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Dear Marriage Supporter

Perhaps you've never heard of the Secretary of State Project. But if you haven't, you should.

With backers including George Soros and Tim Gill, the Secretary of State (SoS) Project is quietly packing Secretary of State offices across the country with left-wing activists...designed to tip the balance in close elections.

Gill, Soros and their cronies know one thing: For less than a million dollars, they have already had a major impact in important, but overlooked statewide races. Or, as the American Spectator put it, "Political observers know that a relatively small amount of money can help swing a little-watched race for a state office few people understand or care about...Talk about return on investment!"

And that's putting it mildly.

One of those first SoS Project targets was Minnesota – where with just a few dollars they managed to replace a two-term incumbent with former community organizer and ACORN ally, Mark Ritchie.

That race paid Soros and company their first dividends as Ritchie oversaw the 2008 recount between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

And now Ritchie is USING THE POWER OF HIS OFFICE to UNDERMINE the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment, a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as between "one man and one woman."

Simply put, the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment would amend the Minnesota Constitution to include the words: "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota."

But Mark Ritchie apparently didn't like the way the amendment was worded, and now when people step into the voting booth, thanks to Mark Ritchie, this is the new title people will read:

"Limiting the status of marriage to opposite sex couples."

Yes, you read that right. Ritchie is trying to slant the wording to bias the outcome.

Just about any pollster will tell you: a shift from neutral wording to prejudicial language—like Mark Ritchie's prejudicial language—can help swing the results of an election, particularly in a tight race.

Instead of being asked to decide if marriage is "the union of one man and one woman," Mark Ritchie wants voters to decide if they want to "LIMIT" the definition of marriage. Of course, the truth is that all that the Marriage Protection Amendment does is take Minnesota's current definition of marriage—one man, one woman—and put it in the state constitution where it will be safe from meddling by activist judges and ambitious politicians like Ritchie.

This is the type of organized, well-financed opposition we are up against, not just in Minnesota, but in Maryland, Maine, and Washington, too.

We only have 4 months to save marriage, not just in Minnesota but in the ENTIRE NATION. We only have 4 months to spread the truth and overcome Mark Ritchie's provocative and prejudicial language.

Time is running out! Given the high-stakes presidential election, last-minute television and radio ad buys in October and November MUST BE PURCHASED RIGHT NOW. In a matter of days or weeks, it may not be possible to secure that air time. It might be gone...unavailable...In order to get the truth out in the crucial hours before people go to the polls we must buy the air time NOW!

Please use this hyperlink to help fight back against Mark Ritchie's misleading description of the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment. Your generous donation today of $50, $100, or even $500 will go directly to the four marriage ballot measure campaigns to help get the word out at this crucial time.

I'm convinced we can overcome Mark Ritchie's campaign to sabotage the Minnesota Marriage Protection Amendment.

We have four months to make sure that every voter, not just in Minnesota, but also in Maryland, Maine and Washington, has heard our message on marriage.

Our opponents understand the stakes. They are working, and giving, around the clock to paint us—and folks like you—as hateful and bigoted.

WE CAN WIN, but ONLY if we get the truth out.

If our opposition is willing to give millions of dollars to force a redefinition of marriage on everyone; what are you willing to do?

Please click here to make your most generous gift of $20, $50, $100, or even $500 or more to Stand for Marriage America. Every dollar will go to protecting marriage in the four states where marriage is on the ballot this November.

We know who will win in the end. And working together, we know who will win in November. Thank you for all you do.

Video: Rick Perry Explains Why He Stands Strong for Marriage

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is asked about marriage and why he hasn't changed his views on it:

Arthur Brooks: "Marriage and Happiness Go Together"

Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, in the New York Times:

"...Many conservatives favor an explanation focusing on lifestyle differences, such as marriage and faith. They note that most conservatives are married; most liberals are not. (The percentages are 53 percent to 33 percent, according to my calculations using data from the 2004 General Social Survey, and almost none of the gap is due to the fact that liberals tend to be younger than conservatives.) Marriage and happiness go together. If two people are demographically the same but one is married and the other is not, the married person will be 18 percentage points more likely to say he or she is very happy than the unmarried person.

