January
16, 2008
Column
#1,377
“Report Card on the Natural Family”
by Mike
McManus
Mitt Romney won his first major
Republican primary, with 39 percent vs McCain’s 30 percent and
Huckabee’s 16. However, he scored an F on a “Report Card on the Natural
Family” released Wednesday, with seven wrong positions on marriage, gay
adoption and protecting the natural family.
By contrast, McCain’s record registers
four positive votes on the same issues and, Huckabee, seven positive
votes. These differences need to be considered by South Carolina and
Nevada voters Saturday, Floridians January 29, and in 22 states on
February 5.
The “Campaign for Children and
Families,” a Sacramento, CA group issuing the Report Card, said “It’s
time for voters to get the facts on where candidates stand on the
natural family - a father, mother, and their children.” (See
newsdesk@christiannewswire.com)
Huckabee’s strong stand on such issues
helped him win the Iowa caucuses. However, Mitt Romney persuaded
Michigan voters, with America’s highest unemployment rate (7.4 percent),
to vote for him by pledging to help the auto industry.
In New Hampshire, McCain won the
primary by emphasizing his lifelong experience on military and
international issues, where both Huckabee and Romney offer little.
Historically, Republicans have won the
Presidency only when supported by three different types of conservatives
- social, economic and international. Thus far, three different
candidates have won three different states, splintering the needed
coalition.
However, Romney, who came in second in
the two races he lost, has made the best case that he can satisfy all
thee elements of the conservative coalition. He acknowledges changing
his position on abortion, which he once supported and now endorses the
Federal Marriage Amendment which would limit marriage to one man and one
woman.
However, when the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court ruled that the state constitution prohibited limiting
marriage to opposite genders, “It was Governor Mitt Romney who was
ultimately responsible for same-sex `marriages’ taking place.” The Court
“issued an opinion and advised the Legislature to act (which it never
did),” reported MassResistance.com.
“Even the Court acknowledged that it
had no power to change the law. Governor Romney created these
`marriages’ through an unconstitutional and illegal directive to his
Department of Public Health (to print new `marriage’ licenses), and
through his legal counsel threatened to fire any Town Clerk or Justice
of the Peace who failed to implement the (non-existent) `new law.’ “
The AP reported on April 25, 2004 that
Romney’s new marriage applications replaced “bride” and “groom” with
“Party A” and “Party B.”
Romney did support a Massachusetts
Marriage Amendment to ban gay marriage. Some 22 House Republicans
“opposed every measure that would grant gay couples civil unions in the
constitution,” reported the Boston Globe. “That all changed yesterday,
however, when 15 of that 22-member bloc broke away at the urging of
Governor Mitt Romney and voted in favor of a proposed amendment that
would ban gay marriage but permit Vermont-style civil unions.”
However, in speaking in South Carolina, he told Republicans Feb. 23,
2005 that he’s “always been opposed to same-sex marriage as well as what
he called `its equivalent, civil unions’.” At that time he was pushing
for the Massachusetts amendment that DID provide for civil unions.. Mass
State Rep. Phil Travis told AP “Romney can’t be for civil unions when
he’s in Massachusetts and against them when he is out-of-state.” (Yes,
he can.)
Rudy Giuliani has opposed the Federal
Marriage Amendment, and as mayor signed a law to “ensure that the city
treats domestic partners the same as married couples, a law gay
advocates called the most comprehensive of its type in the nation,” AP
reported in 1998. However, he opposed New Hampshire’s civil union law in
April, 2007.
John McCain voted against amending the
U.S. Constitution to protect marriage for a man and a woman in 2004. He
did support an Arizona Marriage Amendment in 2005. In 2007 he said he
was a “federalist” who recognized the right of each state “to regulate
the institution of marriage.” He’s a weathervane who blows with each
state’s winds.
By contrast, Huckabee led a successful
fight for a state constitutional amendment that limited marriage to a
man and a woman. He opposed civil unions. And because of Arkansas’
high divorce rate, he declared a “marital emergency” and supported
creating Community Marriage Policies that reduce divorce rates by 17.5
percent in 7 years, according to an independent study. (Disclaimer: I
lead Marriage Savers which creates CMPs.).
On other issues, Huckabee opposes
homosexual couples adopting children, which Romney supports. McCain has
no stand. McCain and Huckabee both oppose forcing private business
owners to hire open homosexuals and oppose pro-gay “hate crime” laws,
while Romney supports both.
(Democratic candidate positions are all
pro-gay.)
On Family Values issues, Huckabee wins
hands down.
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