NOM BLOG

Monthly Archives: May 2012

Video: Glen Beck Explains Why SSM is a Loser for Obama

The Blaze:

"...On his Tuesday evening program [last week], Glenn Beck broke down the issue of same-sex marriage as it relates to the 2012 election, explaining why the president’s newfound stance on the issue may not even help him gain crucial swing states. [...] Looking back, swing states in 2008 including Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Florida and North Carolina, all opposed gay marriage by as much as 30 percentage points each.

... What’s more, Beck noted that in every state where same-sex marriage amendments have been listen on the ballot, voters have stricken down the measure each time. Often, African Americans and Hispanics are among the demographics that hold the least-favorable views on same-sex marriage. “The president’s pandering for donations might not be the home-run he thinks it is,” Beck noted. Ironically, Democratic pollster Jay Campbell noted that Romney’s stance on same-sex marriage may have even helped him solidify support with the Republican base, particularly 62 percent of Evangelicals.

Mississippi Lawmaker Gets Death Threats After Criticizing Obama's SSM Move

The Clarion Ledger:

A state legislator is asking authorities to investigate death threats allegedly made against him and his family related to his online comments concerning same-sex marriage.

"We got several death threats on Saturday left on the answering machine," said Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton.

Gipson had posted May 10 on his Facebook account his response to President Barack Obama's public support of same-sex marriage. Over the weekend, the comments went viral when several national blogs and online publications - including The Huffington Post - started linking to them.

...The Huffington Post posted a headline suggesting Gipson was calling for the death of homosexuals. The Leviticus passage talks about putting to death two men having sexual relations.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Gipson said in a news release. "I have never publicly or privately called for the killing of any people."

Gipson also defended his comments on Facebook.

"What I did intend and did say is that the Bible clearly defines homosexual conduct as morally wrong - a sin," Gipson posted in response.

Gipson said he's most concerned with the threats in which his family members are listed.

Head's Up! Watch for the DumpStarbucks.com Challenge Tomorrow!

Dump Starbucks

Dear Marriage Supporter:

As of this morning, over 40,000 people have signed our DumpStarbucks.com petition to send a powerful message to Starbucks that their entry into the culture war corporately pushing same-sex marriage WILL have consequences.

If you have not already done so, please consider signing our petition to stop patronizing Starbucks Coffee—it only takes 30 seconds, but the message it sends is a powerful one: Don't Mess With Marriage!

What we've been able to accomplish is significant.

But it's not enough.

We need 50,000...75,000...100,000 people to join us in sending a powerful message that the elites in industry, politics and the media cannot possibly ignore.

And that is why I'm launching a 24-hour Dump Starbucks fundraising drive tomorrow. We need to raise $50,000 to promote our petition to new audiences and exponentially increase the impact we're having on corporate titans who are increasingly dismissive of the concerns and beliefs of the vast majority of Americans.

Support Dump Starbucks!

I know that you are a stalwart supporter of marriage. And I know that it's not a trivial thing to make a commitment like this. But, please, we need your help.

Right now:

  1. Go to DumpStarbucks.com and sign our petition.

  2. Forward the petition to family and friends, encouraging them to participate in our campaign.

  3. Be on the lookout for our email tomorrow and please consider making a gift to help us take advantage of this incredible opportunity.

Starbucks needs to listen to their customers—both domestically and internationally. DumpStarbucks.com has been launched in Arabic, Chinese and Spanish among others...and now we're poised to make an incredible multi-national impact!

Thank you for your support of our Dump Starbucks campaign! I'll be in touch soon.

Maryland Citizen: The Word "Marriage" Matters

Frank O'Keefe writes to the editors of the Baltimore Sun:

"...It is clear by now to anyone who has observed this controversy that proponents of same sex marriage are more interested in the re-definition of marriage than they are in the attainment of marital normalcy as regards the law. The law could easily have been changed nationally a long time ago to allow these rights as "civil unions" without disturbing the traditional definition of marriage. Many parties would have been satisfied by such a compromise, had not proponents denied the primary biological relationship questions by couching every argument as one of bias regarding their "civil rights." The indiscriminate hurling of bigotry charges will simply not work with this question. In fact, it does not work on the majority of thinking people.