... Whether religion and marriage should make people happy is a question you have to answer for yourself. But consider this: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people (with kids) are very happy — versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids."

United for Marriage, Minnesotans Expect Support for Amendment from DFL Members

The Bemidji Pioneer reminds their readers that supporters of marriage come from all backgrounds. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse would say we are the real rainbow coalition!

Conventional political wisdom is that a gay-marriage prohibition on the Nov. 6 ballot would pit Democratic-Farmer-Laborites against Republicans.

“It is not that cut and dried,” Chuck Darrell said.

Darrell, Minnesota for Marriage spokesman, said Democrats are needed to pass a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

On Nov. 6, Minnesota voters will decide whether to insert the marriage definition into the state Constitution.

Darrell, whose group is pushing the amendment, said exit polls during a similar California vote showed 36 percent of Democrats favored the constitutional amendment, as did 56 percent of union households.

“We are counting on 40 percent of the DFL vote here in Minnesota to vote for the marriage amendment, and similar numbers within the minority communities,” Darrell said, adding that Ethiopian communities are examples of traditional Democrats backing the amendment.

Darrell said DFL efforts to drive up turnout for the President Barack Obama also could help produce pro-amendment voters.

“Support for the marriage amendment crosses every kind of boundary you can imagine,” Darrell said.

Google Pushes for Gay Rights Worldwide, Avoids Marriage Question

Google, which donated to oppose Prop 8, says its new international campaign will focus on other gay advocacy issues besides marriage:

Google has launched a worldwide campaign for gay rights, a top executive said Saturday.

The “Legalize Love” initiative is to promote human rights and tackle employment discrimination in countries with “anti-gay laws on the books,” Google said in a written statement, according to CNN.

Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe, the company’s head of diversity, made the official announcement during an LGBT professional summit in London. The campaign’s first two target countries are Poland, which does not recognize same-sex couples, and Singapore, which criminalizes gay sex.

... According to CNN, a Google spokesman said the “Legalize Love” campaign will not push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Google has shown extensive support for gay rights in the past, including coming out against California’s successful 2008 ban on same-sex marriage.

“While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality,” Google cofounder Sergey Brin wrote at the time. -- The Blaze

DumpStarbucks.com News: Stock drops on Starbucks

Dump Starbucks

Welcome to the DumpStarbucks.com News!

On March 21, 2012, the date of the Starbucks annual meeting where I queried them on their corporate support for same-sex marriage, their stock closed at a price of $53.81. This past Friday their stock closed at $51.97.

This is down from a high of $61.67 that they reached in April of 2012.

It takes a little time to make an impact when your target company has over $11.5 billion in sales.

With over 750 million shares outstanding, this drop in stock price since their annual meeting equals a loss of almost $1.4 billion in shareholder value. This drop in value comes at a time when coffee prices, a major factor in Starbucks' business expenses, are dropping.

Starbucks stock could bounce back today, and without a doubt, at nearly $62 a share, it was overvalued and our protest was only part of the equation.

What the protest has done, and what you have helped us do as one of our supporters, is start to sway the conversation. There is no longer just one side of the marriage debate telling corporate leaders that "equality" requires that the corporation take the position that the nuclear family is no longer important. Or that "diversity" demands that companies tell those employees who believe that fathers and mothers are both vital to the upbringing of a child that they are ignorant bigots.

Dr. Brayden King, a professor in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, put it best in his 2009 article, How Protests Matter:

To say that protests don't matter because they don't immediately lead to drastic social reform or fail to have direct consequences in policymaking is taking a narrow view of what protestors are trying to do. Protests matter because they make issues part of the public agenda and consciousness.

Every article, every blog post, every Facebook comment, and every tweet, both positive and negative, helps to boost this effort.

What you can do this week:

Call or email your local Christian or Catholic radio station and tell their DJs and news staff about the DumpStarbucks.com effort.

Share with them what Starbucks has done and urge them to inform their audience about the DumpStarbucks.com pledge. (You might add a plug for the www.DumpGeneralMills.com pledge as well!)

Thank you for all that you do and have a great week!

