The Baptist Press recently sought out NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher's comments on recent polling claiming that a majority of Americans support redefining marriage:

It appears there is a large percentage of people who actually oppose redefining marriage but are afraid to say so to a stranger on the phone.

"I think the vigorous negative campaign to shame people into silence, starting with Carrie Prejean and now continuing with Peter Vidmar and Paul Clement, combined with the relative silence of conservative media in dealing with this issue, is starting to affect polls, although it is not affecting actual elections," Maggie Gallagher, founder of the National Organization for Marriage, told Baptist Press. Prejean was the Miss USA runner-up who publicly affirmed her believes in traditional marriage. Vidmar was pressured out of a role with the U.S. Olympic Committee for his opposition to "gay marriage," while Clement is the high-profile attorney representing the House in its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. "... They are successfully shutting down this debate, and making people afraid to say what they think, more than they are changing hearts and minds at this point."

New polling in Minnesota -- which will vote on a constitutional amendment next year defining marriage as between a man and a woman -- supports Gallagher. A Star-Tribune poll in May that used live callers showed 55 percent of residents oppose the amendment and only 39 percent support it. But days later a SurveyUSA poll -- an automated survey -- showed the opposite, with 51 percent of voters supporting it and 40 percent opposing it. Another automated survey, by Public Policy Polling, showed a near-deadlock, with 47 percent opposing it and 46 percent supporting it.