Mitt Romney Pressured Single Mother To Give Up Baby, Book Says
As Mitt Romney spends the next leg of his campaign courting evangelical voters in South Carolina, his Mormon faith is expected to re-emerge as a subject of serious scrutiny. But concerns won’t belong exclusively to theologically suspicious Baptists: a newly revealed episode from the candidate’s time as a lay leader in the LDS church could raise eyebrows among women’s advocates.
While serving as bishop of a Mormon congregation near Boston in the early 80’s, Romney once threatened to excommunicate a young single mother if she did not give her soon-to-be-born son up for adoption, according to a passage from a forthcoming book, “The Real Romney.” excerpted this week in Vanity Fair.
The anecdote, which Romney has disputed, sheds new light on a compelling part of the candidate’s religious life—one that serves, politically, as a double-edged sword. On one hand Romney’s time spent as a minister of his faith gave him the unique opportunity of serving low-income Boston neighborhoods, undercutting the narrative that he’s an out-of-touch millionaire. On the other, his role as a representative of the church sometimes put him in a position of standing up for politically unsavory teachings.
Peggie Hayes had converted to Mormonism as a teenage along with her family, and told the book’s authors, Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, that for a long time she found comfort in the faith’s teachings. After returning to the congregation as a 23-year-old divorced single mother, she soon got pregnant with a second child. Knowing she was in need of financial assistance, the Romneys arranged for her to do odd jobs for members of the congregation.
“Mitt was really good to us,” Hayes told the authors. “He did a lot for us.”
But while Hayes considered Romney a friend, he was also her bishop—which meant it was his job to pass along sometimes-harsh church counsel. The tension between the two relationships came to the forefront one day when he came over to her apartment, and encouraged her to turn her son over to the church’s adoption agency when he was born. (The church’s position is that if a happy marriage between parents of a newborn seems unlikely, adoption is preferable to single parenting.)
Hayes was offended by the suggestion, and told Romney she would never give up her son. But, according to Hayes, Romney told her, “Well, this is what the church wants you to do, and if you don’t, then you could be excommunicated for failing to follow the leadership of the church.”
Though she was defiant, the authors write, “In that moment, she also felt intimidated. Here was Romney, who held great power as her church leader and was the head of a wealthy, prominent Belmont family, sitting in her gritty apartment making grave demands.”