NOM BLOG

After SSM, What Next? Redefining Fatherhood

The Calgary Sun:

In what’s being called a groundbreaking ruling, a gay Calgary man has been granted legal parent status in place of his ex-partner, the child’s biological father.

... The ruling granting parenthood to a gay male non-biological figure amid two separate guardians is unheard of in this country, said Edward McCann, lawyer for R. and D.

Together Until The End: Couple Married For 66 Years Die Within Hours of One Another

UK Daily Mail:

A devoted couple who were happily married for 66 years - and hardly spent a day apart - died within hours of each other.

Harold Luty, 86, would visit his beloved Mary, 87, every day at her nursing home where they would sit together holding hands and talking.

But he had not told her that he had cancer - and when he was told of her death, he lost his secret battle the following day.

... The couple had three children - Elaine, Jennifer and Dennis - six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

ADF's Brian Raum on the "Mounting Doubts About Same-Sex Marriage"

Brian Raum is the senior counsel and head of marriage litigation for the Alliance Defense Fund. In First Things he explains the many reasons to doubt same-sex marriage will ultimately become the law of the line, including (for instance) the ambivalence of gays to entering marriage in states that have redefined it:

In the wake of the New York Legislature’s decision to pass the so-called “Marriage Equality Act,” there has been a renewed discussion among homosexual activists over whether they really ought to be pursuing an institution historically rife with “heterosexual” values such as exclusivity, fidelity, commitment, and monogamy.

“I felt pretty ambivalent, I have to say,” said one celebrant, who a CNN reporter described as a “cross-dresser,” about the New York vote:

“It’s definitely not something I’m unhappy about.” But he wondered about the appropriateness of only extending new rights to gay people who embraced the specific model of heterosexual marriage. “Of course there are many other kinds of relationships, especially within queer culture, whether it’s open relationships or nonsexual companionship or polyamorous relationships. These nontraditional relationships have been championed in the gay community in the past, and I do think all types of relationships should be honored, and not just the people who fit this model.”

His partner agreed, adding, “I think it’s a little sad that what we’ve devoted ourselves to here is, at its core, about transfers of wealth and property.” The writer of the CNN article agrees: “I myself have never believed that marriage was such a magnificent institution that all gay people should be encouraged to embrace it. To me, being queer has always been about celebrating everything which makes us different.”

Forcing Christians Into the Closet? NOM Marriage News, October 21, 2011

NOM National Newsletter

My Dear Friends,

How quickly do the cultural inhibitions shift after same-sex marriage becomes the law?

In Connecticut, just a few years after court-ordered gay marriage became the law of the land, a public high school in Hartford chose to put on a musical featuring two boys kissing passionately.

The public school is composed of several "academies" with separate principals. One of the principals sent out a letter advising the parents in advance so they could choose whether that was appropriate for their children. But another principal, David Chambers, said he thought about and rejected that idea.

As Lifesite News reports:

Nursing academy principal David Chambers, said that he had considered sending an opt-out letter to parents before changing his mind.

Chambers said that students needed to learn empathy towards homosexuals and exposure to things that would make them uncomfortable. "Our kids are not there yet," he said. Chambers also suggested that the reaction of disgust was a good sign, indicating a release of students' inner conflict about homosexuality.

"Even though it's kind of chaotic, kind of wild and crazy, I see it as very successful," he said, according to The Courant. "Our kids never deal with this, they keep it inside, and that's that nervous energy. That's why they walked out."

Adam Johnson, principal of Hartford High's Law and Government Academy, agreed. "This is as important of a topic to discuss as anything in math, anything in social studies," Johnson said. "I'm completely glad that we did it."

Watching two boys kiss is as important as anything in math class?

In one sense, of course, we should not be surprised. The heart of the gay-marriage movement is a new moral idea: There is no difference between two men in a sexual union and the union of a husband and wife, and if you see a difference there is something wrong with you.

