Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

The left-wing blogosphere’s contempt for Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerry Healey is a phenomenon that defies all logic. To accept the left’s central premise that Healey is "unfit for command," one would have to buy the notion that the state would be better off with Democrats controlling both the Legislature and the State House than it would be with a Republican in the executive branch. For all the problems the state has now (problems that the left always blames on Mitt Romney and Healey, and never on the disproportionately Democratic legislature), can anyone rationally argue that complete Democratic control of the executive and legislative branches would improve things?

In reality, the lefty bloggers who disparage Healey aren’t interested in making logical accusations against her. They’re just interested in removing anyone affiliated with the Romney Administration from power.

The left insists that Romney has been an utter failure as Governor. They blame him for the state’s imperfect economy. They blame him for taxpayers moving to New Hampshire or down South. They blame him for Massachusetts having a negative reputation in other states.

However, there is no substance to any of these charges. The truth is that the left principally hates Romney for his vocal opposition to the November 2003 state Supreme Court ruling authorizing same-sex marriage.

Progressives cannot countenance Romney’s insistence that the ruling was a lamentable example of judicial activism. They cannot tolerate his endorsement of efforts to democratically nullify the ruling. They cannot stand his condemnation of the decision in speeches made to Republicans in other states.

Opposition to gay marriage is the central reason why the left regards Romney as a contaminant. Because his lieutenant governor, Healey, shares his opposition to gay marriage, she is similarly regarded as a villain, even though she supports civil unions.

The Massachusetts left is, without question, ideologically rigid on the issue of "marriage equality": anyone who doesn’t accept marriage being defined as anything other than one man and one woman is considered a hate-filled bigot, a troglodyte having the same view of homosexuals as the two men who slaughtered Matthew Shepard in 1998. Progressives revile Romney because he doesn’t feel that marriage is, to quote Margaret Marshall, an "evolving paradigm." Since Healey shares his traditional view of marriage, she is likewise loathed.

Bay State liberals think of Romney and Healey as bigots.

Thankfully, Bay State non-liberals know that’s BS.

UPDATE: The Massachusetts Republican Party officially nominates Healey for governor. More from Hub Politics, Jon Keller, and the Boston Globe.