{"id":5325,"date":"2012-05-10T11:48:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T16:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/xblog\/?p=3357"},"modified":"2012-05-10T11:48:25","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T16:48:25","slug":"romneys-ant-gay-bullying-and-obamas-ideological-evolution-rethinking-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/10\/romneys-ant-gay-bullying-and-obamas-ideological-evolution-rethinking-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Romney’s Possible Anti-Gay Bullying and Obama’s Ideological Evolution: Rethinking it"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first guess about President Obama’s recent statement<\/a> that his views on Gay Marriage was this: Both Biden and Obama, along with virtually all Democrats, are for Marriage Freedom and against the absurd anti-gay restriction we see being implemented around the nation, most recently in North Carolina. However, Obama has this thing about being strategically centered, and tried to walk this line between civil unions and marriage. But then, Vice President Joe Biden, as does some times, spoke more openly than a controlled message like that allows, and indicated a pro-gay marriage stance<\/a> over the weekend. This forced Obama’s hand on the issue, and most likely they were already considering doing that. The timing was just to be a bit different than planned.<\/p>\n

Then, today’s news came out. Holy crap. Apparently Romney, while in Prep School, was one of those bullies that today are known to be responsible for driving young gay kids to suicide. Check this out.<\/p>\n

A fellow student remembers Romney saying that a kid didn’t look right with his blond-died long hair draped over one eye. “[He] can\u2019t look like that. That\u2019s wrong. Just look at him!\u201d Romney did not let this stand, and hatched a plot that is rather alarming. <\/p>\n

A few days later, [Romney’s friend] entered Stevens Hall off the school\u2019s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,\u201d said Buford, the school\u2019s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was \u201cterrified,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hack job,\u201d recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. \u201cIt was vicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just easy pickins,\u201d said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.<\/p>\n

The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Romney today says he does not remember the incident, which was recalled with vivid detail by a large number of eye witnesses. Now the Romney campaign is digging in and refusing to talk about what might well have been a gay-bashing event. The event haunted Lauber, the victim, for his entire life, which ended in 2004. <\/p>\n

Now, there are open questions here. Was Lauber gay? Does it matter? Is an event that happens at this time in one’s life, so long ago, important now? <\/p>\n

My purpose here is not to address any of those issues, but rather to make one simple suggestion: Maybe the Biden-Obama issue-evolution timing is not as random as I first thought. Maybe there was a tip-off that this story was coming out (such tip-offs are routine) and this was seen as a chance to make a much more clear distinction, without having to say much out loud about it, between a pro-diversity evolving Democratic administration and a radical gay-hating and, perhaps even gay-bashing Republican challenger.<\/p>\n

The source of the above quotes is this piece in the Washington Post<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first guess about President Obama’s recent statement that his views on Gay Marriage was this: Both Biden and Obama, along with virtually all Democrats, are for Marriage Freedom and against the absurd anti-gay restriction we see being implemented around the nation, most recently in North Carolina. However, Obama has this thing about being strategically … Continue reading Romney’s Possible Anti-Gay Bullying and Obama’s Ideological Evolution: Rethinking it<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[309],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-1nT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}