Of course once the government accepts the legitimacy of this position, public schools are going to reflect and promote, with your tax dollars, this new moral norm in a variety of ways, some we can predict and some we cannot.

This is a movement that has trumpeted what they believe and want, and then accuses others of lying or bad faith when they say those beliefs and demands will have consequences.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, a public school teacher posted her objections to celebrating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History month in her public school. Gay-marriage advocates are demanding she be fired. An "investigation" has been launched.

"She has a right to say it. But she does not have a right to keep her job after saying it," one former public official said.

What did Viki Knox say?

She did not call any person a name. She specifically called for kind and loving treatment of gay people and said that's the way she treated gay people in her life. She said she believed that homosexuality is a sign of a "perverted spirit" of this age.

Turning against the spirit of what God asks of us, she meant. Sin, she said, "breeds like cancer."

This week, for her sins, the Human Rights Campaign delivers 75,000 signatures—hardly any from her school district of course—demanding that the board act against Viki.

Thanks to your help, NOM was there at the protest in Union County, and in the next few days we'll be releasing new video footage from the protest so that you can see (through the mainstream media-haze) what these protestors really want.

Getting the word out with original videos isn't cheap. Please help us stand up for Viki and for others in her shoes by making a donation to NOM today! $5, $10, or, if you can afford it - $100 will help us leap over the MSM's biased coverage and stand up for truth and love.

The intense national public campaign to get Viki fired is another very bad sign about the intentions of gay-marriage advocates, a sign of the kind of America they believe "equality" requires.

Of course gay teens in public schools should be treated with respect. As a Christian I never forget that Christ died for each and every one of those souls. Children who bully one another need to be instructed, to be taught manners and morals.

But for the gay-marriage movement, at this point respect is not enough.

It's not a level playing field. It's second-class citizenship for Christians and other traditional faith communities.

Just a few years ago a gay teacher could have been fired. Now a Bible-believing Christian has to be "in the closet" or get fired.

In other important news, rich New York billionaires promised four GOP senators they would be "protected" if they betrayed the people they represent, the promises they made, and voted for gay marriage.

Now, as EWTN reports, "NY Senators Seen As Vulnerable for Turning Against Marriage":

"These senators campaigned with the promise that they would not vote to redefine marriage. Mark Grisanti, in fact, went as far as to promise churches that he would never vote to redefine marriage," our own Christopher Plante told EWTN. "But when they were shown the money, and they began to do the money dance, they betrayed their people's vote—for the money. Therein lies the problem."

At one of the many fetes in which establishment New York tried to persuade these four guys they are heroes, one of the New York Four, State Sen. Jim Alesi, actually explained out loud how lacking in integrity he has been and still is on this issue.

At an Oct. 18 panel hosted by the New York Times (which now loves Jim Alesi), he explained that he voted NO in 2009 because he was for same-sex marriage in 2009:

"As the State Senate Republican minority prepared to enter the chamber for the December 2, 2009 vote on marriage equality, James Alesi, a GOP member from the Rochester area, told his colleagues, 'I'm voting no. If anyone votes yes, I'm going to quit the Senate.'"

Politically, he was unwilling to take the heat for being for gay marriage in 2009. Instead, he explained that senators knew ahead of time that the votes for passage were not there.

He says now, in 2011:

"This was the best vote [for same-sex marriage] I've ever taken in 20 years, and I'll go to my grave with that."

As New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his coterie of wealthy establishment Republicans hosted a fundraiser showering more than a million dollars on these four pro-gay-marriage state senators, with your help the National Organization for Marriage launched a new web ad, "The Money Dance."

Under media scrutiny for selling his vote and betraying his constituents, Sen. Grisanti said a very strange thing to the press:

State Senator Mark Grisanti: "To say 'you're next,' first of all I don't know what that means, second of all it was done by an organization that's based out of Utah, that pays no taxes in New York state, that doesn't care about Western New York whatsoever."

