Republican Mitt Romney is trying to return the focus of his campaign to the sluggish economic recovery.

The presumptive GOP nominee for president has been restating his opposition to gay marriage and shrugging off a newspaper report that he bullied a gay classmate in prep school.

His schedule isn't helping. On Friday, Romney is set to discuss jobs and the economy in North Carolina, the state that just approved a constitutional ban on same-sex unions that helped turn attention to gay rights.

Also likely to raise cultural rather than economic issues is Romney's commencement address Saturday at Liberty University. The Virginia institution founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell is the nation's largest evangelical university.