The Cellar - Gay-Bashing Bully for Prez 2012!

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Gay-Bashing Bully for Prez 2012!

http://feministing.com/2012/05/10/mi...nti-gay-bully/

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The Washington Post has a rather lengthy report up today on Mitt Romney’s time at the prestigious prep school Cranbrook. The report details Romney’s years as a high school senior in 1965 and his reaction to a new student, John Lauber, who Romney felt looked too gay.

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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.

The image of a scared teenage boy being tackled and forced to the ground while classmates chop his hair off doesn’t sit well with me. It’s torturous behavior. It’s cruel behavior. As a Romney classmate said, “it was vicious.” And it matters.

There are some who are making the argument that Mitt’s youthful transgressions have no impact on the here and now. I could not disagree more. It would be one thing if Romney had a long record of compassion and supported policies now that worked to advance equality and understanding. But that is not the case. It was just two weeks ago that a openly gay spokesperson was forced to step down after anti-gay groups virulently attack him. Romney did not utter a single word in his defense. Clearly, since his youth Romney has not “evolved” that much.

That Romney was a high school bully is important in context (ya know, how most things should be viewed). Assaulting a fellow classmate is more than a youthful prank; maybe not to the bully, but the children attacked live with it for the rest of their lives. John Lauber died in 2004, but in the piece one of other students who was present during the assault saw Lauber in Chicago’s O’Hare airport in the mid-1990s and apologized to him for the incident. Lauber told him, “It was horrible…It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

We must fight the urge to dismiss actions of children and teenagers as youthful transgressions. The trauma from childhood bullying lasts a lifetime for those victimized. With such high numbers of young people committing suicide as a result of bullying it’s long past time for us to take this deadly serious.

On the one hand I think bullying really should be taken far more seriously, and greater recognition given to the longterm impact...

On the other hand, I do think it needs to be seen in the context of a 1965 school environment.

Yes, he caved under pressure from the Xtian right and allowed his spokesperson to step down undefended. But he also hired the guy in the first place which suggests at least an openness to pragmatic acceptance.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is quite likely that he still holds some horrible views about gay people. But they may well have softened along with the views of the world around him across several decades. And yes, sometimes being a bully as a young man can be seen as an early indicator of a particularly nasty mindset...but not necessarily.

I don't think it's entirely fair to bring in schooldays behaviour from decades prior and apply it to the adult now.

The fact that he hasn't yet made any public statement other than writing it off as a "prank" speaks volumes, though.

Oh i agree. As I say, I think he probably does still hold some unpleasant views. Though, I suspect it has more to do with what his base will think and be prepared to support.

I can't get past this:

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“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!”

Crazy. I can't imagine thinking like that.

Due to the multiple sources, and Mitt's non-denial denial and nonpology, I don't have much dought that the story is accurate, but if there's anything that would kindle doubt, it's the sheer over-the-top Hollywood-high-school-movie-bulliness of that line.

Please don't make me want to move to canada again. It's too cold.

Anyone but the this most fuked up Canidate in 2012

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Originally Posted by Ibram (Post 810985)

The fact that he hasn't yet made any public statement other than writing it off as a "prank" speaks volumes, though.

Not really. Politicians rarely comment on stuff like this one way or the other. Whatever he says is unlikely to improve the situation and will keep the topic alive longer and detract from what he wants to be heard saying, so saying nothing is the way to go.

Mitt says he does not remember doing this, a lot of old people can't remember what they did 47 years ago. He probably does not know what escalade he left his dog strapped to, the one in Nantucket or the one at the Park City ski resort.

Most likely the only thing that's changed is Mr Romney's desire to keep those sorts of views to himself these days.

He seems to me to be the same sort of person now as he reportedly was then.

Muckraking at it's finest.

If people held high school behavior against ME now, I would never have a job and probably should just be shot.

There are many things to dislike about Romney, but this isn't really one of them.

Of course not.

UNTIL YOU LOOK AT IT IN THE CONTEXT of what he purports to stand for today. Certainly not gay rights.

From the article, one more time:

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There are some who are making the argument that Mitt’s youthful transgressions have no impact on the here and now. I could not disagree more. It would be one thing if Romney had a long record of compassion and supported policies now that worked to advance equality and understanding. But that is not the case. It was just two weeks ago that a openly gay spokesperson was forced to step down after anti-gay groups virulently attack him. Romney did not utter a single word in his defense. Clearly, since his youth Romney has not “evolved” that much.

People do really mean stuff sometimes. When I think back to my childhood, I participated in teasing at least a few times. But I wasn't in high school, I was in grade school. And I didn't pin anyone down while they cried and assault them like he did.

The article in the Post today was saying that his campaign is pointing to his fun loving antics in his youth to make him seem less wooden. I'd be willing to take his bullying in the context of a childhood in a different time, except that his own campaign is apparently trying to paint him as a fun loving guy back then. If they open the door to his behaviour back then as some indication of who he is today, then I think it's fair to look at the whole picture from back then.

Still, I don't think he is a borderline sociopath the way Bush was. I think he's just a guy who did some messed up stuff when he was younger.

Oh, no way he's the socio Bush was.

But I think it needs looked at, as you say, and they opened the door.

Then again, serial killers often have histories of abusing critters in their youth. We're not all like "I don't think his chopping the legs off the family dog and eating its heart when he was 14 has any relation to the fact that he killed, dismembered, mutilated 27 people. It was just child's play!" Yeah, I know there's a word for that sort of debate tactic but it was just too good to not put to 'paper.' ;)

We've all done and said stupid stuff, for sure. I don't have any recollection of pinning anyone down or assaulting anyone though, for funsies...snotty little rich boy throwing his shit around. Such a cliche, right out of the movies, as HM said. THAT speaks volumes to me.

He would have benefited from a Captains Courageous experience.

I don't think you can judge too much of Romney's current character from this. It was absolutely horrible and possibly shows sociopathetic tendencies (he does love firing people) but it also happened 47 years ago when he was in high school. Supposedly this was an isolated event as well.

I really doubt Romney holds the exact same views as he did 47 years ago but is just more controlled. It is more likely he was just a cocky prick as a high schooler.

Wow. :headshake

Really? You all really think ASSAULTING someone is OK because he was just a cocky little teenager? Get real people. Why do people make excuses for this kind of behavior?

I guess I can only assume that MOST of us held people down, cut their hair as they struggled and cried. You know, just growin' up stuff. Jebus.

OK. Imma go decapitate some cats.

Later.