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Monthly Archives: January 2012

ALL HANDS ON DECK!! Time to Stop Gay Marriage in Washington!

January 20, 2012 – 7:06 pm

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Dear Marriage Supporter,

We've seen it happen time and time again: gay marriage activists believe that victory is in their grasp, and then a last minute surge of you and our pro-marriage heroes pull off a last-minute victory to protect marriage.

We need you to be part of that surge today.

Please, stop what you are doing and immediately contact your representatives in Olympia and tell them to vote NO on same-sex marriage:

Take Action Now

Use this link to take action now!

Washington State already has domestic partnerships that give same-sex partners all the legal benefits of marriage. This new legislation isn't about rights or benefits; this is about redefining and destroying marriage for everyone. And it's about attacking good people like you who believe in our marriage tradition.

Please use the links in this message to take action, then forward this message to five friends and family today, and come to the hearings at the Capitol in Olympia next Monday (details below).

The Editors of the Washington Olympian recently made an excellent point:

"Our fear at this point is that the contentious marriage debate will distract lawmakers who have only 60-days to balance a state operating budget that's $1.5 billion out of alignment. That must be the top priority."

We couldn't agree more that legislators in Washington have their priorities backward. We need you to help us demand they stop attacking marriage and focus on getting their fiscal house in order instead:

Take Action Now

Use this link to take action now!

After you've contacted your legislators, please make a special effort to attend the public hearing this Monday. If you've read this far I'm confident you care enough about marriage to stand up for it when it is currently under attack.

Bring your family and members of your Church with you to the hearing. It is always easier to stand together than to stand alone, after all. But the most important thing is to stand!

Whatever you can do, please do it and ask others to join you.

  1. Click here to look up phone numbers for your state senator and representative.
  2. Click here to send your legislators an email today.
  3. Then come to Olympia on Monday to attend the hearing.
  4. Consider other creative ways to support marriage, including writing to your local paper.

HERE ARE THE DETAILS ABOUT MONDAY'S HEARING—PLEASE SHARE THIS FAR AND WIDE:

The hearing begins at 10am, and while the hearing room is small, and only a few of you will be able to get in, your presence will send a loud and clear message to our elected officials about how the people who voted them into office in the first place feel about marriage. Please show up no later than 9am as the hearing will be heavily attended.

Senate Government Operations Committee
Monday, January 23rd at 10:00 am (come early!)
John A Cherberg Building
Senate Hearing Room 2
Click here for directions and parking information (PDF)

Please know that you are not alone. There is a huge amount of activity happening across various grassroots organizations to ensure that marriage is protected in Washington no matter what.

And we know these efforts have the absolute best chance of succeeding if all of us step up and tell politicians in Olympia: "Don't Mess with Marriage!" and let them know we're not going anywhere. We will always fight to protect marriage.

In the time you've read this email you could have already contacted your legislator. Please go that crucial extra mile and do so right now!

Take Action Now

Use this link to take action now!

Thank you so very much! We will continue to keep you up to date on the latest news and developments.

Until then, faithfully,

By Brian Brown | Posted in Marriage Election Watch, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Washington | Comments (12)

NOM Pledges $250K to Support New Hampshire Legislators Who Stand Up For Restoring Traditional Marriage; Will Challenge Those Who Vote Against the Same-Sex Marriage Repeal Bill

January 20, 2012 – 3:30 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 20, 2012

Contact: Elizabeth Ray or Anath Hartmann at (703-683-5004)

"We intend to hold every legislator accountable for his or her vote on marriage. Those who support HB 437 will be rewarded, while those who don’t will suffer the consequences.”
—Brian Brown, NOM's President—

Concord, NH — The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's leading pro-marriage organization, today announced that it will spend $250,000 in legislative races to help legislators who support HB 437 restoring traditional marriage and hold accountable anyone who opposes the Same-Sex Marriage Repeal Bill. The Bill, HB 437, will be up for a vote in the next few weeks.

“Sixty-one percent of New Hampshire GOP primary voters support a legislative definition of marriage as the union between a man and a woman alongside of a provision for civil unions,” stated Brian Brown, NOM's president. "We intend to hold every legislator accountable for his or her vote on marriage. Those who support HB 437 will be rewarded, while those who don’t will suffer the consequences in the next election.”

HB 437 is compromise legislation that restores the traditional definition of marriage which predates the New Hampshire Constitution, while allowing existing same-sex marriages to remain intact, and grants rights and benefits through civil unions. HB 437 is a balanced bill and is the most common sense approach in New Hampshire.

