For NOM and Andy Pugno, anti-equality is still king (&king)

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10/18/2010

by Jeremy Hooper

Pugno Andy Pugno -- general counsel for Proposition 8's "Protect Marriage" coalition and sayer of things like, "there is no doubt that re-defining marriage to include homosexual relationships would ipso facto divorce the institution itself from its fundamental, biological foundation" -- has spent the last few of years of his adult life using personal faith-based convictions to get the word out about gays and their supposed inability to stand on equal CIVIL footing. So it's really no surprise that Andy's allies at the National Organization For Marriage are putting him on the air in an attack ad that quite literally barks out the phrase "gay marriage":

Oh, that old stock photo of a little girl reading King & King. The anti-LGBT side has been using that fear nugget so long, the kids in these photos are likely now more concerned about Medicare than they are the dating and mating habits of gay monarchy!

But the interesting (read: intensely frustrating) thing? Dr. Pan hasn't even knocked Pugno on the marriage issue! Here, check out Pan's two ads:

Not even a passing mention, in script or image, of any Kings or Queens or Props or ring fingers or little girls being brainwashed in a rainbow water bath. It's just that NOM, being of a one-tracked, highly discriminatory mind, needs an angle to justify their continued "culture war" shenanigans, so all of a sudden Dr. Pan becomes a "radical" who wants to "indoctrinate" children into thinking peace and equality are acceptable things (quelle horreur!), while professional backer of discrimination Pugno becomes the white knight who's going to slay the two kings' royal reception. Same false and uncreative meme, new political campaign.

So okay, fine. Because while Pan's ads don't even talk about marriage equality the way NOM claims they do, we will GLADLY talk about Pugno's record on the Prop 8 issue. We'll talk about how in the days following the Prop 8 vote, Andy repeatedly invoked the word "desperate" to discredit the hurt, stunned pro-equality side's rights and subsequent (and ultimately successful) legal efforts:

(click to play)

We'll talk about the 2008 letter in which the Prop 8 side tried to bully a local anti-Prop 8 business, Abbott & Associates, into either donating an equal contribution or suffering public rebuke. A letter to which Pugno lent his name:

(feel free to snatch the code and pass around)

We'll talk about how Andy always frames the nuptial narrative around his side's "moral and religious views about marriage," even though the sole conversation at hand -- THE SOLE CONVERSATION! -- is about the civil marriage contract. The same contract that priests and rabbis and imams and any other faith leader can already recognize or not when it comes to atheist couples, interfaith couples, fallen-away-from-the-faith couples, or any other kind of prospective civil marriage candidate that doesn't fit a particular religious whim on a particular day!

And we don't need to "attack" Pugno to do this job. We simply need to say, "Hey, look at what this dude's been working on for the past few years!" and let the votes fall where they may.

***

**SEE ALSO: StopAndrewPugno.com

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