Romney Abolished Massachusetts LGBT Anti-Bullying Commission

As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney refused to fund the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, ultimately abolishing it. The group was created in 1992 to address alarmingly high rates of bullying and suicide among gay and lesbian teens. In 2005, Romney vetoed a $100,000 increase in the commission’s budget, a decision overturned by the legislature. After the group lent its name to a gay pride parade in 2006, Romney threatened to end it entirely, expressing concerns about the parade’s indecency and inclusion of the transgender community. Ultimately, when Romney tried to change the focus of the group to not be LGBT-specific, the legislature created its own commission and the governor’s dissolved. Combined with evidence that Romney was an anti-gay bully in high school, it seems that there is at least one position on which he’s been consistent throughout his life: harassing the LGBT community.