I don’t think Mitt Romney got the memo that “boys will be boys” is no longer an acceptable answer to LGBT bullying. And that it never was. A 1965 incident came to light last week, about excruciating cruelty against a soft-spoken, gentle Cranbrook High School classmate, John Lauber—whose apparent offense was his long bleached hair. According to several accounts, Mitt was the scissors-bearing ringleader. When this story broke, it was corroborated by several others who were involved in the abuse and who have over the years come to regret it. The news afforded the presumed Republican presidential candidate an ideal chance to show that, in spite of having given many of us the impression that he is a cold, flip-flopping opportunist, he really is a warm and caring guy. Well, that didn’t happen.

Instead Romney responded every wrong way possible. First, he claimed not to remember the incident. Well, why should he? This was forty-seven whole years ago, after all, and maybe gang-tackling defenseless boys and forcibly cutting off their hair was such a commonplace occurrence that Mitt can’t distinguish one “prank” from another from those heady days. He giggled, as if to say, “Oh, big deal,” while claiming that back in the sixties sexual orientation wasn’t something that a lot of people paid attention to, and that he hadn’t even known that the young Mr. Lauber was gay. Then to top off this flagrant contradiction—if he didn’t remember the incident, how does he remember that he didn’t know Lauber was gay?—he offered a complete and utter nonapology. “Back in high school, I did some dumb things. And if anybody was hurt by that or offended by that, I apologize.” As any parent will tell a misbehaving child, words like those are as empty as an overturned juice cup.

Clearly, Romney’s gigantic fortune and life of unparalleled luxury and privilege have blinded him to the everyday world that the vast majority of us live in. With so-called leaders like Mr. Romney making excuses for their homophobic and bullying behavior as if they just belched in church, is it any wonder that so many young people are getting the message that it is okay to bully, reject, and harass kids, because that’s just what kids do to those who are different? And that a veritable epidemic of youth suicides is upon us?

Romney continued in this interview (with an assist from the Fox News interviewer) to dismiss the importance of the bullying story, asserting that there are really important issues to discuss in this campaign.

But what could be more important than the fundamental character of the leader of the free world? The giggling, dismissive, avoiding answer Romney gave tells us more than we want to know about the kind of voter he represents and to whom he appeals, and about just how cold, judgmental, intolerant, and heartless the fringe right really is. I’d like to see how Romney would handle himself in a face-to-face conversation with the families of the kids who are no longer with us because relentless bullying wore out their very last shred of hope.

And even if we could buy Romney’s high-school-was-a-long-time-ago-and-I’ve-changed nonapology, we have only to look at where he stands on LGBT equality and marriage equality today, in 2012. Although his adamant stance against marriage equality may not be the precise equivalent of bullying, the damage of this patent bigotry, prejudice, and homophobia, to same-sex couples and their families all over the country and the world, is effectively the same.

If you’re concerned about bullying—as parent, educator, student, or victim—there are a number of excellent organizations that have been created expressly to address this plague (in no small part created by Mitt Romney and his ilk), and I urge you to check them out. A few, linked here to Facebook, are Wipe Out Homophobia on Facebook, STOP Teenage Suicide, ABC: Anti-Bullying Coalition, and The L Project. These organizations are a testament to the raised consciousness of the current problem of bullying, and the work being done to combat it. Indeed, there are laws on the books in some jurisdictions that would make what Romney did in 1965 a criminal offense today.

On some future day—sooner we hope than later—historians will look back at this struggle for equality and make a very clear distinction between those who were on the right side of history (to wit, President Obama’s milestone endorsement of marriage equality, just two days before this bullying incident broke), and those who weren’t. Even if at some point in his late life, Mr. Romney manages to see and acknowledge the bigotry of his ways (he has demonstrated a facility for changing his stance during his public life), he will be remembered as a snail-paced straggler to the table of equality. And the last thing this country needs right now, as we march forward toward equality and justice, is to elect a Bully-in-Chief.

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Be sure to check out Rachel Hockett’s Facebook page, the Equality Mantra.