Breaking News: Minnesota for Marriage Sues Secretary of State for Altering Amendment Language

Breaking news from Minnesota for Marriage:

Today, Minnesota for Marriage announced it had petitioned the Minnesota Supreme Court to seek relief under Minnesota Statues § 204B.44 (errors and omissions) against Secretary of State (SOS) Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson for unlawfully changing the title of the Marriage Protection Amendment that will appear on the November ballot.

In a release last week, SOS Ritchie announced his intent to “substitute” the original title of the amendment from “Recognition of marriage solely between one man and one woman,” to ”Limiting the status of marriage to opposite sex couples.” Ritchie cited Gov. Dayton’s “symbolic” veto of the legislation as having “invalidated the title designated by the legislature.” Attorney General, Lori Swanson approved the change.

“The actions of SOS Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson are unlawful and exceed their constitutional authority,” said Sen. Warren Limmer, the bill’s chief author. “The Governor’s veto was purely ceremonial and has no legal binding on the title of the amendment. SOS Ritchie is using the veto as a trumped up excuse to thwart the will of the legislature. It is a sad day in Minnesota when the Secretary of State and the Attorney General disregard the will of the legislature and use deceptive language.”

U.S Presbyterians Stand Strong, Vote to Uphold Definition of Marriage

Contrary to advance reports which claimed the U.S. Presbyterians would vote to redefine their understanding of marriage, the Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in Pittsburgh this weekend voted to uphold their traditional understanding of marriage:

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) narrowly rejected a proposal to revise the traditional definition of marriage on Friday, a year after it struck down a barrier to ordaining gays.

The Presbyterian General Assembly, meeting in Pittsburgh, voted 338-308 against changing how marriage was defined in the church constitution from a "civil contract between a woman and a man" to a "covenant between two people." The assembly also rejected measures that would have affirmed a traditional definition of marriage or sought more theological study of the issue.

Other mainline Protestant churches have approved gay ordination or have permitted individual congregations to celebrate same-sex unions in recent years. The U.S. Episcopal Church, which is holding its national convention through next week in Indianapolis, will consider official prayers for blessing same-sex unions. However, only one major Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ, has endorsed same-sex marriage outright. -- NY Daily News

U.S. Methodists voted to retain their traditional definition of marriage by an even wider margin recently.

A General Mills Protestor Explains Her Stance

Bernardine writes to the StarTribune about why she is choosing to protest General Mills:

"Recently, I was one of the many protesters outside the General Mills corporate offices and spoke to the company's vice president of communications. I asked why a company like his would ever come out with a statement against the marriage amendment. His response was that the issue had been thought about for some time. My view is that when the media asked the company to state its position on this issue quite often, then monthly, then weekly, the company succumbed to the pressure and made this uninformed statement.

... So many people in this democracy believe in the strong foundation of a marriage between a man and a woman; it is incomprehensible that a large company that markets many of its products to children would choose this position.

A company should be interested in a good product and sales. It can make all the cereals and products it wants, but if there are no buyers, it will fail. General Mills, please choose mother, father, children in the future."

Join the 18,000+ who have chosen to dump General Mills right here.

Brad Pitt's Mother Target of Liberal Hate After Letter Supporting Marriage

The Examiner:

Jane Pitt, the mother of actor Brad Pitt, was the target of hateful and misogynistic tweets from pro-abortion liberals after the Springfield News-Leader published her letter supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Twitchy reported Friday.

Gawker painted her as a "loon," but liberals on Twitter went overboard.

... "Once again, the Left’s revolting intolerance of conservative free speech is on display for all the world to see. Let’s hope Jane Pitt answers with even louder, bolder speech," Twitchy added.

...A post at Buzzfeed noted that in 2008, Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight California's Proposition 8. While he may differ with his mother's point of view, he still thinks highly of her.

"She's very, very loving — very open, genuine, and it's hilarious because she always gets painted in the tabloids as a she-devil. There's not an ounce of malice in her. She wants everyone to be happy," the actor said of his mother in January.

Read Jane Pitt's letter here.

San Francisco Chronicle Profiles Frank Schubert

The San Francisco Chronicle profiles the President of Mission Public Affairs and a close ally of NOM:

To supporters of same-sex marriage, Frank Schubert's name inspires a chill.

