Mitt Romney’s campaign calls gay teen bullying report ‘exaggerated’

[scipio337]

You wish. People do care. Romney is the candidate of the anti-gay-rights party, so it matters that way.

Anti-gay rights? Give me a break.

Obama has supported gay marriage for 24 hours, and only because he was forced into a political corner by the gaffe-a-minute Veep.
Jerry Miah:

It is also a character issue, and this forum is full of people concerned about the morals of the candidates.

He shouldn’t etch-a-sketch his bullying past, he should be up front about it, the way Obama wrote a whole book about his youthful indiscretions (which did not involve beating up on the weak and vulnerable.)

But it did involve felony possession and use of cocaine. But I’m sure that’s not a character issue to you, right?

 

[Havard]

You wish. People do care. Romney is the candidate of the anti-gay-rights party, so it matters that way.

It is also a character issue, and this forum is full of people concerned about the morals of the candidates.

He shouldn’t etch-a-sketch his bullying past, he should be up front about it, the way Obama wrote a whole book about his youthful indiscretions (which did not involve beating up on the weak and vulnerable.)

Pray tell, how do you “know” Romney’s account is not 100% true? How do you “know” that Romney “knew” any of these kids were gay? How do you “know” these weren’t just friendly gibes?

Why do you choose to believe the most vile explanation possible, when A) there isn’t much to support it, and B) Christians are supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Birdpreacher]

That depends. Is the person who tortured animals at 17 a 65 year old presidential candidate with no criminal record, or Jeffrey Dahmer?

FAir enough, lets try another one:

You have a man who sexually molested kids when he was 17. He is now 65 and a priest.
Are you going to think twice before letting your kid go on an overnight retreat with him?

I always hear the argument on this site that the child sex abuse scandal could have been prevented if we just screened for homosexuals in the seminary and booted them out. The same logic applies here: you have a man who allegedly bullied a gay person (physically imposing his opinion as to what a male’s hair should look like) and that man latter is making government policy which will affect how gay people live their lives. WHy not view this event in his life (he was no kid at the time either 17-18) shape our evaluation of his character?

 

[Birdpreacher]

Pray tell, how do you know Romney’s account is not 100% true? How do you “know” that Romney “knew” any of these kids were gay? How do you “know” these weren’t just friendly gibes?

Why do you choose to believe the most vile explanation possible, when A) there isn’t much to support it, and B) Christians are supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt?

In this case there is some evidence that the attack was sexually motivated and there is a motive for Romney not to be honest: he is running for election. (He probably cant remember the reasons he was pro-choice)

 

[Jerry_Miah]

If it helps you sleep at night to believe people care, go ahead. Check back when the polls come out and reveal that you, Birdpreacher, and the kid with the mullet who got stuffed in a locker are the only ones who care.

Check that - BP already said she doesn’t care. She’s just posting to kill time, apparently.

If no one cared, there wouldn’t be a hot thread about it, Romney wouldn’t be desperately trying to spin it away, and bullying in the schools wouldn’t be an issue. YOU don’t care, doesn’t mean no one does.

 

[He_Man]

FAir enough, lets try another one:

You have a man who sexually molested kids when he was 17. He is now 65 and a priest.
Are you going to think twice before letting your kid go on an overnight retreat with him?

I always hear the argument on this site that the child sex abuse scandal could have been prevented if we just screened for homosexuals in the seminary and booted them out. The same logic applies here: you have a man who allegedly bullied a gay person (physically imposing his opinion as to what a male’s hair should look like) and that man latter is making government policy which will affect how gay people live their lives. WHy not view this event in his life (he was no kid at the time either 17-18) shape our evaluation of his character?

The logic only applies if you equate pounding a kid in high school (allegedly) with molesting a child. Luckily, most people do not.

 

[Havard]

In this case there is some evidence that the attack was sexually motivated and there is a motive for Romney not to be honest: he is running for election. (He probably cant remember the reasons he was pro-choice)

What evidence?

As I mentioned earlier, the Post article only once claims Lauder was a “presumed homosexual” and that wasn’t even sourced to any of the five men they interviewed for the piece.

So again, where is there any evidence at all that he knew this?

 

[He_Man]

If no one cared, there wouldn’t be a hot thread about it, Romney wouldn’t be desperately trying to spin it away, and bullying in the schools wouldn’t be an issue. YOU don’t care, doesn’t mean no one does.

Yes, posts in a Catholic Answers on a ridiculous topic are good barometers of serious concerns.

Google topics on people’s favorite food and see how many posts it gets.

 

[ellipsis2]

You wish. People do care. Romney is the candidate of the anti-gay-rights party, so it matters that way.

It is also a character issue, and this forum is full of people concerned about the morals of the candidates.

He shouldn’t etch-a-sketch his bullying past, he should be up front about it, the way Obama wrote a whole book about his youthful indiscretions (which did not involve beating up on the weak and vulnerable.)

Did he really wet his bed until he was 12 years old? That’s not a good thing.

 

[scipio337]

FAir enough, lets try another one:

You have a man who sexually molested kids when he was 17. He is now 65 and a priest.
Are you going to think twice before letting your kid go on an overnight retreat with him?

I always hear the argument on this site that the child sex abuse scandal could have been prevented if we just screened for homosexuals in the seminary and booted them out. The same logic applies here: you have a man who allegedly bullied a gay person (physically imposing his opinion as to what a male’s hair should look like) and that man latter is making government policy which will affect how gay people live their lives. WHy not view this event in his life (he was no kid at the time either 17-18) shape our evaluation of his character?

I’m not sure I follow.

