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07/15/2009
Weird, NOM doesn't seem to know that they're a hurtful, ineffective, unfortunate civil rights blight
From NOM:
“When the battle was to get a marriage amendment on the ballot in California, NOM was there to help. When Tim Gill and his friends decided to push gay marriage bills through legislatures blue states in the northeast, NOM lead the fight, helping to stop gay marriage in New York, working to overturn gay marriage in Maine, and helping win substantive religious liberty protections in Vermont and Connecticut,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s executive director, “Now gay marriage advocates are pushing Obama for the penultimate prize: repealing the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the only national law that protects marriage. We felt NOM needed to be here in D.C. to make the voice of the majority heard.”
“Three recent polls confirm that a strong majority of Americans continue to oppose gay marriage, despite the recent push for gay marriage in Iowa and the northeast. Strong majorities of Republicans and independents oppose gay marriage according to the latest Pew poll,” notes Gallagher. “Even 41 percent of Democrats oppose gay marriage. Our challenge—and it’s an exciting one—is to build an organization that helps translate public opinion into an effective political force, one that help the views of ordinary Americans get heard here on Capitol Hill and across the country.”
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE: “OPEN FOR BUSINESS IN OUR NATION’S CAPITAL” [NOM]
From Jeremy Hooper, someone who's sick of fighting in this "culture 'Nam":
For Brian: In New York, you've done absolutely nothing. True, you've made misspelled ads and blown lots of steam. But marriage equality is not at all "stopped" in Albany -- it has been temporarily set back by the legislature's wacky monthlong pissing match. Don't flatter yourselves into thinking you had anything to do with that.
In Maine, you have accomplished nothing. Yes, you are "working" to overturn marriage equality. So are many people. But what have you actually done besides set up a Facebook page where by a 10-1 margin, the outrage over your actions outweighs the outrage over marriage equality (even after the page's moderators began deleting pro-equality comments).
VT and CT? By what ridiculous strain of self-absorption do you credit yourselves for the "religious protections" in their marriage bills? Your actions in both states were focused entirely on killing VT's equality bill and CT's court-conforming bill.
It's true that these so-called religious protections have become popular as a way of throwing a bone to your side. But those legislatures/ governors who choose to adopt them are largely acting on their own accord. In order to get to the point where they even can consider them, they have to first overlook your activism, which is 99.9% built around calling them liberal, activist, child-threateners for enacting equality in the first place!!
True, you helped out in California. But even that is a blessing in disguise for our side, as you overplayed hand and subsequent hysteria has opened many, many once complacent eyes.
---
For Maggie: What gay person wronged you? Seriously. I'm not being bitchy in asking that -- I'm being totally genuine. What gay person has wronged you in a way that could possibly lead you to call rolling back their civil freedoms an "exciting" challenge? Because Mags: Do you understand how thoroughly sick that sounds to those of us who live in queer bodies? The only way I can even process it is to believe that there is some sort of hostile, queer-initiated memory that has led you down such a discriminatory path!
Look, I challenge NOM. Gladly. Unabashedly. Proudly. But is it "exciting" for me to do so? No, absolutely not! I find it thoroughly sad and tiresome that I live in and contribute to a world where I still have to fight for basic human decency and true American fairness. Even the prospect of putting NOM out of business is not something I would consider "exciting." Because again, the fact that a group solely built around hurting my life and love ever existed in my lifetime will remain, until the day I die, one of the least "exciting" developments of my mortal journey!
So let's get back to your quote, Mags. You are seriously sitting around salivating at the prospect that you can turn the scant majority that you still hold in national marriage equality polling into an army of foot soldiers who'll step up and tell LGBT people that they're not fully fit for this nation? I'm sorry, doll, but that is truly, truly disturbing! And I'm convinced that it has to stem from some sort of past pain causes by an LGBT person. Or at least I need to tell myself that so as to not believe that there truly are people out there whose hurtful intent and professionally hostile careers are born out of natural "excitement." That prospect is way too scary.
Your thoughts
DOMA is "the penultimate prize?" Does Brian Brown know what the word means? I'm guessing he doesn't because if he did, he'd explain what the ultimate goal is.
Hey, Brian: "penultimate" means second-last; "ultimate" means last. Adding a syllable to a word doesn't increase its grandeur.
Posted by: DN | Jul 15, 2009 10:46:17 AM
My jaw dropped when I saw the word "exciting" in Maggie's quote. And Jeremy, your response was both eloquent and powerful. My husband and I are now third class citizens in the "great" state of California, and knowing that you're on our side is a comfort. Love your blog and your tenacity! Thanks!
Posted by: Mark Squared | Jul 15, 2009 12:27:17 PM
Well, they faked the survey here in RI so I don''t exactly put much faith in their surveys.
Like it or not, NOM is on the losing side of a battle.
Posted by: Tony P | Jul 15, 2009 12:28:48 PM
Oh, he just has sex on his mind, the word sounds like a descriptive term for something else... At least there is something good about PBS as my local station uses that word on the "next to the last day" of the pledge drives.
Posted by: Bob Miller | Jul 15, 2009 12:34:24 PM
I've often wondered if the out of wedlock child was fathered by a gay man. That would explain a lot.
Posted by: SammySeattle | Jul 15, 2009 12:51:54 PM
Maggie's wildly inappropriate and giddy excitement probably has little to do with anything other than the fact that her large-ass's future jiggliness depends entirely upon the largesse of other bigots. And as long as there are queers to hate-on, demean, and otherwise reproach, that money will keep rolling in. To the band leaders in the supremacist corps, the only god is money. And every effort it geared toward separating that money from the suckers to whom it is currently attached.
When issues of civil fairness and human decency cease to persist as the enraging rallying cries for bigots, those same bigots will find her to be an extravagance entirely unworthy of support. But, she could stand to lose a few pounds, and without all of that contrived anger, she might live longer.
Posted by: Dick Mills | Jul 15, 2009 1:40:47 PM
When Brian said "penultimate" about DOMA, he meant that national gay marriage was the "ultimate" goal, and DOMA's repeal would, of course, have to precede that.
Posted by: Who, me? | Jul 15, 2009 4:49:18 PM
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