Romney: "I think the gay community needs more support from the GOP" & other flip flops

A former intern for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney says that contradictory to the camp’s statements, the former Massachusetts governor did authorize flyers in 2002 that championed LGBT rights. The conflict is only the most recent in decades of both endorsement and criticism of legalized same-sex marriage, DADT, and other equal rights efforts.

The Manhattan Institute’s Josh Barro told BuzzFeed that “a full-time staffer” organized the dissemination of pink flyers stating Romney’s support for LGBT equal rights. On Jan. 8, one of Romney’s campaign spokesmen told The Huffington Post that the fliers were not campaign literature, despite the fact that “Paid for by the Romney for Governor Committee” was printed on the bottom of each flyer.

“I don’t know where those pink flyers came from. I was the communications director on the 2002 campaign. I don’t know who distributed them. …I never saw them and I was the communications director,” Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s chief spokesman, told The Huffington Post.

Barro told BuzzFeed that, “On pride weekend, the campaign sent a contingent of about a half-dozen of us to the post-parade festival on Boston Common to hand out those flyers.”

In addition to denying knowledge of the flyers, Fehrnstorm also said that Romney had never supported civil union rights for same-sex couples.