Mitt Romney

Back in January, the Huffington Post reported on a $75 million investment made by Bain Capital, Romney’s private equity firm, in a medical waste disposal service company, Stericycle, whose clients included abortion clinics. While the extent of Romney’s involvement in the deal was initially unclear, David Corn of Mother Jones recently obtained SEC documents that “list Romney as an active participant in the investment.” This new information is raising eyebrows at the anti-choice group Bound4Life, where Susan Tyrrell is calling Romney’s involvement “unacceptable” and “a serious issue for pro-lifers who have embraced him as a pro-life candidate”:

This information clearly contradicts what the Romney camp reported publicly in January. That is unacceptable and raises a serious issue for pro-lifers who have embraced him as a pro-life candidate.

There are too many unanswered questions to let this issue be a non-issue in this race. The man running on a pro-life platform actually was the “sole shareholder” in a company that made a $75 million investment in a company that has for an indeterminate amount of time profited directly from from [sic] the shedding of innocent blood. Their work helps polluted the land with bloodshed, putting fetuses in incinerators and waste areas. Stericycle is evasive in its responses to those who question its abortion business, claiming that abortion is only a “small portion” of its business, which is only true on a technicality. There are only a few hundred abortion centers in the nation and many more medical facilities that need waste services; however, Stericycle is the largest provider of disposing of fetal remains.

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First, we do not have any evidence that the aborted fetal remains pick-ups began after Romney left the firm. Records like this are not easily available unless one knows what he is seeking exactly. StopStericycle.com has records from 2003, which is after Romney left, but until Stericycle or Romney can provide evidence that Stericycle’s suddenly started its business with fetuses after Romney sold his investment, we can’t conclusively be satisfied that was the case.

Second, Romney claims a pro-life conversion, though he does allows for exceptions in certain cases. He must address his relationship with the abortion profiteer. Even if some evidence exists showing perhaps it was after he sold his investment, Stericycle began this practice, Romney needs to address this to pro-lifers because he is running on a pro-life platform but is tied in some ways to a business linked to abortion since clearly the dates of his involvement were not as he reported.

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and his boss Mat Staver were consistent critics of Mitt Romney and endorsed Newt Gingrich in the Republican primary, but now Barber is out with a new column begging the Religious Right to coalesce behind Romney and today spoke to Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice about his new found support for the former governor. Barber ironically began the interview by commenting that the ACLJ, like him, was probably bothered by Romney’s inconsistent record, even though both Jay and Jordan Sekulow vigorously supported Romney both times he ran for president and ACLJ attorney David French founded the group Evangelicals for Romney.

He said he came around to supporting Romney because of his pledge to nominate right-wing judges. “The one word that made the decision for me is judges,” Barber told Sekulow, warning that if Obama can make more appointments to the judiciary then he will create a “radical, secular, socialist, European-style nation.”

Barber went on to claim that he couldn’t “imagine any Christian in good conscience based on Obama’s radical, counter-biblical, anti-Christian, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual activism policies voting for Barack Obama.” Or as Barber puts it in his column, “any Christian who votes for Mr. Obama will get to take that up with God.”

The one word that made the decision for me is judges. Probably the most significant thing that any president can do for better or for worse and this may not be how our Founding Fathers intended it but it is the reality we live in is to appoint judges, particularly United States Supreme Court justices. The next president, either Barack Obama, radical secular socialist, or Mitt Romney, center-right Republican, the next president is going to appoint at least probably two, potentially three United States Supreme Court judges. That will affect law, public policy, our culture at large in perpetuity, for as far out as we can see for decades, it literally will make the difference. This next election I think is the most important election we ever faced in our lifetimes, it will make the difference based on Supreme Court appointments alone between an America that we can recognize, that at least resembles what our Founding Fathers intended, versus a radical, secular, socialist, European-style nation, which is the goal of Barack Obama.

