Social Conservatives Furious With Romney Over ‘Agnostic’ Chick-Fil-A Stance

From the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue (image, left,) to former MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan, social conservatives are furious and “astonished” that Mitt Romney refused to weigh in on last week’s Chick-Fil-A controversy. Donohue suggested social conservatives may sit the November election out.

Donohue “told Newsmax that Romney’s decision to be ‘agnostic on this issue’ could prove to be ‘the defining moment’ of the 2012 campaign. “This is the most disheartened that certainly I’ve felt looking at this entire race,” said Catholic League president Bill Donohue,” Newsmax reports:

He told Newsmax in an exclusive interview that social conservatives will now have to decide whether to sit out the race.

“Social conservatives have to make up their mind whether they should just simply stay at home, or go out there and vote for Romney,” said Donohue. “I’m astonished that he couldn’t even come to grips with the question — leaving gays out of it — do we want the chief executives, the mayors of large cities trying to intimidate, using the power of government against private enterprises whose politics they disagree with? I think it’s a pretty simple issue.”

Donohue noted that many social conservatives were skeptical before Romney decided to sit out the controversy, which has only aggravated that uneasy relationship. He said the campaign’s response “does not bode well” for the role social conservatives and their issues will play in the upcoming convention, and beyond.

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Longtime columnist and former GOP presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan waded in on the issue Friday, telling Politico that Republicans must push back against gay marriage or risk losing social conservatives for a generation.

“I don’t understand why Mitt Romney doesn’t just get his Secret Service detail and take his press corps down to a Chick-fil-A and show solidarity with these people,” Buchanan said, adding: ” . . . Reagan would have walked right on down there naturally.”

Last week, Bill Donohue attacked “white and well-educated” supporters of same-sex marriage who are, he said, exhibiting “madness laced with fascistic elements.”