In a move that could seriously complicate Mitt Romney's efforts to portray himself as the true conservative alternative to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, some leading social conservatives have opened fire on Romney for some comments he made about gay rights more than 10 years ago, today's New York Times reports.

As Election Central reported over a week ago, a New England gay and lesbian newspaper called Bay Windows in November reprinted excerpts of a letter that Romney wrote to a gay organization back in 1994, when he was running for Senate against Ted Kennedy. In the letter Romney argued that he would be better on gay rights than Kennedy. Among other things, Romney wrote: “[A]s we seek to establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent.” In recent days Romney's opponents have been circulating Romney's comments.

Now the story's gone national, with two leading social conservatives unloading on Romney in the Times:

“This is quite disturbing,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who had praised Mr. Romney as a champion of traditional values at the group’s conference in late September. “This type of information is going to create a lot of problems for Governor Romney. He is going to have a hard time overcoming this.”

Paul Weyrich, a founder of the modern conservative movement, said: “Unless he comes out with an abject repudiation of this, I think it makes him out to be a hypocrite. And if he totally repudiates this, you have to ask, on what grounds?”

As the paper notes, this can only help Presidential hopeful Senator Sam Brownback, who's also seeking to present himself as the only true social conservative in the race.