So former Massachusetts governor and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was on NBC's
Meet the Press this weekend, ostensibly because NBC is covering the Winter Olympics and Romney ran the 2002 games, and the subject of marriage equality came up. (Not before Romney
worked in the phrase "Olympic sport," however. As in: "Olympic sport can be demonstrated at two or three billion dollars." But I digress.)
Mitt started out by saying that he opposed marriage equality because "I think the ideal setting for raising a child is in the setting where there's a father and a mother," which I guess is his way of saying that same-sex couples are lousy parents and so he's against marriage equality because he wants to protect society from lousy parents.
Instead of asking the obvious follow-up question—whether or not Romney would support making divorce illegal—Meet the Press host asked Romney whether he believes that the fact that marriage equality has spread to many states across the country is hurting society.
And Romney's answer was vintage Willard:
Oh, I think it's going to take a long, long time to determine whether having gay marriage will make it less likely for kids to be raised in settings where there is a mom and a dad. That's not going to happen overnight.
So Mitt is against marriage equality because he thinks marriage equality is bad for children and is therefore bad for society, but when it comes to the question of whether marriage equality has actually been bad for society, Mitt isn't sure, because he doesn't know if it will be bad for children, which of course is why he's against marriage equality.
Please, please let him run again in 2016. I can't imagine he will, but if he were to give it another go, it would be such a fun spectacle.