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Topic: Mitt Romney, Homophobic Bully
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:: Rakkaus
:: QA5 Having the neighbours round | |
A day after Barack Obama finally comes out in favor of marriage equality...it comes out that the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States was a homophobic high school bully...
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/...h-school-bully/
Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s 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.
...
But Friedemann and several people closest to Romney in those formative years say there was a sharp edge to him. In an English class, Gary Hummel, who was a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated with Romney shouting, “Atta girl!”, In the culture of that time and place, that was not entirely out of the norm. Hummel recalled some teachers using similar language.
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Post: #648066  , Fri 11 May 12, 12:27AM |
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:: Lia47
:: QA9 Grand Elder | |
Ha, just started reading the article and the office came on and Oscar did an "it gets better video"!!! And ummm... Then I read the rest. Is that true? I mean, that's really terrible.
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Post: #648089 , Fri 11 May 12, 1:04AM |
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:: Bree204
:: QA4 A spot of tea please, Alfred! | |
Holy crap...
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Post: #648102 , Fri 11 May 12, 1:48AM |
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Hummel reminded me of Kurt from glee.
That really is awful though.
"Peace, Love, Empathy"- Kurt Cobain
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Post: #648109 , Fri 11 May 12, 2:09AM |
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:: Rakkaus
:: QA5 Having the neighbours round | |
Romney still is saying he can't remember what happened, even though everyone else in his class can, and he was the gang's ringleader attacking this kid...
Here's another student corroborating the story, his description is pretty heartbreaking:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po...d-differentboy/
A high school classmate of presidential candidate Mitt Romney told ABC News today that he considers a particular prank the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery” and that he witnessed Romney hold the scissors to cut the hair of a student who was being physically pinned to the ground by several others.
“It’s a haunting memory. I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it… because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it. And that was what we all walked away with,” said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Maxwell, of the anecdote first reported by the Washington Post. Maxwell said Romney held the scissors helping to cut the hair of a student, John Lauber, who was presumed to be gay and who had long hair. “It was a hack job… clumps of hair taken off.”
Maxwell said he held the boy’s arm and leg, describing he and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”
Asked if Lauber was targeted because he was gay, as reported by the Post, Maxwell said, “We didn’t know that word in those days… but there were other words that were used. We weren’t ignorant, we just didn’t use the current names for things.
Romney has since apologized for what he said were “pranks” in high school but has said he doesn’t remember this specific event. He added that “homosexuality was the furthest thing from his mind” when it came to the jokes he played on classmates. He laughed off the 45-year-old anecdotes during the radio interview today.
Asked if he has any doubt that what Romney did could be considered bullying, Maxwell responded, “Oh my god, are you kidding?… I castigated myself regularly for not having intervened. I would have felt a lot better about myself had I said hey, enough.”
“When I saw the look on his (Lauber’s) face, it was a look I’ll never forget,” said Maxwell. “When you see a victim, the sense of trust betrayed in this boy who was perfectly innocent for being different.”
“This was bullying supreme,” he said.
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Post: #648127 , Fri 11 May 12, 2:38AM |
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http://think-progress.tumblr.c...l-pinned-down-a
^ That is all.
But seriously, he's dumb -_- He argues that it was High School and he was dumb back then and bla bla bla
"I played a lot of pranks in high school... that, uh, well, you just say to yourself that, uh, back in high school, I did some dumb things."
-Romney
Yet he hasn't given us any reason to believe that he's changed. He's still frighteningly homophobic and although he probably wouldn't be running around cutting peoples' hair (then again it IS Romney) this incident still says a lot about his character.
You laugh at me because I'm different. I laugh at you because you're all the same.
"Rub that glitter and grease around"
~Lady Gaga
"I'm fierce and I'm feeling mighty. I'm a golden girl, I'm an aphrodite, alright!"
~Kylie Minogue
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Edit: Embraceurself, Fri 11 May 12, 3:26AM
Post: #648132 , Fri 11 May 12, 2:45AM |
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That was high school, and from the things I've heard Romney say nowadays, it seems he still believes in only straight marriage, but he wants gay people to have all other equal rights, including visitation rights. And honestly, back then, homosexuality wasn't an issue like it was now, it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't remember anything.
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Post: #648153 , Fri 11 May 12, 3:22AM |
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This guy seems like a jackass but then again I'm so far left that the right is merely a speck of dust in the road over here. I will always vote Democrat or Labourist Party (when I go to Australia) because I'm that left XD. But seriously, I'm left for a reason. This guy's got no sense of respect and he better not win this presidential election or I swear to god...
To see us dance is to hear our hearts speak- Hopi Indian saying
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Post: #648156 , Fri 11 May 12, 3:29AM |
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:: Rakkaus
:: QA5 Having the neighbours round | |
The fact that Romney was a bully as a an eighteen-year-old is relevant not just because it tells us about his character, but because that attitude is reflected in his policies and positions about LGBTQ bullying since then:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...for-the-bullies
Romney Abolished Massachusetts LGBT Anti-Bullying Commission
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/...ing-commission/
As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney refused to fund the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, ultimately abolishing it. The group was created in 1992 to address alarmingly high rates of bullying and suicide among gay and lesbian teens. In 2005, Romney vetoed a $100,000 increase in the commission’s budget, a decision overturned by the legislature. After the group lent its name to a gay pride parade in 2006, Romney threatened to end it entirely, expressing concerns about the parade’s indecency and inclusion of the transgender community. Ultimately, when Romney tried to change the focus of the group to not be LGBT-specific, the legislature created its own commission and the governor’s dissolved. Combined with evidence that Romney was an anti-gay bully in high school, it seems that there is at least one position on which he’s been consistent throughout his life: harassing the LGBT community.
