Dear Marriage Supporter,

Here are the faces of the people the mainstream media want to persuade you do not exist:

Cliff Kincaid, Director of the Accuracy in Media Center for Investigative Journalism, accurately notes how dishonestly our movement has been covered by the mainstream media:

Significant news came out of last Tuesday's March for Marriage demonstration in Washington, D.C. But it didn't make "news" in the major media.

As one who covered the event, it was significant that there were so many members of minority groups. This was not a mostly white crowd. In addition to the presence of black, Hispanic and Asian supporters of traditional marriage, there were some notable Democrats, such as New York State Senator Ruben Díaz, and he let people know he was several minorities in one.

[...] J.C. Derrick [of WORLD magazine] has a good analysis of how the major media, led by The Washington Post, virtually ignored the March for Marriage. But unless you actually see what happened on the ground, as the thousands of traditional marriage supporters held their demonstration, you would miss the true significance of how dishonest the media's coverage of this issue has become.

It took a major British newspaper to notice and cover the extraordinary outpouring from people of all races, creeds and colors to defend marriage: "[T]he ideological confrontation on Tuesday was genuine. Both sides of the debate were out in force, with Christian opponents easily outnumbering advocates for gay marriage" [emphasis added].

(Most of our opponents on the other side were respectful and decent as we marched past them in front of the Supreme Court. But the U.K. Daily Mail did note at least one punch thrown by one over-zealous demonstrator from the other side, as well as the man dressed in a pink fishnet devil costume, dancing with a less colorful fellow protestor, holding a sign that said, "I bet Hell is fabulous!" I pray that he never finds out—and I truly mean that!)

Confronting That Biased Media Head-on

If you didn't catch it, here I am on Easter Sunday's Meet the Press:

"The truth is the truth," I said.

The truth is marriage is based upon the distinction between men and women, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. . . . apart from all this inevitability talk, 31 states have voted to say that is the truth, they've embedded it in their state constitutions, only 4 have voted against it. There's a myth that somehow this is inevitable, look, North Carolina passed its constitutional amendment 8 months ago by 61%.

The truth about marriage is something the trendy media doesn't usually cover fairly. Witness marriage hero Doug Mainwaring, a brave gay man who is being denounced by The Daily Kos as a hatemonger at a "hate rally" for standing up for marriage! You can see video of Doug's remarkable testimony here:

Please pray for Doug and for all those who face this unjust discrimination in the media and culture simply for speaking out on behalf of marriage.

The Emerging "Next Gen" Leaders For Marriage

And speaking of those who speak out on behalf of marriage: here's what I really want to do this week. Thanks to the March and the coverage, I can introduce you this week to some extraordinary people the MSM never want you to meet, so you can see for yourself: the able, intelligent, and extraordinary Next Gen leaders for marriage that are now emerging in this fight:

Meet the young heroes facing down the Goliath forces opposing us!

You know of course our own able and extraordinary Thomas Peters, NOM's communication director.

He went on MSNBC and fought and held his own in the lion's den (with God's help I take it!):

... [C]urrently gay marriage activists are claiming that they are politically powerless and that's why we have to strike down laws defending marriage like the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8. Whereas what the Chief Justice is saying is that actually gays and lesbians are very politically powerful—the President supports them, the Democratic party platform supports them—and so the idea that we need to strike down laws protecting marriage is absurd.

[...] What we need to uphold is that people have the ultimate right to decide marriage laws. The states, the democratic process is working, and we hope the Supreme Court will acknowledge the votes of over 45 million Americans who have voted to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

But Thomas is no longer alone!

Meet Gia Coluccio, a beautiful and brilliant young staffer at the American Principles Project, explaining why she chose to March for Marriage:

A version of her speech was published in The Blaze:

I marched for marriage and I spoke for marriage because I wanted to speak for millions of other young people around the country who believe that marriage should be defined by the law as a union between one man and one woman. Young people like me may have been quiet in the past, but we are here, and we are not giving up on marriage.

Ryan Anderson is one of the co-authors (alongside Professor Robby George and Sherif Gergis) of the brilliant new book What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense.

You may have seen the amazing denigration he endured on CNN last week at the hands of Piers Morgan and Suze Orman, who called this Phi Beta Kappa Princeton grad (who is a PhD candidate at Notre Dame) ignorant(!) and "uneducated"(!!!) about marriage.

Set up, excluded from an equal place on the stage, under great and condescending provocation, Ryan remained himself: gracious and intelligent and calm under fire, the very model of a young Christian gentleman, as well as a fiercely competent public intellectual.

Undaunted, this week Ryan took on a whole panel of young libertarians—including S. E. Cupp (who recently and without much explanation switched her views and now favors gay marriage)—to explain to these confused young people why DOMA and Prop 8 are defensible: because marriage is not just a plaything of government, something legislators or judges get to dream up new meaning for. Marriage has a history, a purpose, and deep roots in human nature as well as in God's law.

Here again see this Next Gen leader for marriage at work:

Many things happened at the March for Marriage but one of the things I want to make sure you know about is an announcement by Eric Teetsel—the able young Next Gen leader who heads up the Manhattan Declaration project.

Eric's big announcement: Along with Chris Marlink, Andrew Walker, and Prof. Owen Strachen, Eric is launching a new initiative—Marriage Generation—to be the voice for marriage as a lifelong, life-giving union to next generation Christians and others of good will.

The initiative's webpage describes its identity this way:

We are millennials who understand that marriage is a lasting promise between one woman and one man. It is the unique human relationship where bodily, emotional and spiritual differences converge to form something new, often leading to the creation of life itself.

Let me give the last word this week to Gia Coluccio. The 22-year-old reminds us:

My generation has a choice—we can either recognize the truth of the importance of our classic understanding of marriage or we can deny it. We can either protect marriage and fight for it, or we can hand it away to people who want to redefine it—to undefine it, to separate it from its deep roots in human nature. But when we see hard evidence that traditional marriage is better for children and better for society than a new definition of marriage, why would we do anything other than protect and defend marriage?

Why indeed?

Thank you for all you have done to make this March and this movement possible. Keep up your prayers, your letters, your suggestions; keep up your keenness and your kindness and above all your spirits!

Some things are more important than politics. Some ideas are deeper and richer than the narrow postmodern mind can comprehend. Some things are worth defending.

I will never stop thanking God for the honor of being your voice for His values!