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A Christian non-vote is a vote for Barack Obama in that it fails to affirmatively cancel out an Obama vote. I can’t imagine any Christian in good conscience based on Obama’s radical, counter-biblical, anti-Christian, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual activism policies voting for Barack Obama. That leaves a final choice, and that is to get out, vote for Mitt Romney, and get out the vote for Mitt Romney.

Earlier this week we wrote a post about Jerry Johnson and his role in formulating a document calling on Christian leaders who decide to back Mitt Romney to also make clear that Mormonism is a cult. As Johnson explained, he personally will not be voting for either President Obama or Mitt Romney because that is like having to choose between "voting for the Beast or the False Prophet."

Of course, if there is some Christian activist out there urging Christian voters not to support Mitt Romney because of his Mormon faith, it is only a matter of time before they are invited to make their case on Steve Deace's radio program ... just as Johnson was last night.

Johnson made the case that Christians are misinformed about the true nature of Mormonism, thanks to people like David Barton who is "hugging and kissing all over Glenn Beck," and asked whether Christians would be willing to vote for a member of the First Church of Satan if the candidate supported the conservative agenda, warning that the "anybody but Obama" mindset was going to drive the nation and the church "into the arms of perdition" and prevent God from blessing America:

55% of evangelicals either don't know what Mormonism teaches or they don't know that Christianity teaches. And that is our failure, that is the great calamity that we're facing right now thanks to people like Joel Olsteen and Rick Warren and David Barton, who is hugging and kissing all over Glenn Beck, calling him his brother in Christ.

Suppose you had a real conservative running again Barack Obama ... who was fiscally conservative, he believed in the right to keep and bear arms, all the things that conservatives hold to. But let's say he was a member of the First Church of Satan. Would his religion now make a difference? Would you be out endorsing and campaigning for him if he was a member of the Satanic Church?

Right now the attitude is in the country, or specifically within the Republican Party, anybody but Obama. And this idea, this mindset is going to drive, I believe, this country and even the church into the arms of perdition in many ways.

The issue is the blessings and curse of God. He is the one who is sovereign, dread sovereign, over all the universe. And we are reaping today the curses of God, I believe, in this country. So here's my question, I ask folks: do we really believe that God is going to bless America if we elect a professed polytheist to the highest office of the land?

As Josh noted in the previous post, Mitt Romney will be delivering the commencement address tomorrow at Liberty University, the ultra-fundamentalist university founded by the late Jerry Falwell.  But what many people may not realize is that Liberty U is also the home of some of the most militant anti-gay activists operating today, who are on staff at Liberty U while simultaneously working for the affiliated Liberty Counsel.

In fact, the two are so intertwined that Mat Staver serves as both Dean of the Liberty U Law School and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, while Rena Lindevaldsen, LU's Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Matt Barber, LU's Associate Dean for Career and Professional Development, Shawn Akers, Dean of LU's Helms School of Government, and Deryl Edwards, LU's Director of Institutional Advancement, all hold positions with Liberty Counsel as well.

For years, Liberty Counsel has been at the center of a custody case involving Lisa Miller, an "ex-gay" woman who kidnapped her daughter and fled the country rather than abide by court-ordered custody arrangements with her former partner.  Rena Lindevaldsen was Miller's attorney and even wrote a book about the saga while Liberty Counsel continues to insist that it has no knowledge of Miller's whereabouts, despite the fact that she was reportedly living at a home in Nicaragua owned by the father of an administrative assistant working for Staver at Liberty U Law School. Furthermore, Liberty U also taught a class based on the Miller case in which students were reportedly instructed that the "right" thing for a lawyer to do in a case such as this would be to counsel their client that they have an obligation to ignore the law and court orders and instead engage in "civil disobedience" in order to uphold God's law.

While Staver may be the head of Liberty Counsel with a penchant for issuing warnings that President Obama seeks to become a global dictator, his rhetoric pales in comparison to Matt Baber who, in addition to serving as an instructor at Liberty U's Law School, also happens to be one of the most viciously anti-gay bigots operating today, as demonstrated by his view that homosexuality is nothing more than “one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love.’”

