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On the day after President Obama makes some impressive civil rights history by endorsing gay marriage, we get reports of Republican candidate Mitt Romney bashing gays in high school. The most striking incident is the one in which "after teasing a gay student about his hair for a week, Romney attacked him, holding him down on the ground to cut his hair off while the boy cried for help.” Andrew Sullivan gives us an elaboration of that attack by one who says he considers himself a friend of Romney's, and who was a part of that attack.
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“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it… because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job… clumps of hair taken off.” Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”
Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days… but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things." ...
“This was bullying supreme,” he said.
-- Andrew Sullivan's Dish
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You understand that this probably will not hurt Romney's candidacy with respect to the Republican base. Indeed, it may even energize the more rabid members of that base of good old boys. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, will no doubt rhapsodize over it: "Well, well, I guess Romney really is a severe conservative, after all, all right!"
However, it could hurt Romney with the independents, the ones who will presumably decide the election. I would think that it is not too late for the Republicans to nominate a different candidate, but I have not come across the least suggestion that this move is under any consideration.
_ _ _
“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it… because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job… clumps of hair taken off.” Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”
Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days… but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things." ...
“This was bullying supreme,” he said.
-- Andrew Sullivan's Dish
_ _ _
You understand that this probably will not hurt Romney's candidacy with respect to the Republican base. Indeed, it may even energize the more rabid members of that base of good old boys. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, will no doubt rhapsodize over it: "Well, well, I guess Romney really is a severe conservative, after all, all right!"
However, it could hurt Romney with the independents, the ones who will presumably decide the election. I would think that it is not too late for the Republicans to nominate a different candidate, but I have not come across the least suggestion that this move is under any consideration.