Are we making a moral equivalence of bullying with predatory ephebophilia, or are we claiming that Romney’s alleged bullying was caused by ephebophilic attaction?

You’ve lost me here.

 

[He_Man]

Did he really wet his bed until he was 12 years old? That’s not a good thing.

Serious campaign issues like bladder control are not to be so cavalierly discarded.

 

[Birdpreacher]

The logic only applies if you equate pounding a kid in high school (allegedly) with molesting a child. Luckily, most people do not.

No it dosnt the logic applies in any prior bad acts scenario. Are you going to let Winona Rider be a clerk at your store? No!

We make judgments on people’s character by using their past acts because its perfectly natural.

Here we have a 17-18 year old Romney assaulting a crying kid just because he didn’t like the way the kid looked/acted. Its relevant, however people may have differing views of its impact.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

You appear to be confused.

The “presumed homosexuality” comment was about Lauder, and you quote a section about Hummel.

My point remains, nowhere does the Post source their claim that Lauder was a “presumed homosexual”.

Nor do they even bother to make that claim about Hummel. They readily admit that Hummel was closeted, and that comments like “atta girl” were ordinary for the time (as they still are today, along with a host of other sophomoric insults.)

That’s one of the most common labels used in high schools - GAY. “That’s so GAY.” “You are gay.” “That teacher is so gay, she gave us a pop quiz.”

And other words, which I will not write because I would be banned.

 

[Rayush]

It is just oh so fashionable right now to be gay. And I can’t wait till Romney wins and we don’t have to be subjected to any more of Obama’s bullying, his passing all kinds of laws that do not represent what most Americans want. He has no regard for the opinions of the Senate or the House. He has no reverence for the Constitution. I also am starting to wonder if it may be true that he really was not born in the United States.

 

[_Abyssinia]

UPDATE 1:

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008.

Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

Are they lying? It’s doubtful that they’re making this up out of whole cloth, although** it is fascinating that an alleged assault, with many witnesses, generated no reports to authority or discipline at a school where smoking a cigarette is sufficient to get a student thrown out of school. If the victim’s hair was such a topic of attention and conversation, it is impossible no one noticed his hair had been cut. Is it possible that the Post**

sources’ memory of events 47 years ago is not perfectly reliable, and that they paint a more vivid or cruel portrait of Romney than actually occurred? Oh, all of the men said their politics didn’t color their recollection. Strange that they decide to talk about this event now, instead of during Romney’s 1994 campaign for Senate or 2002 campaign for governor or 2008 campaign for president.

The fact that we see this all-out inspection of Romney’s teen years, with almost nothing equivalent four years ago, undoubtedly explains why “#ObamaTeenYears” is trending on Twitter. After all, this event occurred roughly two to four years before Barack Obama ate a dog, and about a decade before young Barack Obama used cocaine. If those events of youth are considered irrelevant to evaluating the presidential choice before Americans, it’s unclear why a scene out of Dead Poets Society should warrant such extensive coverage from the Post.

Note that the article does not appear in the print edition of today’s Washington Post — which raises the question of whether the Post thinks its coverage of a 47-year-old incident deserves page A1 or the front page of the Style section tomorrow.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/299554/new-bright-shiny-object-enters-presidential-campaign-debate#

 

[Birdpreacher]

I’m not sure I follow.

Are we making a moral equivalence of bullying with predatory ephebophilia, or are we claiming that Romney’s alleged bullying was caused by ephebophilic attaction?

You’ve lost me here.

GOod question: Romney did seem a little to obsessed with another boy’s hair…

The point is that one’s prior bad acts may be reflective of their present character.

 

[estesbob]

If no one cared, there wouldn’t be a hot thread about it, Romney wouldn’t be desperately trying to spin it away, and bullying in the schools wouldn’t be an issue. YOU don’t care, doesn’t mean no one does.

Start a thread about how Evil Harry Potter is or Holding hands at the Our father if you really want to see a “hot thread”

 

[_Abyssinia]

UPDATE 2:

Correction Request: Washington Post Uses Falsehood in Romney Hit Piece

In a feature article published this morning

, the Washington Post wrote the following about Stu White, a high school friend and classmate of Mitt Romney’s, in reference to an alleged 1965 bullying incident involving of a fellow classmate: [emphasis added]

“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident.

Today, however, in an interview with ABC News, the same Stu White completely contradicts the Washington Post story:

While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.

Because Mr. White had not been aware of the incident until this year, it was inaccurate and misleading for the Washington Post to report he had “long been bothered” by the incident

We respectfully request that the Washington Post issue a full and complete retraction.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/05/10/Retracto-Romney-Bully

 

[He_Man]

No it dosnt the logic applies in any prior bad acts scenario. Are you going to let Winona Rider be a clerk at your store? No!

We make judgments on people’s character by using their past acts because its perfectly natural.

Here we have a 17-18 year old Romney assaulting a crying kid just because he didn’t like the way the kid looked/acted. Its relevant, however people may have differing views of its impact.

Nice out you gave yourself.

“I am making a poor case for why this incident that happened 40+ years ago in high school mattered, but I could be wrong.” If the issue is so flim-flam as to its effect on voting, why even discuss it?

At least your bases are covered.

 

[scipio337]

What evidence?

As I mentioned earlier, the Post article only once claims Lauder was a “presumed homosexual” and that wasn’t even sourced to any of the five men they interviewed for the piece.

So again, where is there any evidence at all that he knew this?

Because Romney’s a REPUBLICAN, silly!

Didn’t you know Republicans hate gays (and kittens)?

There is nothing from any eyewitness in the story supporting this entire thread:

“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…

Even the WaPo hit-piece is titled “Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents”.