Just in recent months, Barber has said that marriage equality mocks God and desecrates the Church, declared that the Defense of Marriage Act is necessary to prevent children from becoming gay and getting AIDS, said that gay teens commit suicide because they "know that what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, [and] immoral," proclaimed gay adoption to be "tragic," "unconscionable," and "reprehensible," and warned that gay activists are seeking to poison the minds of children and are "running interference for the pedophile movement."

But it is not just gays whom Barber attacks on a regular basis, but liberals in general, whom he claims are driven by a hatred of God and are working with radical Islamists to destroy Christianity. He has said that the Obama administration's contraception mandate was no different than being forced to kill your family and that those who support reproductive choice are literally no different than the Nazis.  In fact, Barber thinks the Left in general are nothing but a bunch of bullies who just need to be punched in the mouth.

Last year, when Romney spoke at the Values Voter Summit, he publicly called out the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer for his bigotry and declared that "poisonous language does not advance our cause."  

Will Romney have the courage this weekend to likewise take a stand against the "poisonous language" and bigotry regularly displayed by the staff at Liberty University/Liberty Counsel? 

We won't hold our breaths.

Mitt Romney will give the commencement address tomorrow at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Liberty, founded in 1971 as the Lynchburg Baptist College, is best known as the pet project of televangelist Jerry Falwell. Falwell created the university as a training ground for successive leaders of the Religious Right, and the curriculum is tightly controlled to advance an uncompromising right-wing outlook. But that’s not all.

The university also has an all-encompassing code of conduct, called “The Liberty Way,” which governs what students can say, do, read, and watch – both on and off campus – and sets out a regimen of reprimands and fines for violators. 

All students shall agree to comply with the terms of the Liberty Way. The full text is made available to students after they claim their Liberty University account. 

• The First Amendment Doesn’t Apply at Liberty
• No R-Rated Movies, Un-Godly Music, or Immodest Posters at Liberty University
• No Dancing or Kissing at Liberty University
• Witchcraft and Abortion on Par with Sexual Assault and Felony Conviction at Liberty University
• Liberty University’s Guide to Female Modesty
• The Religious Right Nanny State, on View at Liberty University
• Welcome to Liberty University, Now Gives Us Your Blood and Urine Sample

The Republican National Committee’s Hispanic Outreach Director Bettina Inclan sparked a mini-firestorm today when she told reporters that she could not comment on Romney’s immigration positions because “he’s still deciding what his position on immigration is.”  She later tried to clean up the mess by tweeting that she was mistaken, and that his position was clear, linking to his website. 

Unfortunately for Romney and for the RNC’s Hispanic outreach, his position is all too clear: he opposes not only “amnesty” but all “magnets” – such as the DREAM Act or in-state tuition for students whose parents brought them here as children.  Romney has backed legislation, like Arizona’s, that has the goal of making life for undocumented immigrants so miserable that they will choose to “self-deport.”  That’s a bit much even for some right-wing activists, including some of those at the Freedom Federation’s recent Awakening conference in Orlando, Florida, where one speaker called the “self-deportation” approach “cruel” and “unbiblical” and where the Southern Baptists’ Richard Land called the GOP’s positions on immigration policy “dismal” and “indefensible.”

Following the resignation of openly gay Romney campaign foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell, who was roundly criticized by conservative activists for his sexual orientation, the Romney campaign has tried to spin the issue by saying that his resignation had nothing to do with him being gay. However, the campaign told him to keep quiet on a major foreign policy call with reporters and never defended him from the attacks. When Grenell announced his resignation he noted, “My ability to speak clearly and forcefully on the issues has been greatly diminished by the hyper-partisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from a presidential campaign.”

As one Republican adviser told the New York Times that while campaign staffers didn’t see Grenell’s sexual orientation as an issue, “they didn’t want to confront the religious right.”

After Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association called Grenell’s resignation a “huge win” for the Religious Right, he later wrote that since Romney is partial to “political convenience” over “political conviction,” conservatives must keep up the pressure on him “since the governor has demonstrated in the Grenell affair that he is maneuverable”:

So Romney went the full Etch-A-Sketch on us twice. He campaigned in the primary as a champion of natural marriage. Then as soon as he locked up the nomination, he shook the tablet clean and hired a same-sex marriage zealot as his spokesman. Then when the windsock shifted directions again, he shook the tablet once more and all traces of Richard Grenell disappeared. If the governor is not careful, he's going to sprain his wrist one of these days shaking that thing.

Gov. Romney is a politician rather than a statesman. While he will not do the right thing out of political conviction, he will do the right thing out of political convenience. This represents both a great challenge and a great opportunity for the pro-family community, since the governor has demonstrated in the Grenell affair that he is maneuverable.

The Grenell resignation represents a huge win for the forces defending the family in America, since it will be a long time before the governor appoints another homosexual activist to a prominent position in his campaign.

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Since Gov. Romney will do the right thing when it is politically expedient, it's our job to make it politically expedient for him to do the right thing on as many issues as possible. Let's get cracking.

Yesterday, conservative talk show host Janet Mefferd also welcomed the news of Grenell’s resignation, saying that Republicans shouldn’t hire God-hating gays because they intend to trample over the rights and freedoms of Christians.

Like Fischer, Mefferd also went after Romney, saying that since “he evolves all the time, he flips all the time, he comes to new understandings all the time” and “doesn’t seem to have much of a core,” he may be willing to side with either “gay activists” or opponents of gay rights depending on who carries the most political weight.

Mefferd said, “I don’t what to be misunderstood on this, but if you continue to push the Republican Party to the left on the gay rights issue, we’re all dead—I mean, not dead literally—but Christians will pay the price for this”:

I think it was appropriate that he resigned, I think it was inappropriate to put him in that position in the first place as the presumptive presidential nominee for the GOP, the reason I say this and I’m going to reiterate it because I want to be clear what my objection is, my objection is the whole issue we’re seeing in our culture with gay rights trumping freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and it’s on the march, and we’ve seen it in a lot of different instances across the country. I think it’s foolish for the party that has stood up in defense of marriage so strongly, oh by the way the Democrats stood up for marriage once upon a time in DOMA although it’s fallen out of favor now, but you can’t be the party of freedom and the Constitution if you’re not going to understand that the Constitution enshrines the First Amendment and not gay rights.

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When you have people who are gay activists on the Republican side, what happens? What do you think is going to happen? You’re going to have people, especially somebody like Mitt Romney, he evolves all the time, he flips all the time, he comes to new understandings all the time, this is the problem with having a nominee that doesn’t seem to have much of a core and that ends up being a problem for people who actually want principle to trump votes. Not every Republican feels that way, by the way, and I’m not trying to be mean to individual people, I don’t what to be misunderstood on this, but if you continue to push the Republican Party to the left on the gay rights issue, we’re all dead—I mean, not dead literally—but Christians will pay the price for this.

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They hate the Bible, they hate God, they hate you, but that doesn’t mean we have to roll over and die, it doesn’t mean we have to be quiet on the issue, it’s about freedom, it’s about freedom for Christians to follow the word of God.

After American Family Association Bryan Fischer went into all-out war with Mitt Romney’s campaign for hiring an openly gay foreign policy spokesman, his “straights only” position won support from other Religious Right leaders like Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins. Now, Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality is jumping to Fischer’s defense as well, telling talk show host Janet Mefferd on Friday that Romney is “putting his finger in the eye of the pro-family movement” with the hire, even though Romney has emphasized his anti-gay bona fides throughout the campaign.

Later, LaBarbera denounced the “hidden homosexuality” in Washington D.C., in particular the Republicans who “have a homosexual problem” and are not public about it. He also told Mefferd that “Americans would rally to our position” on homosexuality if only the GOP recruits a candidate like Rick Santorum who can inspire the anti-gay “silent majority” and combat the “media, Hollywood and academy [that] are 1,000 percent for perversion.” If not, LaBarbera warned that the Right may “see a bigger push for a third party,” a view also supported by Family Research Council Vice President Tom McCluskly.

