On the day after President Obama became the first sitting president to endorse same sex marriage, Mitt Romney is facing a blistering portrayal as an anti-gay prep school bully.
A story published today by The Washington Post recounted an incident at the prestigious Cranbrook School in Michigan when Romney orchestrated a hazing against a presumed homosexual student.
The student, John Lauber, was tackled and pinned to the ground in 1965 by a group of students led by Romney, who wanted to cut the student's bleached-blond hair (Romney would’ve been 17-18 years old at the time).
Five of Romney’s fellow students separately and independently recalled the incident the same way, including Romney's close friend Matthew Friedemann.
"Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair,” the Post reported. “Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors."
Thomas Buford, the wrestling champion who helped Romney restrain the boy, later apologized to Lauber, telling the Post "to this day it still troubles me."
Romney responded to the allegations this afternoon on Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News.
“I don’t recall the incident myself but I’ve seen the reports and not going argue with that,” Romney said. “There’s no question that I did some stupid things in high school and, obviously, if I hurt anyone by virtue of that I would be very sorry for it and apologize for it."
"I certainly don't believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual," Romney said of Lauber in a live radio interview with Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade. "That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s, so that was not the case."
But this is not the only incident. Gary Hummel, an English student who later came out as gay, says Romney would taunt him with "atta girl" when he spoke out in class.
Ed will have full coverage of this scandal tonight on The Ed Show at 8pET on MSNBC!