Romney shifts tone on gay adoption
Says couples have a 'legitimate interest'
Governor Mitt Romney, who frequently tells Republican audiences that every child has a right to have a mother and father, acknowledged yesterday that same-sex couples have ''a legitimate interest" in adopting children.
Romney said he would file a ''very narrow" bill aimed at letting Catholic Charities, the social service arm of the Boston Archdiocese, and other religious groups exclude same-sex couples from their adoption programs if including them violates religious tenets. But he also noted that gays and lesbians have a right to adopt.
''I know that there will be some gay couples who will say that this could be discriminatory against us," Romney told reporters after an unrelated press conference at the Westin Copley Place hotel. ''Except that there are many, many other agencies that can meet the needs of those gay couples, and I recognize that they have a legitimate interest in being able to receive adoptive services."
The comments were softer in tone than those last week, when the governor said nothing about the legal basis for gay adoptions as he announced his plans to file the bill. Romney, who is gaining more exposure with Republicans as he lays the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign in 2008, has sought to strike a balance between his opposition to same-sex marriage and his role as the executive officer in a state where such marriages are legal.
Romney, particularly in out-of-state speeches to GOP audiences, often attacks the Supreme Judicial Court for its November 2003 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, which made Massachusetts the first state to do so. In an appearance Friday at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Memphis, an important early event for presidential hopefuls, he reiterated his position that ''Every child in America has the right to a mother and a father."
Romney has come under fire in the past for the way he has expressed those sentiments. Last year, gay-rights supporters accused him of belittling gay parents after he told a Republican audience in South Carolina, ''Some are actually having children born to them."
Criticizing an effort to use gender-neutral language to describe parents on birth certificates, he also said last year: ''It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and a father."
At other times, though, Romney has stressed that his opposition to same-sex marriage is not rooted in discrimination.
''Americans respect all people. We also recognize that there are many settings where children are raised," Romney said at a 600-person GOP fund-raiser a year ago in Michigan, citing grandparents and same-sex couples as examples. ''But we choose to recognize one setting as the ideal."
Catholic Charities decided last week to end its adoption program because the group could not reconcile church doctrine, which holds that gay adoptions are ''gravely immoral," with the state's antidiscrimination laws.
On Friday, hours after Catholic Charities' announcement, the governor branded the antidiscrimination law a ''threat to religious freedom" that ''put the rights of adults over the needs of children" and said he would file legislation to grant religious groups an exemption.
Yesterday, the governor offered his first comments about his proposed bill, which he said his legal staff was still drafting. He said he didn't know when it will be filed, but that he hopes it will solve the dilemma facing the church and the state.
''So we're looking for a way to bring together the free practice of religion and the needs of the children, and at the same time recognize the right under the law in Massachusetts for gay couples to be able to have adoptive services," he said, adding, ''I believe, on balance, that our responsibility to the children comes first."
Romney's communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, said later that the governor was simply describing the state of the law.
''By granting religious institutions a narrow exemption to the law, no harm will be caused to any gay person because there are plenty of adoption agencies in Massachusetts that will service their needs," Fehrnstrom said in an e-mail.
Still, Romney's advocacy of such a bill may end up being little more than political rhetoric. Spokeswomen for both House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said last week that their respective chambers would be loath to reconsider the state's antidiscrimination laws.
Gary Buseck, legal director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, said Romney is wrong to suggest that state law is somehow at odds with the welfare of children.
''What the law is doing is creating the largest possible pool of parents," he said.
The Globe reported last month that the state's four Catholic bishops were planning to ask the state for permission to exclude same-sex couples as adoptive parents because of the Vatican's stand against gay adoptions.
Romney said that his legal staff concluded he could not unilaterally provide exemption from state law and that any change would have to be made legislatively.
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 