McCain Robo-Call Baits The Gays?

Huffington Post‘s Sam Stein reports that Floridian citizens have received a robo-call blasting McCain competitor Mitt Romney for promising gays “special rights”. Here’s the text:

Mitt Romney thinks he can fool us. He supported abortion on demand, even allowed a law mandating taxpayer-funding for abortion. He says he changed his mind, but he still hasn’t changed the law. He told gay organizers in Massachusetts he would be a stronger advocate for special rights than even Ted Kennedy. Now, it’s something different.

It’s tempting to dismiss this as primarily primary shenanigans, but National Stonewall Democrats’ Jon Hoadley thinks otherwise:

Sometimes McCain gets a pass because he wasn’t a staunch supporter of the federal marriage amendment, but he showed his true colors when he campaigned…to pass the marriage ban in Arizona. When the community is looking at McCain, they need to look at the true record he was adamantly opposed to one of the groundbreaking victories in 2006.

Stein rightly points out that McCain – also known as The Hulk – has flip-flopped on marriage just the same as Mitt. McCain promised in 2004 that he would not endorse a federal amendment against gay marriage. That stance shifted two years later when McCain said otherwise to the late Jerry Falwell.

It’s worth noting that openly gay Republican John Kolbe dismissed the call as a simple “statement of fact,” not “gay-baiting”. True or not, it’s the motive that counts.