Gov. Romney Didn't Know Gay People Had Families

While his state's high court considered the case that led to marriage equality in Massachusetts, Gov. Mitt Romney told the plaintiff he didn't care what reason she gave her daughter as to why her moms couldn't marry.

Sunnivie Brydum

Sunnivie is the managing editor of The Advocate, and an award-winning journalist whose passion is covering the politics of equality and elevating the unheard stories of our community. Originally from Colorado, she and her spouse now live in Los Angeles, along with their three fur-children: dogs Luna and Cassie Doodle, and "Meow Button" Tilly.

Read Full Bio

Sunnivie Brydum

September 12 2012 1:41 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

sunnivie

Sorry to interrupt...
But we wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading. Your support makes original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Help us hold Trump accountable.

One-time Monthly

$19.67 $50 Other

$5 $19.67 $50

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a long history of antigay statements and interactions, according to Boston Spirit Magazine. The latest scornful interaction to come to light involves Julie Goodridge, whose name is on the state Supreme Judicial Court case that led to Massachusetts becoming the first state in the nation to have marriage equality. While the case was working its way through state courts, the plaintiffs met with the governor -- but only after they staged a press conference publicly reading the letter they'd sent Romney asking for a meeting.

David Wilson, another plaintiff in the Goodridge case, told Boston Spirit that speaking with the then-governor, who testified against marriage equality, was "like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling."

Romney sat stone-faced as the gay and lesbian couples pleaded with the governor to protect their families. "I didn't know you had families," said Romney, according to Wilson.

Perhaps Romney's most egregious dismissal dealt a heavy blow to Goodridge, who asked the governor what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter as to why their state's governor said her moms couldn't get married.

"I don't really care what you tell your adopted daughter," Romney said, according to Goodridge. "Why don't you just tell her the same thing you've been telling her the last eight years."

Trending stories

Zack Ford at ThinkProgress LGBT chronicled several of the governor's antigay dealings while in office, including Romney's "firing of two state employeesostensibly for marrying their same-sex partners, his dissolution of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, his blocking of an antibullying guide because it contained the words 'bisexual' and 'transgender,' and his testimony against marriage equality to the Senate Judiciary Committee after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled the state's ban was unconstitutional."