Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), released the following statement following Bob Turner's historic victory over David Weprin in the special election held today in New York's 9th Congressional District tonight:

“NY-9 is another victory for marriage in our country. This district, which Obama won, Clinton won, and which has had a Democrat in Congress since 1923, showed Tuesday that marriage is important. David Weprin was not able to defend himself against his vote to support same-sex marriage in New York, and his constituents made that clear. 42 percent of them oppose same-sex marriage. 29 percent said marriage was a significant issue in this race. And on Tuesday, well over a majority of them showed Weprin that they have had enough.

“NOM played a major role in this election, helping to organize the Jewish and Hispanic communities to coalesce with Republicans, conservative and other pro-family voters. We mounted the first and largest independent expenditure campaign in the race to make marriage a key issue, and we succeeded. David Weprin is not going to Congress for one reason: he listened to Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and a few billionaires on Wall Street and went along with them to redefine marriage. Weprin foolishly believed them when they promised to protect him from any fallout over his vote to redefine marriage. The HRC even has gone so far as to absurdly claim that no politician has ever been defeated over his or her vote to redefine marriage, even though NOM is responsible for defeating countless same-sex marriage advocates and electing hundreds of candidates who have pledged their support for traditional marriage."

"Our message to the rest of the politicians in Albany who voted to redefine marriage is this: 'You’re next.' Once again voters have said: 'Don’t Mess With Marriage!'"