UPDATE: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts tweeted the following explanation at 12:13pm this afternoon:
MYSTERY solved… @maggiemarriage was in a studio ready for our #nom interview it was just the wrong studio booked improperly on @msnbc_booking IT WAS OUR MISTAKE and she has an open invite for the show. Our sincerest apologies.
Here’s hoping that another slot can be scheduled for TWO’s Wayne Besen and Maggie Gallagher to appear together. We were looking forward to the chance to discuss NOM’s race-baiting tactics with her!
Original post, 12:04pm:
TWO’s Wayne Besen and Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage were scheduled and confirmed to appear on MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts this morning. To my knowledge, this would have been the first on-camera appearance by anyone from NOM in the wake of yesterday’srevelations that the group uses disrespectful, racially divisive “wedge strategies” in an attempt to splinter the Democratic Party by pitting African Americans and Latinos against the LGBT community.
This is what Maggie looked like today on camera:
That’s right. She bailed, with no explanation. Perhaps she was still at home figuring out how to spin these ugly truths? I wonder what her excuse will be. While any defense of something so baldly indefensible as manipulating minority groups for selfish political gain is an exercise in futility, today’s stunt was a disgracefully unprofessional move on Maggie’s part. Things just keep looking worse and worse for the crazies at NOM.
(HUGE thanks to Jeremy Hooper of Good As You for the screen grab!)
Last night, the Human Rights Campaign released a slew of previously-sealed internal documents from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation’s largest, most visible, and most insidious group of marriage discrimination proponents. The documents, marked “confidential,” were unsealed yesterday afternoon in Maine as part of that state’s ongoing ethics investigation into NOM’s campaign finances. NOM, notoriously dogged in its efforts to fight internal disclosures of any kind, had sued in state court to block the investigation, and now we know why: the documents disclosed yesterday reveal the group’s vile and repugnant strategy of setting minority groups against each other through the shameful exploitation of race.
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, check out some of these whoppers below. All emphases, unless otherwise noted, are my own.
Here’s how NOM plans to set the Latino and LGBT communities against each other, from page 17 of a “confidential” 2009 strategic report entitled National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle:
. . . by searching for these leaders across national boundaries we will assemble a community of next generation Latino leaders that Hispanics and other next generation elites in this country can aspire to be like. (As “ethnic rebels” such spokespeople will also have an appeal across racial lines, especially to young urbans in America).
. . . we will develop Spanish language radio and TV ads, as well as pamphlets, YouTube videos, and church handouts and popular songs. Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist association to the bad side of “Anglo” culture.
And from a 2009 report to its board of directors, also marked “confidential:”
The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so [sic] in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity – a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.
In that board update, NOM is just as candid about its attempts to divide LGBTs and African Americans :
The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of his party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates. . . find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally.
The name of the “strategic project” to which the above quote refers? NOM’s “Not a Civil Right Project.” Just last week I wrote a column for the Huffington Post in which I said that the movement for LGBT rights and the movement for African American rights are both part of the same civil rights movement, and that it is crucially important for us to continue asserting so. I also wrote that equality-minded people of all races, ethnicities, orientations, and identities needed to push back against any attempt to avoid equating LGBT rights with civil rights — from either the right or the left — because it sets minority groups against each other, reinforces false hierarchies of oppression, and makes unjust accommodations for bigotry. Little did I know when I wrote those words that I was essentially outlining the strategic plan of the National Organization for Marriage. It’s more than a little chilling, if you ask me.
The NOM document dump is a veritable gold mine. For me, one of the most frightening revelations contained therein (at least in the documents I’ve read so far — stay tuned here and elsewhere for further details) is that the organization admits that it plans on exporting its hateful models overseas. In their own words, NOM is engaged in the process of “creating [templates] that can be used abroad” because it recognizes that “marriage needs to be a national (and ultimately international) effort.”
The 2009 strategic report also discusses NOM’s “American Principles Project,” which aims to “expose Obama as a social radical,” “develop side issues to weaken pro-gay marriage political leaders and parties and develop an activist base,” and “raise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty at the federal level.” If this sounds strikingly similar to the presidential campaign strategy of one Rick Santorum, that’s because he’s been working with NOM since at least 2009. The same memo notes, in a section titled “Two Million for Marriage,” that Rick Santorum “has served as the face of this effort through e-mail and direct mail” and “has recently agreed to use his voice in a nationwide automated call effort to solicit activists and donations.” No wonder Maggie Gallagher endorsed Santorum earlier this year — her group is the one writing the former senator’s playbook.
Finally, a section on NOM’s “Catholic Clergy Project” touts the group’s “close relationships with Catholic bishops” and reveals its plans to use those relationships “to equip, energize and moralize Catholic priests on the marriage issue.” (Interestingly, it also describes Catholic priests as “notoriously difficult to personally reach.”) We’ve seen NOM’s Catholic-centered strategy play out all across the country, from then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan taking the lead in opposing marriage equality in New York to Minneapolis-St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt injecting a prayer for marriage discrimination into the Catholic Mass and silencing any dissent among his priests on the marriage equality issue. And it has worked, at least to some degree, on the local level as well — in parishes and Catholic-affiliated institutions — with LGBT people in committed relationships being denied communion, gay Catholic school teachers being fired for daring to marry, prominent theologians being marginalized for openly supporting their loved ones in same-sex marriages, and homeless shelters having their Catholic funding yanked when their leaders hold pro-equality views.
