18) Romney appointed key gay marriage advocates throughout his administration. Aside from his chief counsel, Romney appointed numerous homosexuals to key positions. One in particular, Patrick Guerriero, was appointed to Romney’s gubernatorial transition team. Previous to this appointment, Guerriero, as a leader of the Log Cabin Club, recounted a meeting with Romney:
Patrick Guerriero, a prominent Log Cabin member, told the Bay Windows newspaper immediately after the meeting that Romney showed he was in agreement with the community on every major issue. ‘If you go down the list, it’s pretty much a check-off of the real hot button concerns for gays and lesbians,’ Guerriero said. ‘I do believe that, and as you know I’m a supporter of gay marriage.’
Based on this conversation, it is clear that Romney discussed gay marriage with Guerriero and told him he supported it. When during a campaign debate Romney said he was against gay marriage, Guerriero, who consulted with Romney on gay issues, said this:
‘It was a very poor answer,’ Guerriero observes. ‘It did not reflect the positions that I know Mitt Romney has taken.…
A few months later Romney appointed him to his transition team, a team which in turn advised Romney as to whom he should hire for hundreds of key policy making positions. Incredibly, Romney purposely appointed a gay marriage advocate to a position where he had great influence on the people hired to advise Romney on policy.
By 2004, Guerriero had become a national leader in the battle for gay marriage. That year he earned national recognition for creating the first national television ad attacking the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. Currently, Guerriero works for the Gill Foundation where he is the mastermind behind the funding and electing of dozens of pro-gay marriage candidates to state legislatures nationwide. (41) In other words, Romney is personally close to one of the nation’s leading gay marriage strategists and gave his career a boost by appointing him to his transition team. Moreover, Romney had shared with Guerriero that he was a gay marriage supporter.
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