Few political consultants are as personally associated with their advocacies as Schubert, 56. The nationally lauded Sacramento strategist masterminded California's Proposition 8 and is guiding every similar ballot campaign to ban same-sex marriage, including measures before voters this fall in Washington, Maine, Minnesota and Maryland.

To Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports marriage as between a man and woman, Schubert "gives people hope that they're not alone."

... Schubert is feared not only because he wins - voters have defeated same-sex marriage measures 32 times, including some campaigns led by him - but because he is able to seed doubt in swing voters with ads that show how legalizing same-sex marriage would affect children.

Examiner Columnist: "Is President Obama Losing North Carolina Because of SSM?"

Ben Knotts of the Examiner asks that question:

A current poll from Real Clear Politics has the presumed GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, consistently leading PresidentObama in the fall election, since May 15th, 2012.

Prior to May 15th, polls showed President Obama continually leading his GOP opponent in North Carolina., but since that day, Mitt Romney - the former Governor of Massachusetts - has not failed to carry the support of the state.

What caused the shift in numbers? The issue of same-sex marriage provides a reasonable explanation.

On May 8th, North Carolina voters banned same-sex marriage by amending their state constitution to only recognize marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

On May 9th, President Obama endorses same-sex marriage - putting himself at odds with North Carolina voters on the controversial issue.

On May 12th, Governor Romney addressed social-conservatives at Liberty University declaring that marriage is only between one man and one woman - putting himself in agreement with North Carolina voters on the issue.

By May 15th, Obama's lead has shifted to Romney, and Romney has held the lead consistently ever since.

Deputy PM Clegg Wants to Allow Gay Weddings in UK Churches

The UK Christian Institute:

Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg wants the Government’s gay marriage plans to go much further by allowing gay weddings in churches.

He has been accused of shifting the goal posts and playing politics with marriage to curry favor with homosexual groups.

Mr. Clegg’s comments show that religious groups cannot rely upon Government assurances on the issue.

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg has hoisted a gay pride rainbow flag over Whitehall in the run up to a London gay pride event this weekend.

Under current Government plans for gay marriage, same-sex weddings could only take place in civic, not religious, settings.

But Nick Clegg wants the plans to go further. He said: “I think that in exactly the same way that we shouldn’t force any church to conduct gay marriage, we shouldn’t stop any church that wants to conduct gay marriage.

Bishop Cordileone: Gay Marriage is Unjust to Children

Catholic News Agency:

The legalization of “gay marriage” in America, even on a civil level, is unjust to children and poses a threat to religious liberty, warned Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of Oakland, Calif.

“Marriage is the only institution we have that connects children to their mothers and fathers,” he said. “So really, the question is, do you support that institution?”

In a June interview with CNA, Bishop Cordileone, who leads the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, explained that Church teaching against the redefinition of marriage on a civil level as well as a sacramental level is a matter of justice.

“Marriage is about fundamental justice for children,” he said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.”

... Based on sound social science, this [New Family Structures] study complements common sense and “demonstrates what we’ve always known,” Bishop Cordileone said. “Children do best with a mother and a father.”

The bishop explained that this issue is of crucial importance because “we cannot have two different definitions of marriage simultaneously in the country.”

“Only one definition of marriage can stand,” he said. “This is not expanding the right of marriage. It’s changing the definition, or taking away something is essential to marriage – that it’s the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of the binding of the two and the procreation and education of the next generation of offspring.”

Presbyterians to Vote on Changing Their Definition of Marriage

Will the Presbyterians, like the Methodists, move back from the brink?

The Civil Union and Marriage Issues Committee at the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has agreed upon two items to be considered by the assembly, one of which would amend the church's definition of marriage.

Those on the committee voted 28-24 on Tuesday in favor of sending the proposal, which could change the church's definition of marriage "between a woman and a man" to being "between two people," to the General Assembly for consideration. The proposal would also change the definition of marriage from being a "civil contract" to a "covenant" that "according to the laws of the state also constitutes a civil contract."

According to a live blog about the committee, they also approved sending another proposal, which would move the entire denomination "into a season of serious study and discernment concerning the meaning of Christian Marriage." This "season" would last until the next General Assembly in 2014, when the topic would be readdressed. -- The Christian Post