Huh? NOM has supporters in all fifty states, including New York. Just look at the hundreds of Western New Yorkers who showed up for out Let The People Vote Rally in Buffalo:

Sen. Grisanti—these are New York taxpayers. These are your constituents.

These are the folks you betrayed when you cashed in on your vote for gay marriage.

NOM's "Money Dance" ad lampooning the pro-SSM New York Senators who betrayed the voters is already being noticed by New York media.

Times-Union Capital Confidential:
"The National Organization for Marriage is out with a JibJab-ish web ad attacking the four GOP Senators who voted for same-sex marriage last June. This is a response to the recent fund-raiser held for the lawmakers in New York City."

New York Daily News Daily Politics:
"The senators, as you can see, are Roy McDonald, Mark Grisanti, Steve Saland and James Alesi [...] As we noted here on The Daily Politics two weeks ago, NOM is also waging a billboard campaign against the Republican quartet."

WIVB Buffalo:
"The organization behind the billboard that's up along Interstate 190 also has released a new web ad called, 'Money Dance.' The ad features the four senators dancing with wealthy contributors. It's in response to a fundraiser Grisanti attended Thursday in New York City hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg."

Buffalo News:
"The event was used as new attack material by the conservative National Organization for Marriage, which has vowed to spend $2 million to defeat Grisanti and the other Republican senators in next year's elections. The group already has taken out billboards in the senators' districts and on Friday launched an online advertisement labeled 'Money Dance' against the four lawmakers."

Politics on the Hudson:
"The National Organization for Marriage is up with an online ad today against the four Republicans senators who voted in June to legalize same-sex marriage. [...] NOM has a 'Let the People Vote' campaign that is seeking to overturn the same-sex marriage law, which took effect in July, through a constitutional amendment."

WNED Buffalo:
"State Senator Mark Grisanti continues to be dogged by his vote in June on the Marriage Equality bill. Grisanti was one of four Republicans who sided with Democrats to get the legislation passed. Now, critics are claiming that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted a lavish fundraiser recently to pay the Senators back."

Thank you for all you do to help us break through and get the message out in all 50 states: People care about marriage!

Also in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gets up and slams millions of Americans as bigots this week, claiming,

"Ultimately, there was no answer by the opposition. There isn't! There really isn't. And as soon as you ask the question, and you probe the answer, the only answer [by those opposed to the gay marriage bill] is 'I want to discriminate against gay people.'"

Really? For thousands of years human beings have recognized marriage as the union of male and female—for no reason but to hurt gay people?

Who is being irrational now? Where does this ugly mischaracterization lead?

The governor of New York, who is living openly in a home with his children and the woman he does not love enough to marry, and the mayor of New York City, whose children at least are grown but who also does not love the woman he lives with enough to marry her, are preaching to the rest of us about the reasons and rationality of marriage?

Does this really make any sense at all?

Finally, disturbing news out of Washington State. The Secretary of State's office on Monday began making public the names of 137,500 people who signed Referendum 71 petitions two years ago to repeal a civil union law.

The lawsuit designed to prevent the disclosure of these names, given the organized efforts to harass and threaten petition signers in Prop 8 and in Massachusetts, may have failed for now. But the two-year delay, we hope, has given the zealots time to cool their tempers and re-evaluate a strategy designed to intimidate people for exercising their core civil rights.

Please pray for each of the 137,500 and for the people who disagree with their views. Democracy demands a culture of civic respect even when we passionately morally disagree.

So much is happening behind the scenes, and under the radar screen. So many decent, good people are gathering their courage to face the onslaught that is coming.

So many victories, unpredicted and unheralded, to be fought for and won.

Thank you for all you do to make this possible.

Alone, we can be frightened and intimidated. Together we are too many to be deterred, discouraged, or defeated!

God bless you and thank you again for your prayers, your emails, your letters, and your financial sacrifices, on behalf of God's truth about marriage!

