Brian Brown claims that pro-equality protesters in Providence intimidated children and made them cry.  Now I’m suspicious, because I’ve seen video from NOM.  I’ve seen arguments and shouting and a mother complaining of a scary, extended encounter that somehow mysteriously was not itself taped (what could explain that?).  But I haven’t seen the crying children Brian talks about.

Nevertheless, I can say this:  Don’t fuck with kids. You already know how I cringe at people mocking Maggie Gallagher for her weight.  And you know why.  You can only imagine how I’d react if I saw someone deliberately frightening a child or making one cry.  If that person were on my side of the protest, I would do everything I could to shut down that protest until the child was safe.  And felt safe.  Then we’d have to deal with the person responsible.

If this really went down the way Brian Brown says — if he really has video proving it, and I mean raw footage, not a heavily edited PR fantasy — then it’s reprehensible.  Now all Brian has to do is give me a reason to believe him.

Brian Brown is against the lynching of gays.

That’s great to know.  The current president of NOM disagrees with those of his supporters who want to lynch gays.  Now all I’m waiting for is a reply to my February email to NOM’s founder, Maggie Gallagher:  when a beauty pageant contestant called for the death of gays, why was your first response to praise her for standing up to hate?

From Bradley Miller:

Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is just as important to the child as to the caterpillar.

Some people have given me flack on my NOM logo redesign.  They say it’s unfair because the original sign, the one with the his-and-his nooses, did not come from the NOM leadership.

They have a point.

But that doesn’t mean they’re right.

I have to admit, that graphic was not my most intellectual effort.  When I saw the original sign, my clock got punched and it felt like the only thing to do was yell.  But you know what?  I held back.  Before anything else that morning, I checked NOM’s reaction to the sign.  I checked NOMblog.  I checked NOM’s Facebook page.  I checked NOM’s Summer Tour Facebook page. 

I saw nothing. 

I’ve written before about how hard, how satisfying, and how hard it is to do write about these people (and yes, it is satisfying).  But you can only crawl through so much hateful crap, you can only address so much of it in a logical and factual and analytical way, before you’ve got to yell.   And when I saw that sign, I had to yell.

Now that I’ve calmed down (it’s sad how learn to quickly get over that stuff:  Oh, just another fanatic who wants us dead.  Tell him to get in line.) I have to ask whether I’ve been fair to NOM.  Can I hold NOM responsible for every nutjob who shows up in public with a sign?  No, of course not.  Rather, if I’m going to eviscerate NOM, I have to do it based on NOM’s choices.  Ultimately, though, that’s not hard to do.    Read more…

The current ruckus isn’t NOM’s first intersection with people who want to kill gays.  Here’s a repost of a blog entry from last February.

I had an email exchange with NOM president Maggie Gallagher.  By now you’ve probably heard the following quote from Lauren Ashley, Miss Beverly Hills (trying to become Miss California and then Miss USA):

The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, “If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.”

Best case:  She doesn’t realize she’s saying we should kill gays.  Worst case:  She wants to kill gays.

Either she’s either dumb as a box of tiaras or she’s utterly craven.  She’s also easy to dismiss  — I mean, the city of Beverly Hills says there is no such contest or title, exposing her as a fraud.  As so often happens, conservative Christian moralists violate their morality while moralizing.

Then we get this statement from Maggie Gallagher:

I’m not surprised that Miss Beverly Hills, Lauren Ashley, opposes gay marriage — after all 45 percent of young Californians voted for Prop 8, as did 7 million Californians generally.  But I have to say, I am impressed with her courage in coming forward and for speaking up for Carrie. The elected officials of city of Beverly Hills are not demonstrating tolerance or kindness by continuing the avalanche of hatred against supporters of Prop 8.  [emphasis added]

Some interpret this as a total endorsement of Lauren’s statement.  I try to be factual here, so I did the obvious thing.  I wrote to Maggie.    Read more…

Here’s Maggie Gallagher repeating her current strategy heartfelt reasons for opposing gay marriage:

Gay activists treat Americans who disagree with them about same-sex marriage like bigots.

They want to use the law to suppress and marginalize and stigmatize.

It’s just shameful and wrong for these activists to try and portray good Americans in that way.

That’s why the hatred…the harassment…the attempts to bully have actually created a huge echo chamber of people flocking to the National Organization for Marriage.

Aaaaand, here’s a sign from NOM’s Indianapolis rally, at which Maggie spoke.

