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Ann Romney Booked for Gay-Bashing Conference?

[Update 9-12-12: Ann Romney Joins Cardinal Dolan In Declining Values Voter Summit Invitation(link is external)]

Ann Romney, the person tasked with humanizing her husband Mitt, is apparently scheduled to address a conference that dehumanizes others. I’m talking about the Values Voter Summit(link is external), which is hosted and sponsored by two Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate groups(link is external) – the Family Research Council and American Family Association.

The National Journal Daybook(link is external) and Values Voter Summit website(link is external) both list Ann Romney on the schedule:       Notably absent from the list is Cardinal Timothy Dolan, whose spokesperson pointedly declined(link is external) FRC’s invitation. Yet there Ann Romney is.   It’s an odd move by the Romney campaign. They’ve previously deployed her to show the softer side of Mitt. Now they’re sending her to stand on stage with a man who paid $83,000 to use David Duke’s mailing list(link is external) and addressed a white supremacist group(link is external) while in public office. The same person – Tony Perkins – also praised a law in Uganda(link is external) to execute gays and warned senators(link is external) they would have “the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands” if they repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.   The Romney campaign must have its reasons, but it sure seems like an odd way to deploy Ann Romney. They already have Paul Ryan scheduled to address the conference. Do they really need two headliners reaching out to the Bachmann-Akin wing of the party? Besides, just last week Ann Romney refused to answer questions about same-sex marriage and contraception, dismissing them as distractions(link is external) "from what the real voting issue is going to be."   For weeks, the Values Voter Summit website listed Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as invited speakers. When Ryan was added to the ticket in August, the Family Research Council blasted out an email confirming Ryan’s appearance. No one really expected Mitt Romney to show for the event – too radical, too close to the election. That’s why, when the conference schedule was recently posted, it was a shock to see not only “Romney” on the lineup, but Ann Romney.   Ryan and Ann Romney, if she appears, will be speaking on stage with Perkins in a lineup that includes Kirk Cameron and Michele Bachmann. They’ll be kicking off a conference that features a who’s who of Todd Akin backers(link is external) (e.g. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Steve King) and anti-Muslim McCarthyites(link is external) (e.g. Frank Gaffney and Jerry Boykin). And, of course, there will be gay-bashers – featured speakers like Perkins and Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, who recently defended(link is external) Malawi’s law criminalizing homosexuality. They would push for the same thing here in America if they thought they could pull it off. In fact, FRC’s Peter Sprigg and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer have already done so(link is external).   These aren’t conservative people pushing conservative values and policies – this is the radical right. America, and the Romney campaign in all likelihood, would be better served if Romney and Ryan followed Dolan’s example(link is external) and skipped the conference. Or they can go cast their lot with the extremists with the national media looking on. We’ll see what their priorities are this Friday morning.