Romney's bad joke about keeping "Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."

Look at what he's comparing. Las Vegas is a place where couples who have a right to get married anywhere go to get married because it's quick and easy. Massachusetts was to become a place where couples who are unable to marry elsewhere would go in order to have the right to marry. It disrespects marriage and it disrespects gay people and it disrespects the nature of rights to make a joke out of this comparison.

It's one thing to believe there should be no right for gay people to marry. But if you want to take that position, you should still be decent and respectful about it. It's not funny to say to people who have sincere and important personal relationships that they cannot acquire the same stamp of honor that other people can get. It is another matter to treat gay couples who want to marry as if they are like the couples who just don't want to have to put up with the waiting period and red tape that blocks the path to marriage in their home state.

And I say that as someone in an opposite-sex marriage who traveled to another state in order to avoid the waiting period and red tape that blocks the path to marriage in my home state.

Mitt Romney, trying to look grounded in traditional moral values, comes across as flimsy and clownish.