Faithfully,

Brian Brown

Brian S Brown

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

PS: If what you read here has renewed your strength and desire to fight for marriage, act now! No matter what you can give, you can make a difference by donating to NOM. You are fighting for the future of marriage in this country, for your children and grandchildren and the generations to come.

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NOM Video: Viki Knox Supporters and Protestors at NJ School Board Hearing

NOM cameras were there in New Jersey this week to fill-out local media coverage of Viki Knox's school board hearing:

Student-Led Organization Supports Marriage at Eastern Kentucky University

The Ruth Institute blog:

A group of individuals have come together on campus with the intent of reminding Eastern of what they said is a forgotten value: marriage between a man and a woman.

The group, Love and Truth, was approved by Student Life two weeks ago and immediately began advertising and recruiting around campus several planned events this year.

Joelle Sprague, president of Love and Truth, said men and women each bring a different aspect to a relationship.

“Marriage is under attack in the United States and the world,” said Sprague, a 23-year-old graduate student from Lawrenceburg. “It is not respected or valued in this society anymore,”

The club has planned a tabling event on Powell Corner, received money from the Ruth Institute for conference fees and discussed bringing speakers to campus.

... According to its mission statement, “… By advocating for the historical, biological and ethical reasons for marriage, Love and Truth aims to uphold the sanctity of marriage and its crucial role of creating the most stable environment for childrearing. Love and Truth’s aspirations are to inform students about the benefits of marriage and why it should be respected, valued and supported in today’s modern era.”

The New Enemies of Eros

If you haven’t read Kate Bolick’s Atlantic magazine cover story attempting to celebrate her liberation from marriage and motherhood as ideals, it’s worth reading, especially between the lines.

My response on the Public Discourse is here (excerpt below):

Her essay reads like a dreary slog through the gap between myth and reality of the sexual revolution. Kate goes back to speak to younger women today, and is appalled by what she finds among 20-somethings:

Most of them said that though they’d had a lot of sex, none of it was particularly sensual or exciting. It appears the erotic promises of the 1960s sexual revolution have run aground on the shoals of changing sex ratios, where young women and men come together in fumbling, drunken couplings fueled less by lust than by a vague sense of social conformity.

What caused the “de-eroticization of sex,” she wonders.

Who exactly are the new enemies of Eros?

Sex has been divorced from meaning. Men are not being raised to be good family men, and women are not being raised to appreciate good family men. And men are failing to become the kind of men women want. Porn is available for all as a substitute for life. . . . .

The truth is celebrating singleness — i.e., celebrating “not doing something” — makes no sense. Loving is better than not loving. Choosing to love and commit to a husband or a child is a much higher ideal than choosing not to; that’s why it needs to be celebrated and idealized.

Of course, not everyone marries or becomes a mother, and of course every human life has other possibilities for meaning, and other forms of love to give.

But all of these other loves — the aunt, the grandparent, the best friend — came into being because somewhere some woman gave herself to the independence-shattering act of making a family.

E. Iowa Government: NOM Involved In Iowa Senate 18 Race

Eastern Iowa Government news site:

Both candidates in a special election in Iowa Senate 18 are downplaying the issue, but a national group opposed to same-sex marriage is backing the Republican candidate with a series of mailers into the Linn County district.

The National Organization for Marriage said is the latest national groups to get involved in the race that could change the balance of power in the Iowa Senate. NOM is launching an independent expenditure campaign along with The Family Leader to support Cindy Golding. It described her as “a strong traditional marriage.”

See our NOM mailers and read the press release here.

