When Mitt Romney Fired a Gay Staffer, 2004 Edition

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/mitt-romney-fire-gay-staffer-ardith-wieworka

Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney's newly christened foreign policy spokesman, stepped down from the campaign on Tuesday. Grenell, who is gay, had come under fire from social conservative activists who viewed his hiring as a slap in the face. Although a Romney spokesman claimed the campaign had wanted Grenell to stay on, Romney staffers had already begun to shut him out before his resignation, counseling the gay foreign policy spokesman to stay silent during a recent campaign press call on foreign policy.

The episode is reminiscent of a controversy that occurred when Romney was governor of Massachusetts: The 2004 dismissal of Ardith Wieworka, longtime head of the state's Office of Child Care Services, who alleged that she had been terminated because of her decision to marry her partner.

In May of that year, the same month same-sex marriage was legalized in the Bay State, the Northeastern University press office published a story announcing that Wieworka intended to marry her longtime partner, Carol Lyons, who worked at the school as the dean of career services.

The next month, Romney traveled to Washington, DC, to testify in support of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. "Marriage is…a fundamental and universal social institution that bears a real and substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, and general welfare of all the people of Massachusetts," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[joeybee12]

1. Mitt's a piece of s**t

And it rhymes!

[bullwinkle428]

2. So despite the hall of fame flip-flop status he's earned over all these years, it's

crystal clear what his true feelings are for the LGBT community, and it's been that way apparently forever. Shocking, I say, given his status in the Mormon hierarchy!

K&R.