Dear Marriage Supporter,

My latest unexpected hero is Adam Kaiser, the young man in Buffalo who told the New York Times that he was for gay marriage—but that, nonetheless, he would never vote for Sen. Mark Grisanti again because he's against lying.

I thought about him in part because of the aggressive, ongoing push to make heroes of Mark Grisanti and James Alesi and the other Republican politicians who pushed gay marriage in New York without a vote for the people.

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to defend GOP Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and the New York Republican Party from reporters who want to slam the party because more senators did not vote for gay marriage: "There was enough to pass the bill, and that's all that matters."

I think a lot of New York politicians are going to find the mayor's praise pretty faint come election time, when they face the voters they lied to.

But Mayor Bloomberg and Ken Mehlman and other pro-gay-marriage GOP elites aren't counting on kind words to detach the Republican Party from marriage. They are counting on cold, hard cash.

The Buffalo News reports this week, "Grisanti's Coffers Grow After Gay Marriage Vote":

"Advocates of gay marriage pumped about $50,000 into the political campaign account of Republican State Sen. Mark J. Grisanti of Buffalo after he voted June 24 in the historic session that legalized same-sex marriage in New York.

"The donations included $10,300 from New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who was a strong proponent of the new law, and $10,000 from Colorado resident Tim Gill, who heads a group that has promoted gay marriage laws here and in other states.

"Other donors to Grisanti who have publicly backed gay marriage rights include $5,000 from Miami-area resident Jonathan Kislak, $2,000 from Carol Master of Massachusetts, $10,000 from Albany-area resident Frank Selvaggi and $5,000 from Manhattan real estate developer Donald Capoccia."

$50,000 in big checks from rich Manhattan and out-of-state donors, the buddies of Bloomberg and Tim Gill.

What we have here is a massive public campaign to normalize infidelity in both senses of the word—to make cash the payoff for selling out voters.

They expect us to take this lying down, to roll over, let marriage go, and give up the idea of a Republic governed by nature and Nature's God, replaced by their new vision of an America in which Genesis is redefined by powerful elites as bigotry.

I say no. Will you stand with me and fight back?

Thanks to you we are fighting back! NOM has emerged as the leading national organization willing to commit substantial resources of time, energy, expertise, and volunteers—and money—to prevent the takeover of the Republican Party by pro-gay-marriage elites.

On July 24 we will join LetthePeopleVote.com in multiple rallies across New York state, the beginning of a prolonged campaign to fight for marriage and for democracy in the Empire State.

Even the New York Times has had to take notice: "Settled in Albany, Gay Marriage is still Drawing Opposition."

Thanks to you, more than $60,000 in small donations have poured into NOM's NY PAC in just the last two weeks. I need you to speak up loud and clear to Mayor Bloomberg and Mark Grisanti: We will not accept your attempt to take over marriage, drown the voice of the people, and makeover the Republican Party in your image. I need 100 of you to give $10 today, 10 people to give $100, and one soul, blessed by God with means, to give $1000 to take back marriage in New York.

It's not just about New York. If the Republican elites can do this in New York, they will start doing it everywhere. This is crunch time for those of us who love marriage and our country's proud Judeo-Christian heritage.

Politicians who lie should not be rewarded with re-election. Republicans who support gay marriage are not conservatives. Once the American tradition has been redefined to exclude traditional Christian beliefs—what do they think will be left to conserve?

The first victims, the front-lines of the marriage debate, are the town clerks. They invested years in jobs where they never expected to have to help solemnize gay unions. In most states they end up fired if they quietly refer a gay couple to the clerk next to them. But in New York, elites are upping the ante considerably. Katherine Rice, Nassau's district attorney, sent out a letter to town and city clerks saying that any clerk who refuses to help a gay couple get married will face jail time: "The religious exemptions in the Marriage Equality Act are inapplicable to town and city clerks serving in their license-granting roles, and a public official's intentional refusal to issue marriage licenses to qualified same-sex couples may constitute Official Misconduct, a Class A misdemeanor defined in section 195.00 of the New York State Penal Law."

"I want to ensure that our local officials appreciate that there will be ramifications in our county for exercising a personal, discriminatory belief," Ms. Rice told the New York Times.

As the Times reports,

Laura L. Fotusky, the town clerk in Barker, N.Y., a small community north of Binghamton, looked at the calendar, looked at her Bible and knew what she had to do.