NOM has helped mount successful legislative election efforts on the same-sex marriage issue in places like Minnesota, Maine, California, New York and New Hampshire. The group is particularly effective at ending the careers of Republican officials who abandon marriage. For example, the group aired ads critical of Republican candidate Bill Binnie’s position on same-sex marriage that resulted in his defeat in the GOP US Senate primary campaign in 2010.

"In 2010 NOM was a significant player in New Hampshire and spent over $1 million in the last election. It’s humorous that our opponents loudly proclaim they will raise $100,000 to help legislators on their side when we have already invested over ten times that amount,” said Brown. “Aside from helping defeat Bill Binnie, we worked with grassroots organizations to help flip the state legislature after liberal democrats legalized same-sex marriage in 2009. NOM sent mailers and launched phone calls in 119 house races, and our endorsed candidates won all of them. A vote for HB 437 is a vote for traditional marriage. We will consider a vote against the legislation a vote for same-sex marriage, and we will hold legislators accountable. NOM will support those who support marriage and will work with local New Hampshire organizations to recruit pro-traditional marriage candidates to run against those who vote against HB 437 and fund them.”

To schedule an interview with Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, please contact Elizabeth Ray, [email protected], (x130) or Anath Hartmann, [email protected], (x105) at 703-683-5004.

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By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, New Hampshire, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (6)

Gov. Christie: My Opposition to SSM "Very Well Publicized"

January 20, 2012 – 2:30 pm

Governor Chris Christie begins to break his silence on the attempt by New Jersey Democrats to pass a same-sex marriage bill:

Christie noted in a interview with WNYC on Wednesday that the Legislature hasn’t been succeeded so far in passing a same-sex marriage bill, and emphasized that his opposition has been “very well publicized.”

“I think this type of societal change is something we need to do very deliberately and have as much public input as we possibly can,” the Republican governor said. -- Wall Street Journal's Metropolis Blog

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, New Jersey, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (13)

Psychology Prof: The Social Sciences Cannot Settle the Moral Status of Homosexuality

January 20, 2012 – 2:00 pm

Stanton L. Jones is provost and professor of psychology at Wheaton College. He writes in First Things:

Many religious and social conservatives believe that homosexuality is a mental illness caused exclusively by psychological or spiritual factors and that all homosexual persons could change their orientation if they simply tried hard enough. This view is widely pilloried (and rightly so) as both wrong on the facts and harmful in effect. But few who attack it are willing to acknowledge that today a wholly different, far more influential, and no less harmful set of falsehoods—each attributed to the findings of “science”—dominates the research literature and political discourse.

We are told that homosexual persons are just as psychologically healthy as heterosexuals, that sexual orientation is biologically determined at birth, that sexual orientation cannot be changed and that the attempt to change it is necessarily harmful, that homosexual relationships are equivalent to heterosexual ones in all important characteristics, and that personal identity is properly and legitimately constituted around sexual orientation. These claims are as misguided as the ridiculed beliefs of some social conservatives, as they spring from distorted or incomplete representations of the best findings from the science of same-sex attraction.

Today we approach same-sex attraction with views grounded in social and biological scientific perspectives that are only partially supported by empirical findings. Until the early decades of the twentieth century, moral disapproval of “sodomy” guided public policy, but that grounding was displaced by a psychiatric model that viewed homosexuality as a mental illness. Once homosexuality came to be seen not as a sin but as a sickness, it became a simple matter for social science to overturn the opposition to homosexual acts. Alfred Kinsey’s studies of male and female sexuality, published in 1948 and 1953, portrayed homosexual behavior of various kinds as a normal and surprisingly common variant of human sexuality. In 1951, Clellan Ford and Frank Beach published Patterns of Sexual Behavior, their famous study of diverse forms of sexual behavior, including same-sex behavior, across human cultures and many animal species; they suggested a widely shared “basic capacity” for same-sex behavior.

But the decisive blow to the mental-illness construal of homosexuality came from a single study in 1957. Psychologist Evelyn Hooker published findings that convincingly demonstrated that homosexual persons do not necessarily manifest psychological maladjustment. On the basis of Hooker’s work, and the findings of similar studies, in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association amended its designation of homosexual orientation as a mental illness.

To avoid misunderstanding the phenomenon of homosexuality, we must grapple with the Achilles heel of research into the homosexual condition: the issue of sample representativeness. To make general characterizations such as “homosexuals are as emotionally healthy as heterosexuals,” scientists must have sampled representative members of the broader group. But representative samples of homosexual persons are difficult to gather, first, because homosexuality is a statistically uncommon phenomenon.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Research/Study | Comments (22)

Matthew Schmitz on The "Heroes" of Same-Sex Marriage

January 20, 2012 – 1:00 pm

Matthew Schmitz at the First Things blog:

I do not doubt that the four Republican New York state senators who voted for same-sex marriage are convinced of the rightness of their votes. I would, however, look askance at any suggestion that they are the courageous new heroes of our time, with motives wholly principled and pure. As the New York Times reports, they have a big payday coming...

