Mitt Romney (Photo: Getty)

The Washington Post may have found a bunch of former high school classmates of Mitt Romney's who remember him bullying, pranking and giving forced haircuts to fellow students, but the Romney campaign dug up some others who have a different recollection of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The campaign distributed a pair of statements from a pair of prep school chums who have positive memories of Mr. Romney this afternoon.

"Mitt never had a malicious bone in his body--trying to imply or characterize him as a bully is absurd," said former Cranbrook Schools student John French in his statement distributed by the campaign.

Richard Moon, another former classmate of Mitt Romney's praised the candidate as funny, caring and balanced.

"Mitt was a thoughtful guy with a great sense of humor who cared about his classmates. He had a good perspective on how to balance all the pressures high school students face. He would never go out and do anything mean spirited. Clownish, yes. Never mean," Mr. Moon said.

Mr. Romney, who earlier today apologized for doing "some dumb things" during his time in high school, also addressed the bullying allegations in an interview on Fox News this evening in which he said he didn't recall the incident where he allegedly subjected a boy to a forced haircut. Though he claimed to have no memory of the incident, Mr. Romney said he wasn't disputing the story.

"I’ve seen the reports, I’m not going to argue with that," Mr. Romney said. "I certainly did some stupid things when I was in high school."

Though he has now discussed the allegations he engaged in bullying during high school multiple times today, Mr. Romney has yet to address forcibly shaving the heads of students at a rival school while during his time as an undergraduate at Stanford.

Mitt Romney

A new story in the Washington Post describes a series of "troubling" incidents where Mitt Romney bullied and pranked classmates during his time at a tony Michigan prep school in the 1960's including one story where he and a group of boys pinned down another student and cut his hair. This is now the second story to emerge of Mr. Romney giving someone a forced haircut.

According to the Post, John Lauber, the boy who had his hair cut by Mr. Romney was  "perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality." Mr. Romney and a group of other boys followed Mr. Lauber one day and "tackled him and pinned him to the ground." As he cried and "screamed for help," Mr. Romney "repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors."

Former classmates who witnessed and participated in the shearing recalled the incident as "vicious" and disturbing. Mr. Romney's campaign initially said he couldn't recall the incident, but they quickly attempted to do damage control by scheduling a radio interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade where Mr. Romney apologized for his history of high school "hijinks and pranks."

“Back in high school, I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Mr. Romney said. "I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some might have gone too far and for that, I apologize.”

Mr. Romney apparently kept his haircutting habit in college. A story published in the Washington Post last month detailed a different incident from his time at Stanford where he and a group of friends "lured rival University of California students into a trap in which his buddies 'shaved their heads and painted them red',”

These scissor and shaving incidents may prove to be the most controversial political haircuts since John Edwards'  $400 coiffure made headlines during the last presidential election.

Same-sex marriage supporters marching on Washington in 2009. (Photo: Getty)

On Sunday, as Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Chuck Schumer and over 400 other guests looked on, Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell married John Banta, his partner of over three decades. For Mr. O’Donnell, the wedding was the culmination of a more-than-four-year fight—which included numerous lawsuits and the introduction of five bills to the State Legislature—that finally resulted in same-sex marriage’s finally being legalized in New York last June.

“I began this battle when Eliot Spitzer was elected governor,” Mr. O’Donnell told The Observer. “I used to wake up every day thinking about how many votes I had or didn’t have. Now it’s like, what do I do now?”

As New York both literally and figuratively moves on from the marriage equality fight, gay rights activists are looking to see same-sex marriage become legal in other states. They also have a whole host of other demands with respect to support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, not to mention workplace discrimination. With the fractious climate in the current American electoral landscape and the unique nature of the gay rights voting bloc, they may have an uphill battle to accomplish these goals.
It’s difficult to quantify the precise number of gay residents in the United States because the census counts only households reporting as same-sex couples. This leaves out single gay people as well as straight gay rights supporters. That being said, the gay rights contingent is still clearly smaller than the blocs supporting religious or racial minority groups. In the most recent census two years ago, the government found each state has an average of just 0.773 percent of households reporting as gay couples.

However many gay citizens there are, unlike other blocs they are not united in terms of class, racial or gender identity. Beyond the marriage issue, there isn’t necessarily a single unifying cause for the gay bloc to get behind.

Kerry Lux Eleveld, a writer who covered the White House for gay magazine The Advocate during the first two years of the Obama administration, pointed out that it is “difficult to speak with authority about the concerns of gay voters because of how diverse they are. It’s not a single set of concerns.”

Despite their relatively small numbers and lack of a single issue, Ms. Eleveld said supporters of gay rights have managed to remain influential by being vocal and politically engaged.

“I think the LGBT voting bloc is a powerful force in many ways,” Ms. Eleveld said. “In terms of voting, as well as pamphleting, canvassing, volunteering and also in terms of donations.”

