michigan, Michele Van Gorp played women’s collegiate basketball at Purdue University for her freshman and sophomore years, then transferred to Duke University, where she led Duke to the school’s firs NCAA final. She was drafted into the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). Van Gorp was the only open lesbian in the WNBA from 2002 (when Sue Wicks retired) until 2005, when Sheryl Swoopes and Latasha Byears came out. Van Gorp retired from the WNBA in 2005 following injuries, and she is now coaching in France.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

I’m Going to be Such a Bummer Now

Barack Obama thinks the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment should not protect same-sex couples.

How’s that for a cold bucket of water?

Yes, the president personally supports same-sex marriage, but according to ABC News (who broke the story):

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states’ deciding the issue on their own.

In other words, the president does not believe the 14th Amendment mandates equal treatment of same sex couples.

Is that important? Remember Judge Walker overturning Proposition 8. Remember the heroic effort by Ted Olson and David Boies, the liberal/conservative dream team.  And most of all, remember their stirring federal argument, now making a long journey to the US Supreme Court:

There is no rational justification for this unique pattern of discrimination.  Proposition 8, and the irrational pattern of California’s regulation of marriage which it promulgates, advances no legitimate state interest.  All it does is label gay and lesbian persons as different, inferior, unequal, and disfavored.  And it brands their relationships as not the same, and less-approved than those enjoyed by opposite sex couples.  It stigmatizes gays and lesbians, classifies them as outcasts, and causes needless pain, isolation and humiliation.

If Barack Obama, a professor of Constitutional Law, were on the Supreme Court, he would vote against us.

Obama supports same-sex marriage, but he sees no Constitutional mandate. He thinks we should be treated equally, but he sees no Constitutional mandate. When it comes to this groundbreaking case, Barack Obama — believe it or not — is on the side of Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, and the National Organization for Marriage.

But is that important? I really don’t know. We’ve won a huge cultural victory today. I don’t regret my $100 Obama campaign donation and I don’t regret the two margaritas I had in celebration (though I had to stop blogging for a bit as I wondered how I got to the point where two margaritas were enough to make me tipsy).

No sitting president has ever done what Barack Obama has done. And his personal support for same-sex marriage, along with his view that DOMA is unconstitutional — presumably based on a Full Faith and Credit argument, rather than the 14th amendment — brings us oh-my-god-this-close to full equality, and sends a public game-changing message that likely won’t be diluted by Constitutional nitpicking. But in the midst of our celebration, we should still remember:

Barack Obama thinks the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment should not protect same-sex couples.

And now it’s time for a last margarita.

NOTE: Updated here.

Where There’s History, There’s a Tumblr

When Obama Endorsed.

Fox Nation Reacts

Then they re-reacted with a new headline. Fox News’ Shep Smith, on the other hand, injects some sanity: Republicans are “”sitting very firmly without much question on the wrong side of history.”

[Screencap via Andrew Sullivan]

Obama Opens the Yellow Brick Road

I just sent $100 to President Obama’s campaign fund. Yes, this GayTM has reopened. I guess this means I won’t get yelled at by any more clueless Democratic campaign workers.

My heart sings. It does. In 1980 there was not one openly gay person in my 1600-student high school. In 1989, Denmark was the first nation to introduce civil unions (not even marriage!), and I thought, That will never, never, never happen here. I doubt 20-somethings today can even comprehend what that world was like. And twenty years from now it will boggle kids’ minds to imagine a presidential election with no serious candidate standing up for marriage equality.

Because that time is over!

But a part of me leans back, crosses my arms, frowns, and says: Mm hmm.

I’ve been thinking that the president’s “evolution” resembles the way a lot of people come out. At first, your feelings are secret. You even deny them out loud. But folks start to suspect –your closest friends wonder, and the idea ripples out beyond your inner circle. Still you deny it, and your friends play along, and they get used to the notion, and it’s not even scandalous. They discuss it. They wonder why you don’t just come out with it. They start to view the whole thing as a character flaw — not because of what you’re hiding, but because you keep hiding it! At some point, events catch up with you, and with a hurried epiphany you realize the costs of hiding are worse than the costs of being open. So finally, at long last, to everyone’s relief — even the relief of those who don’t like the fact — you come out of that damn closet.

Is that what happened with Obama? Or perhaps this was all staged. Obama knows that endorsing something will solidify a part of the country against it. (Would those Republican New York State Senators have been able to vote for a marriage equality law that Obama campaigned for?) So Obama, canny politician, deliberately minimized the blowback. He deliberately let it become an open secret, deliberately drained it of its shock value, deliberately let Biden and Duncan force the issue, and finally deliberately announced it after everybody figured it was coming anyway.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It’s happened Obama can claim another civil rights first. He hasn’t just broken the color barrier — he’s opened the yellow brick road.  He’s giving back, repaying the fighters and activists of previous generations who made his own election possible, so that now, somewhere, in a tiny little no-name corner of the nation, a bright and talented gay kid has suddenly realized: I can be president.

Not Evolved

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Gov. Mitt Romney, during a campaign stop in Colorado, reaffirmed his stance on same-sex marriage:

“Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney said during a visit to Fort Lupton. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not.”

Colorado Republican leaders yesterday tanked more than thirty bills in the House of Representatives in their otherwise successful effort in preventing a civil unions bill from coming to a straight up-or-down vote.

Evolved

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

After four years of hedging on the question, President Barack Obama became the first sitting President in U.S. history to publicly support the rights of gay couples to marry. ABC News, which will air excerpts of the interview tonight on Nightline, also reports:

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

It’s interesting, some of this is also generational,” the president continued. “You know when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same sex equality or, you know, sexual orientation that they believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it. You know, Malia and Sasha, they have friends whose parents are same-sex couples. There have been times where Michelle and I have been sitting around the dinner table and we’re talking about their friends and their parents and Malia and Sasha, it wouldn’t dawn on them that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently. It doesn’t make sense to them and frankly, that’s the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective.”

You can see video excerpts of that interview here.

Until today, Obama’s official position had been that he wants to repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, his Justice Department is declining to defend DOMA in federal courts, his Homeland Security office is granting green cards to foreign partners of married same-sex couples, and his administration had provided an array of domestic partner benefits to large numbers of federal employees. In addition, his campaign has released statements against North Carolina’s Amendment 1 and a proposed anti-marriage amendment in Minnesota. But the last time anyone was able to ask Obama about his personal stance on same-sex marriage, he said that he supported equal rights for same-sex couples and he supported the rights of states to grant marriage equality, but that on the subject of marriage itself he was personally still “evolving” on the issue.

That evolution, for all practical purposes, was completed today.

Colorado Governor Calls Special Session for Civil Unions

Noting the mountain of unfinish business when Colorado House Speaker Ralph McNulty abruptly called a recess to prevent a straight up-or-down vote on a civil unions bill, Governor John Hickenlooper today called for a special legislative session:

“We need to have an open discussion of the issue and at least work toward a final resolution,” Gov. Hickenlooper said. “We (will) allow people a chance to vote on it, and move forward.”

North Carolina

North Carolina tears at the heart, especially since we know that most voters actually opposed what they didn’t realize what they were voting for.

At times like this you have to look up from the ground you’re walking on, set your gaze on the horizon, and keep your eyes on the prize. We’re the ones holding America to its own highest standard, the ones bringing America closer to the vision expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the ones who someday will claim victory through the power of that vision. And if yesterday has made you forget what that feels like, let me offer you again this short video I made after we won equality in Iowa.