The same-sex marriage lobby seems to operate by flat-footed progressive bullying (“get on the right side of history”) followed by gigantic payouts to those who fall in line. It’s a fine way to win a political fight, there’s no gainsaying that, but it has hardly created a hall of heroes.

Whether or not they actually come out ahead remains to be seen: the National Organization for Marriage has launched its own formidable effort to raise the price of voting against marriage.

By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments Off on Matthew Schmitz on The "Heroes" of Same-Sex Marriage

Ross Douthat on America's Crisis of Family Life (and Family Policy)

January 20, 2012 – 12:00 pm

Ross Douthat in his Christmas column for the New York Times from a few weeks ago:

[Domestic dissolution and falling marriage rates are not] an issue that politicians of either party are particularly comfortable addressing. Liberals worry about seeming paternalistic and judgmental; conservatives recoil from the idea of increasing the government’s role in the most intimate of spheres. Thus America has a crisis of family life, but no family policy to speak of.

... A more flexible alternative, championed by the conservative writers Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert Stein, would change the way we tax families, dramatically expanding the child tax credit in order to ease the burden on parents with young children. Their proposal would leave contemporary Baileys and Cratchits with more disposable income and more options without favoring one approach to parenting over another.

Obviously, neither generous parental leave nor an expanded child tax credit is a magic bullet for the problem of family breakdown. But if Democrats were championing the first idea and Republicans were championing the second, we would at least have the beginnings of a healthy conversation about family policy, instead of the conspicuous silence that surrounds the country’s biggest social crisis.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Culture, Marriage, Parenting, Politics | Comments (1)

8-Year-Old: "When I Grow Up, I Don't Think I'll Get Married. I Think I'll Just Get Some Sperm."

January 20, 2012 – 11:00 am

A startling example which shows how the choices of adults influence the perceptions and expectations of children:

A couple of years ago, my daughter and I were playing the classic board game "Life," and her little car reached the roadblock at which everybody -- absolutely everybody -- gets married.

Needless to say, given a new set of striking statistics last week that showed a record low of 51% of American adults are married, "Life" was designed many decades ago. The study by the Pew Research Center further found that 40% of births these days are to unmarried mothers, and a similar percentage of Americans say marriage is becoming obsolete.

My daughter Liliana, who was 8 when we were playing the board game, tossed off this remark as she stuck the tiny blue husband pin into her car: "When I grow up, I don't think I'll get married. I think I'll just get some sperm."

How we reap what we sow! Liliana was old enough to know the story of her own origins, and it goes like this: When I turned 39, still single, I resolved to become a mother on my own and bought eight vials of donor sperm. But then I met her father, Sprax, and he agreed to help me have a baby the old-fashioned way. We went through many ups and downs, even splitting up for a couple of years, but finally realized that we loved each other, got back together and went on to have her baby brother. When Liliana was almost 4, we got married.

So there I was -- the former single mother by choice, the typical Massachusetts type who deeply believes that there are a hundred great ways to make a family and that life can also be wonderful without one -- and I found myself responding to my daughter: "That would be fine if you just get some sperm, sweetheart, but you know, being married is actually really nice, too." -- CNN

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Culture, Ethics, Science | Comments (8)

Marriage Battles Heating Up, NOM Marriage News, January 20, 2012

January 20, 2012 – 10:20 am

NOM National Newsletter

My Dear Friends,

Game on!

In New Jersey, politicians are trying to rush through a gay marriage bill.

They claim that civil unions have failed—even though there's not one document-substantiated complaint upheld by the civil unions commission designated to investigate compliance with the civil union law.

Advocates of gay marriage are counting on Gov. Chris Christie, the truth-teller, the straight talker whom we all love for his candid fearlessness—to renege on his clear campaign promise to veto same-sex marriage.

It would break a lot of hearts to find that Gov. Christie is really a conventional kind of politician, one who bends and sways in the wind, one who goes against his word if the big-dollar Republican money guys (who swayed New York's GOP to pass gay marriage) push hard enough.

Don't you believe it! Gov. Christie is a man of his word and in this case his words could not be clearer.

During the campaign, he said he opposed same-sex marriage. And after he won the election he spoke to New Jersey Republicans to confirm: "If a same-sex marriage bill comes to the desk of Governor Christie, it will be returned to the legislature with a big red veto across it because, one, I believe that and I made it very clear to people during the entire campaign that that was my position and so there will be no surprise for the 1.2 million people who voted for me that that was and that is my position."

