Romney Adviser Backed Bans on Abortion, Gays in Africa

Jay Sekulow's ideology undermines Mitt's new centrism: Andy Kroll
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 2, 2012 5:05 PM CDT
Romney Adviser Backed Bans on Abortion, Gays in Africa
Jay Sekulow.   (YouTube)

Mitt Romney, man of the political center? At Mother Jones, Andy Kroll ridicules that notion by emphasizing Romney's ties with Jay Sekulow, a star of the Christian right who has advocated bans on homosexuality and abortion in Africa. His American Center for Law and Justice—called by Time a "counterweight" to the ACLU—opened offices in Zimbabwe and Kenya to urge politicians to "take the Christian's views into consideration as they draft legislation and policies," says the ACLJ's website.

Sekulow personally lobbied in Zimbabwe during President Mugabe's brutal regime, while the ACLJ tried—and failed—to block a constitutional provision in Kenya allowing abortion when the mother's life is in danger. Sekulow equated the provision with "abortion on demand" and the ACLJ vowed to fight it in court. Now Sekulow is an "informal adviser" and "active supporter" of Romney's, says an ACLJ official. So Kroll pounces: "Romney's ties to evangelical crusaders like the Sekulows undercut his last-ditch pivot to the political center—a move that Romney believes can deliver him the White House." (More Jay Sekulow stories.)

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