Shocker: Gloria Allred in Court, Seeking To Have a Gag Order Lifted

Drudge's rumor was apparently correct -- Allred is trying to get some kind of gag order lifted in a Massachusetts court so she can attack Romney.

Famed civil rights attorney Gloria Allred will be in a Boston area courtroom Wednesday in an attempt to unseal the sworn testimony given by Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, in a prior court case, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.

Speculation... Is that it's about this story-- Romney, as the equivalent of a Catholic bishop in the LDS church, advised a woman to carry a baby to term despite risks to her health (and despite the fact that the anti-blood-clot medication she was on could result in the baby's mental retardation).

But, she didn't. Now, how could this end up in family & probate court? I don't know. Maybe she sued for some kind of intentional infliction of emotional distress? She later left the LDS church.

Now here's why I think maybe this speculation is correct:

1. I don't know if the woman is directly quoted in the story. There's a reference to her saying Romney told her to carry the baby to term, but I don't know if that comes from her or it's someone else relaying the quote.

So it's possible she is in fact under a gag order. Friends who know her can relate her tale, but she can't. If you assume it's about this tale, and you further assume she brought some kind of suit.

2. The story drops the cutesy term "Romnesia" -- something Obama is pushing furiously on the campaign, to no effect. But perhaps he intends to increase interest in the story by creating a "Romnesia" narrative for it.

I don't know. I still don't think there's anything here. Romney is/was pro-life. I suppose the big shock would be he's actually pro-life.

Update: On page 5, there's another possible candidate for the Allred Lottery, so long as we're making guesses.

Something about Romney urging a woman (who apparently had some problems, or at least so Mitt Romney thought) giving her kid up for adoption.

But then, she seems to speak on the record, so I don't know about a gag order there.

It could just be about unsealing Mitt Romney's testimony, though. Or maybe the woman told this story, then sued, then had everything sealed, so now she'd need a court order to discuss it further.

Election 2012 Metroactive / By Geoffrey Dunn comments_image Comments Mitt Romney's Heartless Advice to a Woman Whose Pregnancy Might Have Killed Her Mormon women remember Romney's advice when he was a church leader, and there wasn't much 'moderate' about it.

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Instead she was "shocked" by what she heard. According to Hayes, Romney "pressured" her to give her son up for adoption through an LDS agency. At first, she thought she had misunderstood him, but much to her horror, she hadn't.

"[Romney] told me it was really important to give the baby up," Hayes said in her original interview with Globe reporters Frank Phillips and Scot Lehigh nearly two decades ago. "He told me he was a representative of the church and by refusing I was failing to comply with the church's wishes and I could be excommunicated."

Hayes took Romney's admonition as a threat. She felt attacked, even intimidated. Moreover, it was insulting: "He was saying that because Dane [her son] didn't have a Mormon father in the home and because of the circumstances of his birth—being born to a single mother—then the expectation of the church was that I give him up for adoption to the church agency so he could be raised by a Mormon couple in good standing."

I don't know. Still seems like crap to me.

posted by Ace at 06:16 PM

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