All in all, the NOM documents are a smoking gun. Even though we knew — or at least suspected — that this was going on, reading NOM’s putridly divisive strategy in print is remarkably unsettling. The newly-released memos reveal a remarkably cynical, shrewd, callous organization that is willing to say and do whatever it takes — be it blatant race-baiting, spreading anti-gay lies through propaganda campaigns, or using religious leaders as weapons with which to bludgeon LGBT people from the pulpits and in their parishes — in order to prevent loving, committed same-sex couples from winning the freedom to marry. And they’re not satisfied with bullying LGBT people at home either — they also seek to spread their hateful bigotry across the world. The fallout from these damning revelations could and should be widespread and far-reaching. Stay tuned: we may well be witnessing the beginning of the end of the National Organization for Marriage.
Tim Carpenter wrote a column in the Topeka Capital-Journal today that brought up something that I have long said: The more anti-gay activists fight our movement, the more we progress.
The number one enemy for LGBT equality has always been the closet, which renders our families invisible. The legislative conflict created by anti-gay organizations hurts us in the short term — with sharp spikes in intolerance and even violence. But it also forces many people to come out and confront friends and family members. This inevitably leads to greater understanding — with the final stop being equal rights under the law.
Now comes a University of Kansas political scientist — working in the hotbed of opposition seven years ago to the amendment — who believes national advocacy since the 1990s for state laws and constitutional amendments against same-sex unions to have fostered public empathy for gay and lesbian partners and their families.
“If it hadn’t been for states pushing to ban same-sex marriages, people might not have been exposed to personal, often very tragic, stories of difficulties that gay couples experience without benefit of marriage,” said Don Haider-Markel. “It’s an ironic outcome.”
Haider-Markel, with a research emphasis on U.S. gay and lesbian political movements, said evidence could be found by exploring movement since 2003 in states to legalize same-sex marriage or civil unions.
“We have seen broader changing attitudes in the past 30 years as well as an increasing number of people saying they know somebody who is gay or lesbian,” Haider-Markel said.
Thank you Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher. While your nasty crusades to strip a minority of their rights may pay your bills today — these efforts will backfire and ensure equality in the future.
In a breathtaking exercise in ill-natured illogic, a divided Ninth Circuit ruled 2–1 that because Prop 8 does not take away civil-union benefits for same-sex couples, it’s an unconstitutional exercise in irrational animus towards gay people.
Uh, that’s not what they said.
Dishonestly, the court claimed it did not require any heightened scrutiny to reach this result.
No, actually they used Romer as precedent. It’s a famous case, Gallagher, look it up.
The very timid dissent (“please don’t go after me!”) points out that Baker v. Nelson is ruling precedent and that the differences between same-sex and opposite sex couples in terms of the state’s interest in responsible procreation could be rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
Yep, and Romer was two decades later. I mean, I’m sure there are folks out there who’d like the courts to appeal constantly to Dred Scott but they’re not good folks.
Back in 2004, when we fought about a Federal Marriage Amendment, gay rights advocates said we were alarmists for claiming that they would go to federal court seeking a right to impose gay marriage on all 50 states.
It’s never a good idea to assume that Brian Brown or NOM are telling the truth, but Joe has this fundraising letter from them posted at his blog, and if what the NOMsters are saying is indeed true, then they’re a little short on cash right now:
Dear Marriage Supporter,
Please help us overcome a looming shortfall!
Increasingly virulent and frequent attacks from the same-sex marriage lobby have depleted our emergency funds, and we need your help!
As 2011 draws to a close, everyone at the National Organization for Marriage is excited about the election year ahead, which we believe will be full of huge victories for traditional marriage.
But unless we raise additional funds quickly, we will be faced with hard decisions about where to begin scaling back our efforts for next year. NOM does not have the resources to accomplish everything we need to do…and with the many new and critical marriage battles upcoming in 2012, this is the exact wrong time for us to have to scale back.
Friend, will you make one emergency year-end gift of $25, $50, $100 or even $1,000 if you can afford it, to NOM right now to help us eliminate our budget shortfall before the end of the year?
Please, please, please? Brian’s loafers are quaking at the prospect of having to get a real job that doesn’t pay him simply for being a bigot.
Anyway, if you read the entire letter from NOM, it will fill you with holiday cheer.
Anti-gay organizations and politicians like Rick Santorum have long argued against marriage equality by saying it would create a slippery slope leading to the legalization of polygamy. It turns out they were wrong, as they tend to be about virtually everything.