...In the end, there is no such thing as "civil marriage" — there is simply marriage, nothing else. Trying to dichotomize marriage into civil and religious forms is nothing more than an exercise in semantics. Unless one can find a way to magically erase inherent biological differences and make them equivalent, the controversy will go on endlessly. This is precisely why this will never be settled, because the final settlement of it would require the contradiction of innate, observable reality, and that is something that rational people are simply never willing to do. There are some differences that can never be reconciled, and America must learn this lesson if civility is ever again to grace our land. The role and function of law cannot change those natural things that are self evident. It may try-but the underlying realities will remain the same.

What man do you know who has ever really been a mother? What woman do you know who has ever really been a father? As I have always said, it's about the definition. Words point to reality. How we use them is critically important. We are playing with primal fire as if it is silly putty."

Video: Maggie Gallagher Answers if Millenial Views on Marriage Are Unchanging

NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher participates in a series by The Daily Beast where readers can ask prominent thinkers anything they want. In this video she answers whether millennial views on marriage are set and if they really do believe marriage need not be the union of husband and wife:

David Quinn: Nothing Connects a Father to His Children Better than Marriage

Ireland's Independent:

"...In 2009, Brendan Dempsey, the southern regional president of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) said the absence of fathers from the lives of children was set to cause "huge problems".

Echoing what Alesha Dixon had to say, he said that in some housing estates in Cork nine out of 10 homes visited by the SVP had no father present.

Mr Dempsey recalled going into a house where a small boy asked him, "Will you be my daddy?"

He added: "I am often asked 'are you my daddy?' That to me says there is a want."

Ms Burton's proposed change to the law regarding birth certs is, as mentioned, a step in the right direction. But on its own it won't connect fathers to their children.

The best way to do that is to arrest the decline of marriage in certain communities in the country, especially the sort of housing estates Mr Dempsey referred to.

Nothing connects a father to his children better than marriage, but our body politic dogmatically refuses to recognise this basic fact of life despite the fact that social policy is meant to be evidence-led."

Video: Alan Keyes' Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage

From the archives, proof that President Obama has been exposed to a cogent argument on behalf of marriage at least once: in a debate with Alan Keyes in 2004. This video has been viewed upwards of 250,000 times:

Video: Maggie Gallagher on Threats to Religious Liberty Posed by SSM

NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher participates in a series by The Daily Beast where readers can ask prominent thinkers anything they want. In this video, she answers a reader who mistakenly thinks there is no threat to religious liberty posed by redefining marriage:

Scottish Church Group: SSM a "Social Experiment in Which the Guinea Pigs are Children"

The UK Press Association:

Legalising same-sex marriage would "legitimise and encourage" the existence of fatherless or motherless children, according to a report.

A Free Church of Scotland study panel examined the issues surrounding marriage, divorce and remarriage.

The study comes as responses to the Scottish Government's consultation on gay marriage are evaluated.

Referring to same-sex couples, the Free Church report said: "By getting the right to marry, they get more respectability for bringing up children (they already have the right to foster and adopt).

"This is a huge social experiment in which the guinea pigs are children. That is not fair or just to children and does not safeguard their rights. It is really being pushed in a doctrinaire way by the gay lobby without any consideration of the harm that it will do."

The church said that civil partnerships already give same-sex couples the same legal rights as marriage, and therefore there is no need to introduce same-sex marriage.

Only 43% of Italians Support Gay Marriage

ANSA.it:

Rome, May 17 - Most Italians believe that gay couples living together should have the same rights as heterosexual ones, but less than half think they should be allowed to marry, Istat said on Thursday.

The national statistics agency said 43.9% of Italians agreed with gay marriage in the results of a study released on the International Day against Homophobia.

UK Gay Writer: Stop Vilifying Opponents of SSM

The Christian Institute:

Activists seeking to rewrite the definition of marriage must stop trying to vilify those who oppose them, a gay writer has warned.

“If they don’t snap out of it they’ll even lose the support of gay people like me,” said Max Wind-Cowie.

He is Head of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos and he accused the “gay-rights brigade” of allowing their quest to redefine marriage to turn “into active hetero-phobia”.

And he branded the vilification of those who oppose the redefinition of marriage as “intolerant” and “ugly”.

He also criticised the advertising standards watchdog’s investigation of a Christian blogger who displayed a pro-marriage advert on his website.

Mr Wind-Cowie, who was writing in the Huffington Post, also warned that far from allowing a plurality of views ‘diversity’ has now come to represent “homogeneity” and “repression.”