The video we have comes from a NOM supporter who was there. It's got that homemade quality but I still think you'd like to see it, to see for yourself Gov. Christie's firm pledge:

 

He continued: "We'll continue to stand for those things and many others that I won't continue to interrupt your dinner with, but those issues—making New Jersey more affordable, less taxes, less spending, and standing up for the values we believe in so strongly as a society and setting an example at the top for saying those things, even at times when they may be politically unpopular, is what I think people expect of leaders."

I have to be candid with you: We are facing a series of very tough fights, not only in New Jersey but throughout the country, as gay-marriage advocates push to replicate what happened in New York, and hope to persuade the Supreme Court to impose gay marriage on all 50 states.

In Washington, they claim to be just a few votes short of passing a gay marriage bill through the state senate, without a vote of the people. In both Washington and New Jersey the Democrats have decided, in the middle of an economic collapse causing budget crises, to make pushing a gay marriage bill their number one priority.

It was announced this week that the vote to repeal gay marriage in New Hampshire takes place on Feb. 1. And we will find out shortly whether gay-marriage advocates will try to reverse their loss in Maine this November.

Under these circumstances I have to thank you again for the amazing response to NOM's Year-End Million Dollar Match money bomb. A generous donor pledged to match every dollar you gave if we could raise $1 million by New Year's Day.

And guess what? We did it!

Impossible victories have happened again and again during NOM's tenure. I can't promise you what will happen in all these close fights, but I can promise you this: Thanks to you, NOM will be in this fight. I will never give up, as long as I have the comradeship and support and prayers of good people like you.

We cannot cravenly surrender the truth about marriage, or justice for children.

We cannot and will not. We will fight this good fight, and in the end we know Who wins.

God bless you and keep you. Thank you for your prayers and your support.

Faithfully,

Brian Brown

Brian S Brown

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

 

P.S. As these fights unfold, will you stand beside us? When you give to NOM you are standing up for your values and making sure that your voice is heard in the corridors of power.

Donate Now

By Brian Brown | Posted in NOM Marriage News | Comments (1)

Brian Brown to Flip-Flopping Senators: "Money Won't Save You"

January 20, 2012 – 10:00 am

Our president Brian Brown reminds readers of the New York Times that voters, not money, will decide the fate of the New York Republican Senators who betrayed them on marriage:

Senator James S. Alesi of East Rochester, the first Republican to say he would support same-sex marriage, had not filed his fund-raising report by Tuesday evening, but said in an interview that he would report having raised $350,000 to $400,000 during the same period. Mr. Alesi said more than half of his new donations came from same-sex marriage supporters.

“I didn’t vote for the money, but it’s gratifying to know that support is there, especially coming into an election year,” he said. “It’s more gratifying to me when someone comes up to me and says, ‘I appreciate your vote’; you can’t put a price on that.”

The senators will need the help. Same-sex marriage opponents have promised to target them when all state lawmakers face re-election in November.

“All the money in the world isn’t going to buy them out of the fact that they’re about to lose an election,” said Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposed the New York law and has said it will spend heavily to oust the four senators.

“People are outraged by what they’ve done, and they are going to be held accountable,” he said.

By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (4)

Storobin Raises $120K for Special Election to Replace Disgraced Sen. Kruger

January 20, 2012 – 9:00 am

PolitickerNY:

Sources close to Republican David Storobin’s campaign tellPoliticker that the candidate has loaned himself $50,000 and raised a healthy $70,000 from donors so far in his quest to replace former State Senator Carl Kruger.

Mr. Kruger resigned before pleading guilty to federal corruption charges less than a month ago, setting up the current vacancy. Mr. Storobin is running his first campaign for elected office and started raising less than three weeks ago, making his fundraising tally a notable haul.

... The resulting fundraising dynamic between Mr. Fidler and Mr. Storobin looks like it might mirror another recent special election in southeastern Brooklyn, where now-Congressman Bob Turner raised less than half of what his Democratic opponent did, and a tiny fraction of all Democratic spending.

Indeed, Congressman Turner’s success is a primary reason for Republican optimism in their chances of taking over the seat once held by Mr. Kruger. Mr. Turner won roughly two votes in this State Senate district for every vote his opponent received, despite the fact that the area is largely Democratic in registration.

By NOM Staff | Posted in New York, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (1)

Economist Says Gay Marriage Undermines New Hampshire's Fiscal Stability

January 20, 2012 – 8:00 am

Foster Daily Democrat:

Economist Scott Moody believes the devaluation of marriage through same-sex marriage will eventually ensure a population in New Hampshire where the shrinking, younger generation will no longer be able to support the state's economy.

