Weld Goes Back To Gay

Published Jun 13 2007, 01:55 PM by David S. Bernstein

Former Governor Bill Weld was on Beacon Hill yesterday, and says he opposes the amendment banning gay marriage that's heading to a legislative vote here, according to the State House News Service. He may even make some calls to legislators to help defeat it.

Welcome back, Bill, you stand-up guy. The gays sure have a good friend in you.

Weld, if you don't know, was once as big a gay-rights supporter as there was. Not only did he praise the 2003 SJC decision allowing gay marriage, he personally officiated at his friend Mitchell Adams's wedding the following year.

But by late 2005, Weld was running for governor of New York -- and running away from the gays. Pandering to the conservatives who he needed to get the Republican nomination, Weld ended up vowing to veto any NY legislation to legalize same-sex weddings there, and even denied that he was ever in favor of the practice in Massachusetts. He claimed that he had only offered legal interpretations.

Weld ultimately dropped out of the race. Soon thereafter, he endorsed and actively raised funds for the king of gay-marriage denouncers, Mitt Romney. (Although that probably had more to do with Weld's bitterness toward Rudy Giuliani, who conspicuously failed to support Weld in the NY gubernatorial race.)

Come to think of it, he and Romney make a good fit: they're both ready to flip-flop on social issues, saying one thing to us in Massachusetts and the polar opposite to conservatives elsewhere.