Mr Wind-Cowie, who himself supports gay marriage, continued: “Hiding behind it, secularists and the ayatollahs of social liberalism are able to strip public discourse of the bits they don’t like – faith, orthodoxy, skepticism about change.

"Astonishing X-Men" Plans a Same-Sex Wedding

USAToday:

Wedding bells are ringing for the X-Men, and Marvel Comics is getting topical with its newest superhero marriage.

In Astonishing X-Men issue 50, out Wednesday, the openly gay mutant hero Northstar proposes to his longtime boyfriend, Kyle, with a same-sex wedding featuring a super guest list to follow next month — as well as sure controversy in some quarters.

President Obama recently came out in support of gay marriage, but Marvel's views evolved a while back. Alonso says he and his team began having conversations about such a story line shortly after New York legalized same-sex weddings last June. "Most of our characters reside in New York, and our stories always work best when we reconcile them against the real world, so it raised some questions."

Marvel has focused on bringing a more realistic flavor to its characters and books, such as introducing Miles Morales, the half-black, half-Hispanic Spider-Man, last year.

Sen. Mark Grisanti's Totally Fake "Real Story"

We've seen politicians do some desperate things as they struggle to cling to office after betraying their constituents on marriage, but the mailer Sen. Mark Grisanti just sent to his Buffalo constituents earns a special place in our hall of shame.

Our favorite line in his sugar-coated autobiography: "Mark Grisanti is one of us. [He has] a belief ... that being honest matters most."

Let's talk about honesty.

Was it honest of Mark Grisanti to accept money from NOM and other pro-marriage supporters by promising them that he would never vote to redefine marriage if elected?

Was it honest of Mark Grisanti to betray the trust of these same pro-marriage voters who got him into office when he in fact voted for gay marriage?

And most hypocritically of all -- is it honest for Mark Grisanti to pay for this mailer we quoted above, and his numerous TV ads, which are bankrolled with the money pro-SSM activists gave him to buy his vote on marriage, all while never mentioning his vote on gay marriage to his constituents?

Sen. Grisanti is making a cynical calculation that he can keep the voters of Buffalo in the dark about his vote to redefine marriage. And he has the audacity to run a campaign paid for almost exclusively by pro-SSM money while attempting to sweep under the carpet his most unpopular position.

But what gets us the most, and what we look forward to making his constituents in Buffalo aware of, is that Grisanti has chosen to do all of this while claiming the mantle of "honesty."

The citizens of Buffalo and New York deserve better.

It's time to teach Grisanti a lesson about what happens when a politician betrays and deceives the men and women who gave him the responsibility of holding public office in the first place.

Video: Maggie Gallagher On How Her Experience as a Single Mom Shaped Her Views on Marriage

NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher participates in a series by The Daily Beast where readers can ask prominent thinkers anything they want. In this video, she explains how her experiences as a single mom helped shape her views about marriage:

More Maryland Churches Joining Effort to Overturn SSM

The Hartford, MD Aegis Newspaper:

A number of Harford County churches and religious leaders are leading the local fight to revoke Maryland's new same-sex marriage law before it can go into effect.

Several Harford churches are supporting the Maryland Marriage Alliance coalition in a statewide petition drive challenging the law passed by the Maryland General Assembly earlier this year.

That law does not take effect until January 2013, and its opponents must get at least 56,000 signatures to put the issue on the ballot in November.

"That is a slam dunk," Southern Harford Del. Glen Glass predicted, noting the drive already has more than 30,000 signatures statewide. He expects it will ultimately get more than 75,000.

The marriage drive is doing really, really well," Glass said Tuesday. "[The Alliance leaders] are spending a lot of money and they are going church to church, and getting tons of signatures."

Oak Grove Baptist Church, on Churchville Road in Bel Air, has been the local distribution point for the petition drive and the church is leading a petition sign-up effort through Saturday at the Motor Vehicle Administration location in Bel Air.

The church's marquee at Churchville and Thomas Run roads has been advertising that drive.

The church has already reached the goal of 6,446 signatures set for Harford County by the Alliance, organizer LaVerne Cash said Monday.

The petitioners must get at least a third of the required signatures by the end of May and the remainder by the end of June, she said.

For Oak Grove Baptist and many other Harford churches, opposing same-sex marriage is a matter of biblical principle.