So, a New York Times columnist, Charles M. Blow, twittered:
“Let me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I’m a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear.”
I think I get where Mr. Blow was coming from. His words were in response to Romney saying:
“When you have 40 percent of kids being born out of wedlock, and among certain ethnic groups the vast majority being born out of wedlock, you ask yourself, how are we going to have a society in the future? Because these kids are raised in poverty in many cases, they’re in abusive settings. The likelihood of them being able to finish high school or college drops dramatically in single-family homes. And we haven’t been willing to talk about this.”
Romney called attention to men like Mr. Blow fathering illegitimate children, with the idea that it’s a bad thing. Hence Mr. Blow’s attention drawn to what’s girding Romney’s loins and lashing out as best he may.
Before looking up any other words published by Mr. Blow, I’m 98% certain he has advocated any-sex marriage. As I wrote last week:
“Entwined with our various social pathologies is the noxious phrase, ‘A family is a group of people who love each other.’ Maybe there’s a mother and father married to each other. Or maybe they aren’t married. Maybe the father(s) live somewhere else and love their children from afar. Or maybe Dad is out of the picture altogether, but Mom is there loving her children and they her. Unless she’s not; maybe the kids live with their grandparents. Whatever. It’s all good. Just so long as there is someone who loves someone. That’s what a family is.”
[UPDATE]: In an interview with Brian Lamb, Mr. Blow said that his children where born to his ex-wife, from whom he divorced a couple years after the youngest’ births. If Mr. Blow or anyone on his behalf felt that my erroneous assumption that he had fathered illegitimate children was an insulting misconstrual of Mr. Blow’s tweet, it is heartening that you feel that way.
[‘NOTHER UPDATE]: Mr. Blow has since tweeted a straight-up apology: “Btw, the comment I made about Mormonism during Wed.’s debate was inappropriate, and I regret it. I’m willing to admit that with no caveats.”