Mitt Romney’s hostility to bullying prevention as Massachusetts Governor takes on a more sinister light
following revelations in the Washington Post about his anti-gay bullying of a fellow high school student when he was 18. See Jason Horowitz, Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents, Washington Post, May 10, 2012. In 2006, Romney’s Administration put the brakes on publication of an anti-bullying best practices guide, initiated under the administration of his Republican predecessor Gov. Jane Swift. See Ethan Jacobs, Romney administration delays anti-bullying guide, Bay Windows, October 12, 2006, p. A1.
The Swift Administration started and set aside funding for an anti-bullying campaign in its last year in office, 2002. The program included a survey of middle schools across Massachusetts to identify what measures had proved effective in combating bullying in practical experience. The product of the research study was entitled Direct from the Field: A Guide to Bullying Prevention, and existed as a rough draft as Romney became Governor in January, 2003.
In his first year in office, Romney laid off the staff working on the bullying prevention program. Through the efforts of volunteers, the anti-bullying guide was edited, updated, and completed. It appeared slated for publication in early 2006. But mid-year, following a controversy over a program intended to prevent LGBT teen suicide, plans for publication suddenly stopped.
Observers were unanimous in tying the Romney administration’s interference in the anti-bullying initiative to the content addressing LGBT youth. Anti-gay activists, whom Romney was courting in his first run for President, opposed efforts to promote student safety as “homosexual recruitment” in schools. See, e.g. http://massresistance.blogspot.com/search?q=Romney+administration+delays+anti-bullying+guide&zx=2e72af3fe8fa392a
The Guide was finally brought to publication and distributed throughout Massachusetts and over the Internet by Romney’s successor as Governor, Democrat Deval Patrick in 2008. http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dph/com-health/violence/bullying-prevent-guide.pdf
Anti-Violence Project Chairperson Don Gorton, a co-author of the guide, said he wasn’t surprised by reports that Romney had tackled, pinned, and taken scissors to a high-school student perceived to be effeminate. “Despite urgent considerations of student health and safety, Governor Romney sided with the bullies when he held up publication of science-based anti-bullying information developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. His efforts to derail bullying prevention as Governor make sense given that Romney was himself an anti-gay bully.” Bullying of teens perceived to be LGBT has been a factor in teen suicides, which have attracted public notice since 2010.
It isn’t just the awful behavior in Mitt Romney’s past that I object to.
This post is another “smoking gun” (in addition to the direction he chose to steer Bain Capital in) that directly ties the Mitt Romney who “tackled, pinned, and [took] scissors to a high-school student perceived to be effeminate” in 1965 and Mitt Romney who would be President in 2012.
Under the lipstick smeared all over this pig, he seems to be, at his core, a bully and a predator.