http://bostonglobe.com/news/politic...gay-parents/TqOHBb99V98H6nGQqUQrjO/story.html
It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for father would be relabeled father or second parent, reflecting the new law.
But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.
He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romneys lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word father on individual birth certificates, and then write in second parent, in ink.
Divisions between the governors office and state bureaucrats over the language on the forms and details about the extraordinary effort by the Republican governor to prevent routine recording of births to gay parents are contained in state records obtained by the Globe this month.
The next month, Romney delivered remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington in which he decried the state Supreme Judicial Courts ruling and its effect on child-rearing. He outlined his misgivings about the request from the Registry of Vital Records.
The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother, Romney said in his prepared remarks. What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not parent A and parent B, but a mother and a father.
Romney also warned about the societal impact of gay parents raising children. Scientific studies of children raised by same-sex couples are almost nonexistent, he said. It may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.
Romney expressed similar beliefs during a speech in 2005 to socially conservative voters in South Carolina, as he was beginning to be viewed as a serious candidate for president.
Some gays are actually having children born to them, he declared. Its not right on paper. Its not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.
Changes to Massachusetts birth certificates formally acknowledging children to same-sex marriages did not come into effect until after Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, assumed office.