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In the last Window (December 23, 2006), I shared some background with you on Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to help inform Catholics about this likely presidential candidate's record on abortion and emergency contraception.

In Part 2, I will briefly recap those key questions and share more information regarding Romney's positions and record on gay rights, gay adoption, and judicial appointments.

In a few days, I will publish the last part of Questions for Gov. Romney focusing on his response to the gay marriage ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Once again, we will present facts, perspectives, and questions that have been largely ignored or overlooked by the mainstream media.

Tomorrow Governor Mitt Romney is expected to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.

The following should be carefully considered when deciding whom to support. It is an eye-opener!

GAY RIGHTS

By now, many readers know that for the past two and a half years Gov. Romney has become a crusader against same-sex marriage and activist judges. But his gay-friendly positions from his 1994 campaign against Kennedy have recently come back to haunt him, and reams of documentation by Massachusetts pro-family activists and the Boston-area gay newspaper, Bay Windows, show how Romney's pro-gay actions as governor have not matched his conservative rhetoric.

Romney's previous comments reported by the New York Times, Boston Globe, and other papers are troubling on their own. In 1994, Romney won the endorsement of the gay-advocating Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts, saying he would be a stronger advocate for gays than US Senator Edward M. Kennedy. "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will."

During his 2002 run for governor, Romney supported full domestic partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples which had been opposed by Democratic legislative leadership, and his campaign distributed pink flyers during Gay Pride promoting equal rights for all citizens regardless of their sexual preference.

During that same 2002 run, Romney also denounced as "too extreme" an effort by pro-family groups to enact a state Marriage Protection Amendment banning gay marriage, civil unions and same-sex domestic-partnership benefits which could have preempted the November 2003 same-sex marriage court decision.

Romney's inactions as governor that allowed the gay agenda to advance among young people are even more troubling. For example, the Governor's Commission for Gay and Lesbian Youth promotes gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender (GLBT) education in schools via speaking presentations, films, books, dances (such as transgender proms), handouts, and establishment of GLBT clubs.

Although Romney had legal control over the entity, he never tried to limit its use of funding, impact the membership, or dissolve the Commission until after the Legislature created a redundant commission several months before the end of his 4-year term in office. In fact, Romney's fiscal 2006 budget included $250,000 for the Commission, twice what he proposed spending in 2005. Romney signed annual proclamations recognizing "Youth Gay Pride Day.

Romney's Department of Public Health supported publication of "The Little Black Book…Queer in the 21st Century," a pamphlet which includes graphic instructions about safely performing gay sex acts, which even liberal Boston Herald columnists described as "filled with crude vulgarities" and a "vile little pamphlet...dirt, dummied-down poison to the mind."

Romney's Department of Education provides extensive instructions to schools on forming Gay/Straight Student Alliances, advocates school children should attend gay pride parades, proposes agendas for a gay/lesbian "Day of Awareness" including a panel of transgender individuals talking about transvestite/transsexual issues, and suggests top ten Gay Straight Alliance meeting topics such as "What would the world be like if 10% of people were straight and 90% were gay?" and "What would it be like if parents wanted their children to grow up gay?"

If Gov. Romney did not care enough about protecting family values and children's education to eliminate or curtail these programs when he had direct management authority over the sponsoring agencies in Massachusetts, why should Catholics believe he will do any better in Washington?

RECAP ON ABORTION AND EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION

As discussed in Part 1, Gov. Romney attributes his pro-life conversion to a November 2004 discussion with a Harvard researcher about stem cell research, claiming, "Like Ronald Reagan and Henry Hyde and others who became pro-life, I had this issue wrong in the past."

To faithful Catholics and committed pro-lifers, who have written since our report came out, this late-life conversion more than 30 years after Roe v Wade, raises eyebrows. We know that Reagan and Hyde were pro-life early in the public debate over abortion, with Reagan favoring a ban on abortion except in rare cases in his 1980 presidential campaign, and Hyde being pro-life by 1976 when the Hyde Amendment passed. Expecting people to overlook Romney's multiple conversions to and from being pro-life requires more explanation from a would-be President of the United States.

Is Gov. Romney also asking Catholics to ignore his stated support for abortion rights from 1970 to 2004? Are Catholics expected to feel comfortable that his views were apparently unswayed during thirty-five years of polarizing public debate about abortion? Are Catholics supposed to accept that he supported a woman's "right to choose" through nearly a decade of Congressional action and passage of bills to ban partial-birth abortion? Are Catholics expected to believe he only concluded that abortion is immoral and life begins at conception in 2004 (coincident with his interest in the presidency)?

Furthermore, if Romney is really "committed to promoting the culture of life" as he now says on the campaign trail, why did he force emergency contraception on Catholic hospitals last year, despite a previous statute that his own Department of Public Health said exempted them from the intrusive law?

ROMNEY'S JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS

For all of Romney's rhetoric about activist judges, his own judicial appointments also leave much to be desired. The Boston Globe reported in July of 2005 that, Romney has "passed over GOP lawyers for three-quarters of the 36 judicial vacancies he has faced, instead tapping registered Democrats or independents -- including two gay lawyers who have supported expanded same-sex rights."

