The National Organization for Marriage ordered the removal
of this audition video (graphic: mine)
When I published my first post yesterday about the National Organization for Marriage’s incredible (as in beyond belief) new ad campaign attacking marriage equality, I was unaware that it was the Human Rights Campaign that had obtained and released the audition reels. Well done folks!
Perhaps that bit of political chicanery explains NOM President Maggie Gallagher’s contemptible behavior as she faced off against HRC’s President, Joe Solmonese, on MSNBC’s Hardball yesterday afternoon.
Emily Post. Maggie, if you’re reading this, Google the name.
Reactions to the NOM ad from the good guys, us, were predictably fabulous. The titles of these two blog posts save me a lot of typing:
Timothy Kincaid’s Delightfully Crazy Dingbat Insane Ookie Spookie Ad from National Organization for Marriage, and Towleroad’s Pro-family fear-mongering zombies release gay marriage scare ad.
Yesterday afternoon, NOM launched a second offensive in the form of an email blast from Executive Director Brian Brown:
The ad has obviously struck a nerve. Within just a couple of hours after our ad went live, the Human Rights Campaign launched a vicious attack against NOM. HRC Spokesman Brad Luna accused NOM of “claim[ing] one shallow victory after another by telling lies . . . These lies must be called out for what they are every time the right-wing seeks to derail our progress by spreading distortions and inciting fear mongering.”
Clever bit of editing there, because NOM wouldn’t want the image (emphasized below) in the minds of its constituants:
Again and again, opponents of equality have claimed one shallow victory after another by telling lies about who we are as individuals, as loving couples and as families. These lies must be called out for what they are every time the right-wing seeks to derail our progress by spreading distortions and inciting fear mongering,” continued Luna.
That is the full quote from HRC. Dog forbid they might think of us as “loving couples” and “families.”
Speaking for NOM, Maggie quickly responded, issuing the following statement:
“HRC’s record of truth and honesty about their intentions is not that impressive. They once said marriage amendments weren’t necessary because there were no federal court cases. Now there is one.”
She’s right, but look at how many years passed before Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) filed a lawsuit, in early March 2009, challenging Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
More from NOM:
“They called us liars when we said public schools will teach about gay marriage if its the law–but they do in Massachusetts. Serious religious liberty scholars from Eugene Volokh to Doug Laycock to Robin Wilson acknowledge the central driving idea behind gay marriage–there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and supporters of marriage are engaging in discrimination if they think differently–will have consequences for the freedoms of traditional faith communities. To pretend otherwise is to be profoundly unserious–if not deceptive–about what gay marriage means.”
Yes, they do in Massachusetts where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time, and the children of legally-married same-sex couples attend public schools.
Yes-on-8 repeatedly raised this same irrelevancy during the campaign in California last year. They even brought in a lawsuit-happy Massachusetts couple, the Wirthlins, and sent them on a bus tour of California. When California’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, challenged Yes-on-8’s assertion, they called him a liar.
For the record, Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the consultancy behind Prop 8, is also handling the new NOM offensive against marriage equality.
As for those oft-mentioned religious liberties that we’re told are under never-ending attack, Robert Cruickshank, writing at the Courage Campaign’s blog, deftly lays those arguments to waste:
Their arguments are based on lies, and always have been – marriage equality in California wouldn’t have changed how preachers preach or how teachers teach, and Vermont’s new marriage law makes clear that religious freedom is still respected.
But these arguments are also powerful. Conservative victimology has been one of the *key* methods by which Prop 8 supporters have escaped responsibility for their actions or even acknowledging what Prop 8 was – an attack on the legal equality of thousands of Californians merely for their sexual orientation. When framed this way the Yes on 8 position becomes almost unassailable, immune to criticism. “They’re just protecting their freedoms,” we’re supposed to think, and not be allowed to ask them to face the realities of what they have done, not be allowed to criticize them for voting to take away equal rights and destroy existing marriages, and not be allowed to act with our own conscience by demanding equal rights for everyone. Each of those acts is cast as an aggressive and hurtful act, where the oppressed are cast as oppressors.
And, last week, the Supreme Court of Iowa eloquently addressed the religious liberties of those who would wield their faith-biased convictions against their fellow citizens to deny or eliminate marriage equality:
While unexpressed, religious sentiment most likely motivates many, if not most, opponents of same-sex civil marriage and perhaps even shapes the views of those people who may accept gay and lesbian unions but find the notion of same-sex marriage unsettling.
This contrast of opinions in our society largely explains the absence of any religion-based rationale to test the constitutionality of Iowa’s same-sex marriage ban. Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring government avoids them. See Iowa Const. art. I, § 3 (“The general assembly shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .”). The statute at issue in this case does not prescribe a definition of marriage for religious institutions. Instead, the statute declares, “Marriage is a civil contract” and then regulates that civil contract. Iowa Code § 595A.1. Thus, in pursuing our task in this case, we proceed as civil judges, far removed from the theological debate of religious clerics, and focus only on the concept of civil marriage and the state licensing system that identifies a limited class of persons entitled to secular rights and benefits associated with civil marriage.
(emphasis: mine)
Perhaps this is why the National Organization for Marriage has declared all-out jihad in the state of Iowa.
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