Mitt Romney today denounced hate speech in his address to the Values Voters Summit, a virulently anti-gay right-wing extremist convention held and attended by several certified anti-gay hate groups. In response, Bryan Fischer, the public face of the certified anti-gay hate group, American Family Association, called Romney’s speech “tasteless and tawdry.”
“Our values are noble as citizens and they strengthen the nation. We should remember that decency and civility are values too. One of the speakers who will follow me today has crossed that line I think. Poisonous language doesn’t advance our cause,” Romney said.
Most believe Romney was referring to Bryan Fischer.
“Romney did in fact use the opportunity to put at least a little distance between himself and Fischer,” Right Wing Watch, a watchdog group run by People For the American Way, offered. “People For the American Way repeatedly called on Mitt Romney this week to denounce Bryan Fischer, the radical American Family Association spokesman who immediately followed Romney at the Values Voter Summit and whose relentless bigotry has been thoroughly chronicled here at PFAW’s Right Wing Watch.”
“Mitt Romney clearly realized that his presidential campaign couldn’t ignore the bigotry of Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association,†said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. “I’m glad that he saw fit to put at least a small distance between himself and the hate speech regularly pushed by Fischer, even if he couldn’t bring himself to call Fischer out by name. Since he began running for President, Mitt Romney has bent over backwards in a desperate attempt to make himself palatable to the extreme right. At least we’ve seen that there are some things he’s willing to speak out against, no matter how tepid his condemnation may be. It’s disappointing that none of the other candidates have been willing to go even that far.â€
Andrew Harmon at The Advocate added that, “Romney was no model of tolerance in his address. The former Massachusetts governor sought to burnish his own antigay credentials before a crowd that had wildly cheered onstage condemnations of the Pentagon’s recent decision allowing military chaplains to officiate at same-sex weddings (an ironic reaction from those who normally rail against abridgements of religious freedom, critics charged).”
If elected, Romney pledged to vigorously defend the Defense of Marriage Act and blasted the Obama administration’s February announcement that it would no longer do so. The Justice Department has since filed briefs in current legal challenges against DOMA and has argued that the law is unconstitutional. “I will appoint an attorney general who will defend the bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton,†Romney said of DOMA.
Openly gay Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger gave Romney few points for his criticism of Fischer: “I hope other Republican presidential candidates will join Mitt Romney and me in condemning Bryan Fischer’s hate speech … but Republican presidential candidates have no business kowtowing to these known hate groups,†Karger told The Advocate.
Surprisingly, GOProud, the gay Tea Party group, praised Romney. “We have a country on the edge of fiscal disaster and it is critical that we have a united conservative movement that can make the case to average Americans about why our vision, our values and our policies are right for this country,†Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of the nascent media-savvy organization said. “The last thing we need is a right wing version of Jeremiah Wright, distracting and dividing us, and that’s exactly what Bryan Fisher is.â€
LaSalvia did not mention any of the anti-gay comments one of his board members, Ann Coulter, regularly makes.
Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches wrote,
After his speech this morning, I asked the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer what he thought of Mitt Romney’s comments about him. His reply:
I thought it was tasteless. I thought he was allowing the New York Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center and People for the American Way to dictate the content of his speech, which I think was a mistake for him to do at the Values Voters Summit. That was kind of an insult to the people in the room. . . . I don’t think it helped him.
I then asked Fischer whether he though only an evangelical Christian was qualified to be president. He said, “I didn’t say that,” and to my question of whether he thinks that, he continued to reply, several times over, “I didn’t say that.”
Another reporter asked Fischer whether he thought Mormonism was a cult. He said, “Mormonism is outside the mainstream of historic Christian orthodoxy.” Asked whether being Mormon disqualified someone from being president, he would only repeat: “Mormonism is outside the mainstream of historic Christian orthodoxy.” Given that he had earlier said that the president must be “a main of sincere, authentic, genuine Christian faith,” it’s not hard to figure out what he thinks.
If there’s one thing you can say about Bryan Fischer, it that it’s never hard to figure out what he thinks.