@Alyssa, not only does Romney oppose marriage equality, he came out yesterday and said he wants a federal constitutional amendment banning it forever nationwide, overruling states where it is already legal. He also said he opposes civil unions or any sort of arrangement that would give same-sex couples equal rights, even if not called 'marriage'.
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Post: #648162 , Fri 11 May 12, 3:40AM |
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even though obama's twist in perceprtion about gay marriage changed around election, i'm not voting for this bully loser. no way should this bastard run the country. we've fought so hard to get these little rights we have. who's to say romney wont turn a blind eye when we need him most? who's to say he'll support us? i'd rather reelect obama. at least he hasnt screwed over other gay males! :'(
 "Herp le DERP"  |
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Post: #648202 , Fri 11 May 12, 6:28AM |
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Why is someone like this even allowed to run in the election?
just give me a reason/just a little bit's enough/just a second, we're not broken/just bent we can learn to love again/oh, it's in the stars/it's been written in the scars on our hearts/we're not broken/just bent we can learn to love again.
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Post: #648204 , Fri 11 May 12, 6:58AM |
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Yep official jack-ass example there. How dare he try to overrun the states?! The states have rights in more ways than the whole of the nation as far as law-making goes so HOW DARE HE?! States are allowed to make laws of that level like that so HOW DARE HE try to mess that up?! -_- SOOOOOO pissed right now.
To see us dance is to hear our hearts speak- Hopi Indian saying
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Post: #648218 , Fri 11 May 12, 12:30PM |
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:: Ming97
:: QA5 Having the neighbours round | |
And I thought he was a good man....
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Post: #648269 , Fri 11 May 12, 4:00PM |
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I'm not surprised that Romney would be up to something like that, I'm just so happy that Obama, not only the first African-American president but he's also the first president to openly accept gay marriage. He might lose a sum of homophobic voters but he'll earn a whole lot more from any gay voters or gay supporters! Woohoo go Obama!
From a solid liberal democrat!
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Post: #648272 , Fri 11 May 12, 4:29PM |
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This is a man who's running for president. A man who's supposed to be of outstanding fibre and he's capable of this? Not only did he do such despicable things, he doesn't have the decency to even admit that he did them and apologise! With his excuse being "it was high school, they were just dumb pranks", Obama never looked like the better option and he was against George Bush before......
I'M A SURVIVOR! I'm not gon' give up, I'm not gon' stop, I'm gon' work harder. I'M A SURVIVOR. I'm gonna make it, I will survive, Keep on surviving :)
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Post: #648277 , Fri 11 May 12, 5:23PM |
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:: Kuuipo
:: QA10 Community Goddess | |
Jesus, why are people like this even allowed to run for election..
"The past can hurt. You can either run from it or learn from it." ~Rafiki
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” ~Dr. Seuss
~Clicking this link will bring you to a very special place and you should click it because click it.|
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Post: #648332 , Fri 11 May 12, 10:44PM |
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Because homophobes and narrow minded religious people will gladly vote for someone like Romney because his promises will make their wishes come true if he gets elected. We kinda have a slightly new hitler coming up if Romney is elected into office.
"Being straight is too mainstream. Being gay sounds better"
"Its always just gonna be the sidelines for a kid who can't find it in themselves to take up the challenge and do something about a problem. Instead of putting them first, why didn't you put yourself first? Now you just lost more than you could have gained"
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Edit: phoenixwrites, Sat 12 May 12, 6:20AM
Post: #648435 , Sat 12 May 12, 6:20AM |
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Some just hire an assasain. Humans like these are the rejects that have corrupted modern society, the way Feminism is portrayed in social media is just as sick as this.(note media portrays a feminist as a crazy extremist that is part of a group which are just a bunch of women with no lives saying We Hate Men! Basically saying they should be put in an asylum) Honestly we need to kill of half these idiots. Also they get in because they hate Homosexuals and love religon or the social media, people actually want some of these guys as their president.
There is no hope without salvation, there is no life without destruction, in this desolate world we can only rely on the unknown for our minds shame the very ground.
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Post: #648465 , Sat 12 May 12, 9:27AM |
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:: Aaron
:: QA4 A spot of tea please, Alfred! | |
He won't even admit to it properly!? That's just plain cowardly. Although at least you Americans don't have a terrorist in the running like we did. Still, To do something like that to someone else for nothing more offensive than being a little different is inhumane.
if I don't make sense that means i'm sleepy, if i'm awake that means i'm sleepy.
Is feidir linn
Hate is not conquered by hate, hate is conquered by love this is the law eternal
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Post: #648472 , Sat 12 May 12, 10:06AM |
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:: Rakkaus
:: QA5 Having the neighbours round | |
Did anyone else find this part really weird?
There is no doubt that Romney bullied to cover up his own insecurities, but I actually got a bit of closet-case vibe out of this...
I mean, what kind of comfortably straight guy becomes fanatically obsessed with the pretty blond locks of another boy?
Did Lauber's openness threaten Romney's own insecurities about his sexuality? Was Mitt maybe even feeling attracted to Lauber? 
"John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
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Edit: Rakkaus, Sat 12 May 12, 7:15PM
Post: #648558 , Sat 12 May 12, 7:13PM |
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