During the 2008 election, President Obama received nearly $140,000 from organizations associated with gay and lesbian issues. Last May, Politico reported the president’s re-election was “banking on gay donors to make up the cash it’s losing from other groups of wealthy supporters who have been alienated and disappointed” by President Obama’s first term. The president, perhaps mindful of this fact, included 15 gay people on his finance committee compared with just one in 2008. So far in his first term, President Obama has repealed the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, called for the repeal of the federal ban on same-sex marriage and pushed the Office of Personnel Management to rewrite regulations banning discrimination of transgender federal workers.

Though President Obama may be counting on gay voters, many of them don’t seem to feel they can count on him. In June, the president faced large protests from crowds eager to see him do more to promote same-sex marriage outside a fund-raiser for gay supporters in New York.

According to Ms. Eleveld, while President Obama has done a lot to support the concerns of gay rights voters, there’s a lot more that could be done for gay, lesbian and transgender citizens at the federal level.

“The administration, in some cases, has been responsive and has had a good record on LGBT concerns so far, but there’s always more that President Obama and the White House could do,” Ms. Eleveld said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Obama could help move the conversation forward on marriage equality nationwide, but there’s a very large portion of the lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender community that, their number-one concern heading into the Obama administration was a Fair Employment Act and advancing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. It’s something that really could be advanced now if the president used his executive authority and issued an executive order.”

An executive order barring discrimination against transgender federal workers would be much harder for subsequent administrations to reverse than the Office of Personnel Management’s rewritten regulations. While the gay marriage debate captivated the attention of the American people with celebrity supporters and, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last fall, nearly 46 percent of voters in favor of marriage equality, the issues facing transgender people and the employment discrimination debate are much less widely discussed.

“The vast majority of Americans don’t know that gays and lesbians can still be fired in 29 states because of their sexual orientation and that transgender Americans can get fired in more than 30 states simply for their gender identity without any legal recourse,” Ms. Eleveld said. “I think there’s still a lot of education and awareness that needs to be promoted on behalf of transgender issues.”

Election year politics means President Obama needs to appeal to swing voters and turn red states blue, which may make him even less likely than he’s been in the past to cater to the needs of gay rights supporters. Assemblyman O’Donnell, who said he advises lawmakers in other states considering same-sex marriage law, acknowledged that supporting gay causes can be difficult for politicians.

“I undertook this in the political process, I got some bruises for it,” he said. “Trust me, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, but you can get it accomplished.”

For her part, Ms. Eleveld thinks the president would be wise to lean on gay supporters for his re-election campaign.

“From an electoral standpoint, this is, generally speaking, a very loyal and progressive voting bloc for Democrats, but votes aren’t the only thing that matters. This is a group of people that certainly put in a lot of time and energy into volunteering. … It’s also a group that has donated a lot of money to the Democratic Party,” Ms. Eleveld said. “I think one of the lessons from the 2010 midterms is that you absolutely have to motivate your base in order to fare well at the polls. I don’t think you can go for the middle at the exclusion of your base. That was an absolute problem for the Democrats at the midterms.”

Based on President Obama’s reported reliance on donations from gay and lesbian supporters, this may indeed be his strategy.

Locally, gay rights supporters may have an easier time since, with marriage equality passed here in New York, they’re focused on initiatives for youth that aren’t necessarily specifically gay causes.

Yetta Kurland, a prominent civil rights attorney in Manhattan and vice president of New York’s chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, said she believes the gay bloc in the Empire State needs to “focus on ensuring
proper accomodations for homeless youth” because “a disproportionate number of those children and youth are LGBT.”

Ms. Kurland also said it’s important to launch education initiatives for parents and students to help keep LGBT youth out of shelters. Mr. O’Donnell agrees that a focus on promoting tolerance is crucial.

“Yes, we have an LGBT teenage population that needs a lot of attention and shelters are obviously first and foremost on that list, but bullying has become very, very important. It is those kids who are not gender conformant who are most likely the targets,” he said. “If you can work seriously on reducing the bullying you may be able to prevent some of that homelessness from occurring, you may prevent kids from running away.”

Mr. O’Donnell authored the anti-bullying Dignity for All Students Act in the Assembly, but he said there’s still much more that needs to be done.

“The next step of Dignity will have to be expanding it, because it doesn’t apply to colleges, which I think it should and there’s also the question of cyberbullying,” he said.

Mr. O’Donnell also agrees that parents must be educated to prevent children from becoming runaways because their families are intolerant of their sexuality.

“You hear these tragedies every day where a kid gets thrown in front of a train, or jumps out of a window, or slices themselves up because of what’s happening to their sense of value and worth,” Mr. O’Donnell said. “Even though Dignity was monumental, there’s still more work that needs to be done.”

hwalker@observer.com