LaBarbera: I think the significance of what Mitt Romney has done is he’s putting his finger in the eye of the pro-family movement, as you alluded to, here’s the entire conservative movement, especially social conservatives like us, saying ‘it’s going to be hard to get enthused about Mitt Romney.’ I’m speaking as a private citizen, our group is non-partisan, but what does he do? He appoints a homosexual activist for one of his spokespeople.

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Mefferd: Mostly in the past they’ve been quasi-closeted if not fully closeted, Ken Mehlman is a perfect example, he didn’t come out until after he was out as the campaign chief of Bush.

LaBarbera: But he did say that he used his influence that he could behind the scenes, which is what I always suspected of these homosexual Republicans. I’ve always called on them to be open, if they have a homosexual problem, as I put it, I don’t believe it’s a positive identity; the people have a right to know if they’re in elected office. There’s a lot of hidden homosexuality, especially in Washington.

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Mefferd: The reason this bothers me so much is because increasingly you’re seeing the GOP indicating that, ‘because this is a losing issue and we see these polls showing more and more people support so-called homosexual marriage, we want to win, we need to be able to draw some of these voters to our side.’ My feeling on that is: if you’re drawing voters to your side on an issue that actually matters, then what does it matter if you win if you’ve compromised everything that matters?

LaBarbera: Absolutely. It’s shame on them. Guess what, there was a time when anti-Communism was unpopular, and Reagan is known for that as his greatest accomplishment, stopping Soviet Communism. Rick Santorum went very far and it’s interesting, the homosexual magazine The Advocate seems very concerned that Rick Santorum got so far, so I think there’s a lot of silent support for our position. The media, Hollywood and academy are 1,000 percent for perversion, for homosexuality, but the silent majority I believe still opposes them. I think the support for so-called gay rights is a mile wide and an inch deep. I think if you had a candidate like Santorum that explains the issue, explains how religious freedom is going to be trampled over by this tiny minority of homosexual activists who want to push their agenda at any cost, I think Americans would rally to our position.

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Mefferd: It may make things a little bit dicey in future elections, won’t it, if the GOP keeps going in this direction?

LaBarbera: I think if they keep going in this direction I think you will see a bigger push for a third party because this is one of the core issues. Unless, you know, Christians just give up on their faith and you know say we’re not going to believe that part of the Bible, absolutely.

National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman talked to conservative radio talk show host Steve Deace yesterday where he assured Deace, a vocal critic of Mitt Romney, that NOM is confident that Romney will actively oppose marriage equality if elected president and dismissed fears that his donors who favor legalizing same-sex marriage might influence his views:

Deace: John, I want to ask you about a story that came out over the weekend, three men, Paul Singer, Dan Loeb, Cliff Asness, they are hedge fund managers, they are major Romney donors, and they each cut six figure checks toward the effort to redefine, or destroy, marriage in the state of New York. Is that a concern of your group that the Republican nominee has major donors in his camp that are funding the other side of this debate?

Eastman: You know, people running for president accept donations from all sorts of people who don’t always agree with them on all issues. The fact of the matter is, Governor Romney has signed our pledge where he will defend the Defense of Marriage Act, where he will support an amendment to protect traditional marriage nationwide. He has signed that pledge and we fully expect that he will honor his pledge in that regard.

Indeed, Romney, a NOM donor, in August signed NOM’s presidential candidate pledge [pdf] and committed to not only push for a Federal Marriage Amendment and defend the unconstitutional DOM, but also to nominate anti-equality judges, put Washington DC’s marriage equality law up to a popular referendum, and “establish a presidential commission” to “investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters”:

One, support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification.

Two, nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and to applying the original meaning of the Constitution, appoint an attorney general similarly committed, and thus reject the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution.

Three, defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act vigorously in court.

Four, establish a presidential commission on religious liberty to investigate and document reports of Americans who have been harassed or threatened for exercising key civil rights to organize, to speak, to donate or to vote for marriage and to propose new protections, if needed.

Five, advance legislation to return to the people of the District of Columbia their right to vote on marriage.