In May of 2005, Romney selected for a district court judgeship Stephen Abany, a former board member of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association who organized the group's opposition to a 1999 bill to outlaw same-sex marriage. The MLGBA is "dedicated to ensuring that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision on marriage equality is upheld, and that any anti-gay amendment or legislation is defeated."

Ironically, the Globe reports that two days before Abany's nomination, Romney was lamenting the liberal tilt of the state's bench, telling Fox News that ''our courts have a record here in Massachusetts…of being a little blue and being Kerry-like."

Catholics would no doubt also be surprised to hear another Romney choice for the bench is Marianne C. Hinkle, who described herself in her application for the bench as a longtime active member of Dignity/USA, a group which wants to reform the Catholic Church's views and teachings on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender activity.

What exactly explains the contradiction between Romney's staff/judicial choices and his conservative rhetoric? Since lower-court appointments are often stepping-stones to higher-court judicial appointments, should Catholics conclude that these choices are indicative of the sort of judges Romney would appoint as President?

GAY ADOPTION

Massachusetts Catholics say that Gov. Romney's positions on adoption of children by homosexual couples are contradictory at best, and that inaction on his part contributed to Catholic Charities of Boston exiting their adoption ministry in 2006 after more than 100 years of service.

In terms of his public rhetoric, Romney tries to have it both ways. He has been dismissive of same-sex parenting to South Carolina Republicans, saying sarcastically that some gay and lesbian couples "are actually having children born to them," while in Massachusetts, he says he recognizes that homosexual couples "have a legitimate interest in being able to receive adoptive services."

Romney's action and inaction on this issue has been different from his stated position. In late 2005 and early 2006, when Catholic Charities of Boston was under fire for having complied with a state regulation requiring adoption agencies to broker adoptions to homosexual couples, Romney initially claimed he could not unilaterally exempt them, as an exemption would require legislation "and would not be something I would be authorized to do on a personal basis." Since legislative leaders had previously declared such legislation would be effectively dead-on-arrival, Catholic Charities proceeded to exit the adoption business, and Romney's subsequent decision to file legislation asking for the exemption indeed went nowhere, with zero benefit to the agency.

But Catholics deserve to know why Romney refused to simply use his executive powers to change the regulation, and even former Gov. Michael Dukakis weighed in to say Romney's legislation was "unnecessary," in that "the state's anti-discrimination statutes do not preclude an exemption for the Catholic organization." Abortion is constitutionally protected, yet Catholic hospitals that do not perform abortions on religious principle are not prevented from being reimbursed for Medicaid eligible services. Since the liberal Gov. Dukakis, who signed the original gay rights bill during his tenure, said there was nothing mandated in this area and observed, "governors can change regulations if they want to, that's up to him," why did Romney back down?

THE BOTTOM LINE

Although Gov. Mitt Romney brings what many describe as intelligence, solid management skills, optimism, and charisma to the presidential race, an increasing number of Catholics are concerned that Romney's recent conversion to pro-life, pro-family conservatism contrasts dramatically with his public record of speaking and governing as a social moderate or liberal, routinely backing down when the going gets tough, and accomplishing few conservative successes.

Despite preparing a "track record" to portray governance as a conservative, in the end, Catholic activists say Romney's own leadership failures enabled the social liberals to win the battles. He vetoed emergency contraception knowing the veto would easily be overridden, and then he forced it on Catholic hospitals.

He campaigns against activist judges, but he himself appointed gay activists as judges.

He claims to be pro-family, but he did nothing to stop his own Department of Public Health and Department of Education from their activities that encourage gay activity for young people.

He criticized gay adoptions, but refused to grant a small internal regulatory exemption that would have allowed Catholic Charities to continue brokering adoptions.

Why does the conservative publication, Human Events, list Romney at #8 on their 2005 list of "Top Ten Republicans in Name Only (RINOs)? Is Romney really an embattled "conservative" fighting the forces of liberalism in one of the most liberal states in the country, or is he a moderate liberal "in sheep's clothing" himself?

Can Catholics trust that the 59-year-old Romney who was pro-choice and was unaffected by three decades of public debate over abortion-would carry his new pro-life convictions over into Cabinet personnel decisions, judicial appointments, and public policy?

If Romney is a true-blue conservative, why didn't he try to slow down or occasionally defeat the liberal agenda during four years of governance by using the executive powers granted in the Constitution, rather than pleasing his liberal constituencies?

And most important of all, with a track record of 4 years of setbacks or losses in Massachusetts on life and family issues across stem cell research, emergency contraception, marriage, and the gay agenda in public schools, what actual pro-family and pro-life results, wins, and accomplishments can Romney point to? Finally, if Romney does suddenly have pro-life and pro-family beliefs, why should Catholics believe he holds them deeply enough to fight hard when the going gets tough in Washington when he didn't fight for them in Massachusetts?

The gap between how Mitt Romney appears in public statements vs. his record is substantial enough that committed Catholics are raising legitimate questions about his highly promoted conversion to conservatism which Romney will need to answer.

Until such time as those questions are satisfactorily addressed, Catholics may want to keep their 2008 presidential options open.

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