She drafted a letter to the Town Board and said she would resign on July 21, three days before same-sex marriage becomes legal, because she could not in good conscience issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

"I believe that there is a higher law than the law of the land," she wrote. "It is the law of God in the Bible."

Ms. Fotusky's resignation is the starkest illustration yet that the same-sex marriage debate, although settled in Albany, is continuing to roil New York.

Laura's letter of resignation is up at the website of our friends at New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.

Polygamy decriminalized, conscience penalized, infidelity normalized, lying rewarded.

Welcome to the world gay-marriage advocates are trying to create.

New York's new push to normalize political infidelity is being accompanied by a new push to de-normalize that other kind of fidelity, faithfulness to your spouse.

Ten years ago, when Stanley Kurtz wrote that gay marriage and the ideas behind it would lead to new support for polygamy, he was derided by gay marriage activists for making wild and unsubstantiated claims.

Now gay-marriage advocates aren't even trying to hide the connection.

Here's Dan Savage with a crude and vulgar image of himself and his partner engaging in a threesome. (Do not let your children see this, although millions saw it aired on the "Colbert Report.") That's the new Savage idea of redefining fidelity.

The New York Times Magazine is lovingly retailing the Savage view that the way to save marriage is to jettison fidelity as an integral part of the vow.

A reality TV show's polygamous group is now in court, with the ACLU challenging Utah's anti-bigamy statutes.

And today we learned of another Utah lawsuit, spearheaded by renowned libertarian/"conservative" law professor Jonathan Turley, who argues that Lawrence v. Texas's prohibitions on criminalizing same-sex sodomy also apply to polygamous relationships.

It is not the Mormons who are dismantling laws against bigamy; it's the grand alliance of sexual liberals/libertarians, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy's rash decision to insert a right to gay sex into our constitution under the privacy penumbras.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, Sen. David Koehler—the politician who spearheaded the civil union bill—is expressing what sounds like genuine anguish that civil unions are being used to shut out Christian adoption agencies.

He says that's not what he meant. He promised voters on the floor over and over again that the civil unions law would protect the rights of social service agencies, including adoption agencies.

In fact, Equality Illinois, the major gay marriage organization pushing the bill, promised that too, on its website:

"5. How would the Act affect religious affiliated adoption agencies?

"Answer: The Act would not impact faith-based adoption agencies or adoption procedures. The Act does not amend the Adoption Act, which governs both public and private adoption agencies."

Equality Illinois knew they were lying. They didn't care.

Who are the victims of this deceit?

The most heartbreaking are the abandoned children whose placements are threatened by this callous disregard of religious liberty and conscience.

The Chicago Tribune interviewed Becky and Stan Wilhoit, an evangelical couple who foster children through Catholic Charities—and they are very concerned about the impact of the proposed shut down on the kids they are trying to help:

From Becky Wilhoit's perspective, [Judge] Schmidt's ruling [to give both sides more time to argue their case] buys the three sisters — ages 6, 7 and 9 — in her home a little more time to heal before they return home.

Thrust into the foster care system just six months ago, the girls' caseworkers and counselors haven't yet gained their trust to pinpoint roadblocks and help them overcome their challenges, said Wilhoit, 39, of McLean. Transferring them from Catholic Charities could turn back the clock, she said.

It's enough to make Wilhoit and her husband, Stan, reconsider their calling to be foster parents 18 years ago.

"It's a very small issue to shut an entire agency down that's doing so much good in a community," said Becky Wilhoit, an evangelical Christian who is not Catholic. "We specifically chose Catholic Charities as the agency we wanted to work with knowing they were religious and that they had resources to provide what we needed for our family. We know other agencies in the town can't provide that for us. It becomes an issue for us to continue fostering."

Why would any sane movement seek to shut out people like the Wilhoits, recruited through Catholic Charities, from helping abused and abandoned children?

Many good groups work on marriage and religious liberty, and I applaud you for supporting them all. But I think it is fair to say that, with your help, NOM has become the one national organization that dives in deep wherever needed, to help big-time with practical resources—to make it clear to politicians, especially Republican ones, that we are not going to sit back and take it. We are not going to stand by while you normalize infidelity—either the personal or the political kind.

We can win this fight, by the grace of God, with your help!

Thank you for all you do.

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

P.S. I am asking you today to fight back against those who want to decriminalize polygamy, penalize conscience, normalize infidelity, and reward lying. Please be one of the 100 who contribute $10, the ten who contribute $100—or give more for marriage today!