On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize marriage equality for same-sex couples. On Nov. 23, 2011, British Columbia’s highest court ruled that Canada’s 121-year-old criminal law banning polygamy is constitutional. Canada is significantly more liberal than the United States, and British Columbia is more liberal than most of Canada — yet the imagined slippery slope failed to materialize. If Vancouver isn’t buying it — it won’t happen in Kansas.
Wake up fundies — your arguments are baseless and useless.
Social conservatives are very dishonest about this topic. First, they conveniently fail to point out that the issue of polygamy has been around significantly longer than the the issue of marriage equality for same-sex couples. Indeed, the Mormon church had to officially abandon polygamy to pave the way for Utah statehood.
Clearly, this is a longstanding topic of debate that preexisted gay issues in a political context. Arguments for and against polygamy historically have, and will continue, to be fought on its own merit, irrelevant to and regardless of LGBT marriage equality. This point is factual and incontrovertible.
Social conservatives have once again failed to demonstrate the danger of allowing LGBT couples to wed. The Canadian ruling places one more of their flawed and felonious arguments in history’s dumpster. What bizarre talking point will their depraved imaginations come up with next?
Say what you will about Maggie Gallagher — seriously, go ahead, say what you will — but you can’t say she doesn’t like to help, and isn’t that what the spirit of Thanksgiving is about?
Maggie knows that there are millionsthousands at least nine or ten NOM supporters out there who will be spending Thanksgiving this year with their families and that, apropos of absolutely nothing, they will feel the need to tell all their normal well-adjusted family members about how much they hate gays and the gay marriage and the whatsits and the Kids These Days. She also knows that it’s no fun for her minions when Uncle Dave looks at them over the decanter of giblet gravy and says something to the effect of, “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Why do you spend so much of your time fixated on gay people? What the hell difference does it make to you whether or not my gay son and his partner are married? God, you need a hobby, and probably some therapy, you dumb bigot.” [Total Uncle Dave comment right there.]
So Maggie to the rescue, with this handy video about how to tell everybody that A. You super hate gays and B. It’s your special privilege as a weird fundamentalist of some sort and it doesn’t mean you’re a bigot. These are the three simple steps, after which I have provided example sentences in italics:
1. State your position briefly. [God hates fags.]
2. Refute the charge of bigotry. [No, I didn't say I hate fags, I said God hates fags. I'm not a bigot. Let me show you some verses in my pop-up Bible that I don't really understand.]
3. A call to tolerance. (Repeat as necessary… “or until they bring in the pie.”) [Why won't you tolerate my bigotry?! I only want to use my voting power to deny a minority their constitutional rights based on my pigheaded, hateful version of my religion, nothing more! I AM THE VICTIM HEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!!!!!, etc. Oh, look, pie! NOM NOM NOM!]
Here’s the video:
Because Maggie is using such a time-honored template for defending bigotry, if you are a white supremacist or misogynist or any other kind of hate-filled goon, feel free to cut out words like “fag” and “gay” above and insert other epithets in Maggie Gallagher’s Handy Guide To Holiday Bigotry. It’s sort of like a Mad Lib!
For the rest of you who are not backwards, hateful oafs, HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM TRUTH WINS OUT.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the gay rights movement, the gay marriage movement, really does believe you’re like a racist if you think marriage is the union of husband and wife,” explained Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage. “They want to rip Genesis out of our Bibles.”
Maybe I should leave it to one of my Christian friends to say this, but it’s adorably quaint listening to a representative of the Religious Right say this, since the entire “family values” Christian Right pretty much ripped the Gospels out of the Bible as the first order of business for their movement. Isn’t that sort of the basis for the religion they claim to follow?
This is NOM’s latest episode of “Grown Adults Bitching and Moaning,” and it features a man named Damian Goddard, who used to be a sportscaster in Canada, where marriage equality has been the law of the land for a while now. Apparently this never turned him into one of Maggie’s Super Victims, but then something happened on Twitter related to New York marriage equality and he shot his mouth off and, as a public figure, presumably embarrassed the hell out of his organization. So he got fired.
When he starts crying about how awesome his wife has been through all of this, the first thought that entered my head was, “huh, yeah, I wonder if same sex married couples ever go through life experiences where one is the rock for the other through hard times. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder!”
Oh, Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, would either of you know the truth if it smacked you across the face and sang you a big gay showtune?
Rachel Maddow reported last night on NOM’s latest ruse, a pathetic effort to make it appear as if their campaign to repeal marriage rights in New Hampshire has broad popular support — as Rachel points out, supporters of the law outnumber those who want to rescind equal marriage rights by two to one. It seems that Jeremy discovered that, in a sad, sad attempt to make it look as if they have friends people are on their side, the NOMsters have resorted to photoshopping Barack Obama’s crowds to make them look like they’re watching Brian Brown speaking.
As grotesque as it is bitter, as lonely as it is hilarious, these are the actions of losers. Losers who lie a lot.
Anti-gay organizations and politicians like Rick Santorum have long argued against marriage equality by saying it would create a slippery slope leading to the legalization of polygamy. It turns out they were wrong, as they tend to be about virtually everything.
