Mitt Romney blocked routine birth certificates for children of gay parents

Dick Romney, last month, trying to sound severely moderate on gay rights:

My view is this, that individuals should be able to pursue a relationship of love and respect, and raise a family as they would choose.

And The Boston Globe, today, on his severely conservative record as governor:

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for 'father' would be relabeled 'father or second parent,'' reflecting the new law.

But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.

He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney's lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word 'father'' on individual birth certificates, and then write in 'second parent,'' in ink.

Divisions between the governor's office and state bureaucrats over the language on the forms and details about the extraordinary effort by the Republican governor to prevent routine recording of births to gay parents are contained in state records obtained by the Globe this month.

So in Mitt Romney's Massachusetts, a baby born to to same-sex parents was treated like a second-class citizen. That's not severely conservative. That's severely cruel. And with a record like that, the fact that he can with a straight face tell voters today that he believes individuals should be able to "raise a family as they choose" is severely disturbing.