Jeff Anderson on An Opportunity for Herman Cain on Marriage

In response to Herman Cain saying he would "leave it up to the states" to define marriage on Meet the Press, Jeff Anderson of The Weekly Standard proposes a way Cain could make good on his promise that he is fully pro-marriage:

...there’s a way for Cain [...] to elaborate on and to refine his answer in a manner that’s consistent with his support for traditional marriage, his support for federalism, and his response to Gregory. Cain could make clear that he’s in favor of constitutionalizing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Cain [...] could emphasize that constitutionalizing DOMA would ensure that the people of each state actually would get to decide this issue for themselves. That result is now very much in doubt, as judges (who illegitimately thrust this issue forward in the first place by imposing their own policy preferences from the bench) could potentially require one state to accept the marital definition of another, under a dubious reading of the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit clause (Article IV, Section 1) or even the Equal Protection clause (Amendment XIV). At the same time, constitutionalizing DOMA would ensure that, within its own sphere of operations, the federal government would adhere to the traditional and time-honored definition of marriage.

Or, Cain could simply sign the NOM marriage pledge, which among other things would commit him to supporting a federal marriage amendment while rigorously defending DOMA.

Video: Team Iowa PAC Cuts Ad in Support of Cindy Golding

They introduce the ad this way: "On November 8, 2011, Iowans will unite to elect Cindy Golding to Senate District 18 in order to end the gridlock in Des Moines and the Democratic majority."

Video of Viki Knox's Husband, Sister and Protests

A local TV outlet interviewed Viki Knox and her husband at their home. Viki's husband defends his wife's freedom of speech and testifies to her character:

This video captures the protest that gay activists staged outside of the school where Viki teachers, and interviews some participants -- including Viki's sister who was there to support her:

Cornerstone's Kevin Smith Resigns, Rumored to be Running for NH Governor

The New Hampshire Journal:

Cornerstone Policy Research and Cornerstone Action Executive Director Kevin Smith will announce his resignation from the post today. Smith’s announcement comes amid rumors of a potential gubernatorial run by the popular conservative activist. If Smith enters the race, he will face a primary with already-declared Republican candidate Ovide Lamontagne.

Des Moines Register: NOM Supporting Cindy Golding in Iowa Senate Election

NOM's involvement in the Iowa special senate election on November 8th is already drawing media attention:

The National Organization for Marriage is getting involved in Iowa’s special Senate election.

The group, which opposes same-sex marriage and was active in the effort last year to remove three state Supreme Court judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in the state, will distribute mailers supporting Republican candidate Cindy Golding.

The Nov. 8 election in Cedar Rapids-area 18th Senate District will fill the vacancy created when incumbent Democratic Sen. Swati Dandekar resigned to accept a state appointment. If the seat goes Republican, it would deadlock the chamber at 25 Republicans and 25 Democrats, perhaps allowing Republicans to advance a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage.

The first mailer argues that the “future of marriage” hangs in the balance of the election and contrasts Golding as the “traditional marriage” candidate against Democratic opponent Liz Mathis, who “supports gay marriage.” -- Des Moines Register

HRC Delivers 75,000 Petitions Calling for Viki Knox's Firing

The New Jersey Star-Ledger:

About 300 people turned out Tuesday night for a Union Township school board meeting to both denounce and defend Viki Knox, the high school teacher whose anti-gay Facebook comments have ignited a robust debate over free speech, gay rights and the separation of church and state.

... representatives from Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay-rights association, attended to deliver a petition signed by 75,000 supporters calling for Knox’s firing.

... Union parent Ondria Caffey said she corresponded at length with district administrators to express her dismay over the LGBT display — weeks before she learned of Knox’s comments.

"I rely on UHS for teaching my child academics, not for what this display represents," Caffey said at the meeting.

Gay Activists Arrested in North Carolina While Demanding Marriage Licenses

Associated Press:

A two-week-long campaign to protest North Carolina's laws prohibiting gay marriage ended with two demonstrators being arrested Friday in Asheville after they refused to leave a county office building where marriage licenses are granted.

Elizabeth Eve and the Rev. Kathryn Cartledge sat on the floor of the Buncombe County Register of Deeds and refused to move until they were arrested and led away in handcuffs. Authorities said the two were charged with second-degree trespassing and released later in the day with a scheduled court appearance on Dec. 5.