"At this point, marriage no longer has any meaning," said Moody.

During a Foster's Daily Democrat editorial board meeting on Tuesday, Moody, a member of the leadership and staff team with Cornerstone Policy Research, explained this concern, among other underlying concerns, that may be solved with the passage of HB 437.

The bill currently before the New Hampshire Legislature would repeal the state's same-sex marriage law.

According to Moody, several concerns relating to children's rights and demographics have risen in the last several years. These concerns could be alleviated if the proposed bill to be discussed in February is passed.

... Moody's argument in favor of repealing same-sex marriage in the state remained relatively free of faith and morality based assertions, though he did admit those beliefs were still very much rooted within the foundation of the repealment of the same sex-marriage law in New Hampshire and across the nation.

According to Moody, there all of a sudden seems to be a cultural movement toward same-sex marriage. However, many states, some considered even more liberal than New Hampshire, have repealed the law when given the chance, most notably, he said, Maine. Moody said even in New Hampshire, the same-sex marriage law passed by one vote and was signed into law by a governor he claimed never failed to flip-flop on the issue when discussed.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Economics, Marriage, New Hampshire, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (6)

School: Opposition to Gay Adoption is “Bullying”

January 20, 2012 – 7:00 am

Todd Starnes at Fox News & Commentary:

A Wisconsin high school is in the middle of a free speech debate after they apologized for publishing a student essay opposing gay families who adopt children. School officials called the essay a form of “bullying and disrespect.”

The column ran on the editorial page of the Shawano High School student newspaper. It was part of an op-ed featuring a student supporting gay families who adopt children and one opposed to the idea.

... The school district profusely apologized after a gay couple – who has a child at the school – complained.

“This is why kids commit suicide,” Nick Uttecht told the Green Bay Press Gazette. “When I saw this I was in shock.”

The school district released a statement apologizing for the story.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, Civility, Education, Wisconsin | Comments (14)

The Seattle Times: NOM Vows to Defeat GOP Lawmakers Who Vote for SSM

January 19, 2012 – 4:00 pm

The Seattle Times:

The National Organization for Marriage, part of a broad coalition of religious and conservative groups opposed to Washington state's same-sex marriage legislation, said Wednesday it will spend $250,000 to help defeat any Republican lawmakers who vote in favor of the bill.

NOM, based in Washington, D.C., said it was effective in ending the careers of Republicans who supported gay marriage in other states.

The group also said it will work to ensure Washington residents have a chance to vote on the same-sex marriage legislation in November.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Washington | Comments (12)

Pro-Family Leader James Dobson Endorses Rick Santorum

January 19, 2012 – 3:30 pm

LifeNews:

James Dobson, the founder and former president of Focus on the Family, has joined a number of social conservative and pro-life leaders have who announced endorsements for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Dobson today announced his personal endorsement of the former Pennsylvania senator, and is not speaking on behalf of the pro-life Christian group he led before his retirement.

“The institution of the family is the key issue facing this great nation. It is the foundation, the bedrock, upon which every dimension of Western Civilization rests,” he said. “If it is undermined or weakened by cultural and governmental forces, the entire superstructure will collapse in short order. And indeed, today it is in serious jeopardy. The very definition of marriage is threatened, which has implications for the next generation and the stability of society itself.”

“Of all the Republican candidates who are vying for the presidency, former Sen. Santorum is the one who has spoken passionately in every debate about this concern,” Dobson continued. “He has pleaded with the nation and its leaders to come to the aid of marriages, parents, and their children. What a refreshing message.”

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage Election Watch, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (6)

New Hampshire Marriage Restoration Vote To Happen in February

January 19, 2012 – 1:00 pm

The Eagle Tribune on New Hampshire Republicans being sensitive to other urgent business along with their commitment to vote on a marriage restoration bill:

Republican House leaders have delayed the vote on gay marriage, House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt, R-Salem, said yesterday.

"The legislation will not be considered for a floor vote until February," Bettencourt said in an email.

"We must deal with some critical financial and economic-related legislation first, as well as legislative redistricting, prior to any discussion of gay marriage," he said. "It's critical to keep to keep legislative priorities in their proper order."

Bettencourt said in late December the House would most likely vote on the issue Jan. 11 or today.

Yesterday, Bettencourt said he was only speculating at the time and that House Speaker William O'Brien, R-Mont Vernon, controls the House calendar.

The vote on House Bill 437 was never formally scheduled, Bettencourt said.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Marriage, New Hampshire, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (1)
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