That was yesterday. No comment from NOM yet. While we’re waiting, I mocked up a new logo for NOM. I hope they like it.  Here’s their old logo…

NOM's orginal logo

And here’s the redesign:

Finally, here’s an interview with the man who brought that protest sign:    Read more…

Poor Maggie Gallagher.  She hired active bigot Louis Marinelli to run the NOM Marriage Tour, and he just keeps screwing up.  In his description of the Columbus, Ohio, tour stop he spits in the face of adoptive parents everywhere:

There was one couple (one of those bolder [gay] couples who came into the rally itself) who were particularly disappointing. The two men decided not to just attend the rally but they brought a baby with them. Notice I said ‘a baby” because it isn’t “their baby”. It was clearly adopted. They were white the baby was not.

There you go:  Adoptive parents aren’t allowed to say their baby is “their baby.”  Seriously, my Mom and Dad adopted my brother before I was born, and if you ever told my Mom that my brother wasn’t her baby — oh lord, even Mama Grizzlies (real ones!) wouldn’t have been able to stand up to that fury.

But perhaps Maggie won’t disavow this comment.  She’s not afraid to sacrifice adoptive parents in her quest to ban same-sex marriage.  She loves to say that traditional marriage is how children can “love and be loved by their own mother and father” — meaning their biological mother and father.

NOM can’t get away from this ugly disdain for adoptive parents.  It’s the only way they can claim our families aren’t really families, worthy of all the rights and protections that “real” families enjoy.  NOM isn’t just bigoted against gays and lesbians.  They attack a good many straight married parents, too.

H/T to boxturtlebulletin.

Molotov Mitchell is the far-right video commentator who tells lies about Uganda’s Kill-the-Gays Bill:

A deliberate disinfo campaign has convinced tons of people that Ugandans want nothing short of gay genocide.  I decided to look deeper.  This isn’t my opinion, this isn’t Rick Warren’s opinion, this isn’t even MSNBC’s monolithic gay opinion.  This is what’s in the bill.  Uganda’s anti-gay bill formally extends the death penalty to homosexuals who commit pre-existing capital crimes.  They are as follows:

#1 — Pedophilia or sexual abuse of the handicapped.

#2 — Knowing that you are HIV+ yet continuing to spread it to others, and

#3 –  Using positions of authority to coerce others into performing sexual acts.

That is it.  That’s as far as the “genocide” goes.

“A deliberate disinfo campaign”?  Really?  Here’s a quick reality-based recap:

• The bill applies the death sentence to anyone with multiple convictions of having gay sex.
• It also sentences to death people convicted multiple times of not ratting out their gay friends (even if they themselves are straight).

I had a Facebook conversation on Mitchell’s wall yesterday pointing out his mistakes and posting a link to my Uganda video.  He answered:

Sorry Rob, but you’ve got shady info. There are multiple versions of the bill, even one that has no death penalty at all. The version I was discussing was the same one Pastor Ssempa was (and is?) supporting. The Left Wing is touting early versions and even fake versions of the bill, but they’re wrong. No bill calling for the execution of straight people will be presented or passed.

I told him what a relief that was.  I asked for a link to his version.  Can you guess the first words of his reply?    Read more…

The Public Religion Research Institute has released a heartening — yet frustrating — survey on support for marriage equality in California.  I’m still digesting it, but this leapt out at me.

• PRRI first asked about marriage vs. civil unions vs. no recognition at all:
  • Marriage: 42%
  • Civil unions: 31%
  • No recognition: 24%

• Then PRRI added the condition that “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples”:
  • Marriage:  54%
  • Civil unions:  22%
  • No recognition:  21%

• Finally, PRRI added the condition that the law only provide for “civil marriages like you get at city hall”:
  • Marriage:  61%
  • Civil unions:  15%
  • No recognition:  21%

That’s huge.  And it’s heartening, because those additional conditions are already met.  Courts have long decided that churches and clergy don’t have to marry anyone who doesn’t meet their doctrinal requirements.  Further, marriage equality initiatives and judgments have only ever been about civil marriage.  The First Amendment protects churches from infringement on these points.

The disheartening thing is that…those additional conditions are already met.  Obviously people don’t know that, or we’d have seen 61% support in the first question.  Our opponents don’t like to talk about these built-in Constitutional protections.  Sometimes they deny they even exist.  It’s obvious why.

What does all this mean?  One side of the battle counts on a frightened, deceived electorate.  The other side wins if people know the truth.  So who has the moral high ground here?

I drive into work two days a week and work from home the other three.  Will’s on summer break (for him, that means working but not going to school) and he packs a lunch for my office days.  This, of course, is just more sinful homosexual behavior.  Today’s big moral threat to society is a turkey sandwich, red bell pepper soup, and low-fat string cheese.  But get this:

Will put the tomato slices and lettuce leaves in a separate baggie so they don’t soak the bread.

Who wouldn’t want to marry this man?  I swear, next time paranoid anti-gays start asking about the real reason we want the right to marry, I ought to just show them my sandwich.

I doubt they’d understand.