Just Give Up
February 20, 2012
Dear Marriage Supporter,
Imagine if you were on the cusp of the greatest victory of your life — within months of achieving something you'd worked doggedly for years to achieve, something truly worthy of a heroic effort. And even as you could almost feel victory in your hands, your opponent announces that your defeat is inevitable and it's time for you to quit. Moreover, this story leads the nightly news and fills the daily newspapers day after day.
Would you give up a virtuous fight because those who oppose you say it's inevitable you will lose? Of course you wouldn't! The very notion is outrageous — yet that is the inside out, upside down world we're served by the media when it comes to the issue of marriage.
If you are not ready to give up right before we're about to win our greatest victory, please show your support right now by making a contribution of $35, $50, $100, or even $1,000 or more.
Inevitability is the great lie of the same-sex marriage movement. It's one that has been carefully crafted and aggressively spread throughout the media and the culture. But it's a lie nonetheless.
Here's the truth of where we stand with the marriage movement: we are within months of achieving our greatest victory — winning the Roe v. Wade of marriage.
The cases regarding the validity of Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — and especially the Prop 8 case — were brought for one purpose: to redefine marriage for the entire country.
You're not reading about this in the mainstream media, but I believe our opponents have made a catastrophic miscalculation. In their hubris, they have pressed a claim that is utterly preposterous and I believe will surely be rejected by the Supreme Court.
They claim that the U.S. Constitution contains an absolute "right" for a man to marry another man or a woman to marry another woman. Moreover, they contend the Constitution has contained this legal right for the past 145 years!
Do you think those Americans who adopted the 14th Amendment back in 1868 realized that it was done so that homosexual "marriage" would be accepted as the law of the land? ("Oh, you don't? You must be a bigot!")
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Our opponents have bet the farm on their Supreme Court strategy to force a redefinition of marriage on America. On paper, it all looks great for them. They've got a famous legal team which has spent millions of dollars pressing their outlandish legal claims. They got a homosexual judge in San Francisco to agree with them. And then they got the uber-liberal Ninth Circuit to go along.
But, significantly, even the Ninth Circuit couldn't abide the reasoning articulated by San Francisco judge Vaughn Walker, and they worked overtime to skirt the question of whether the 14th Amendment provides a "right" to same-sex "marriage." Instead, their opinion relies on a legal theory not previously advanced by the plaintiffs' legal team of Ted Olson and David Boies.
Perhaps even the notoriously liberal Ninth Circuit realizes that claiming a federal constitutional right to gay marriage is a legally untenable position.
You're not going to read about this in the media either, but the truth is that many gay activists have actively resisted and opposed the legal strategy that Chad Griffin (the new president of the Human Rights Campaign) and his legal team of Olson and Boies have ballyhooed. Prior to Chad Griffin recruiting these prominent lawyers, many gay activists worked overtime to prevent a federal lawsuit that sought to impose same-sex marriage. They felt that it was premature for them to make such a broad claim. But Griffin, Olson and Boies didn't need the rest of the gay activist movement. They had millions of dollars in funding from Hollywood, and they pressed their strategy full steam ahead.
Now, of course, LGBT activists have rallied around their "leaders" and are all singing to the same tune. But watch what happens if (I think 'when') the Supreme Court rejects the key claim by Griffin, Olson and Boies of a federal constitutional right to same-gender marriage. Then the scramble will be on by groups to point out that they 'always' had concerns about this legal strategy and it's a shame that it was brought prematurely.
Griffin, Olson and Boies suffered a critical loss a few weeks ago when a federal judge in Nevada rejected a claim — nearly identical to those made in the Prop 8 case — that their state marriage amendment was unconstitutional. The judge pointed out that gay activists have become one of the most powerful interest groups in the country, and had achieved electoral success in several states in 2012. He wrote, "It simply cannot be seriously maintained, in light of these and other recent democratic victories, that homosexuals do not have the ability to protect themselves from discrimination through democratic processes such that extraordinary protection from majoritarian processes is appropriate."
Political powerlessness is a key legal ingredient in determining that a group (like homosexuals) is entitled to heightened legal protection from the federal courts — something critical to finding that a law like Proposition 8 or DOMA is unconstitutional. You're not reading in the media about this critical loss for those who are challenging marriage. But you can bet that the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will be aware of it.
No, all you're reading about is what the media decides to print. It's amazing that whenever we win a big victory, it's not considered newsworthy yet when out opponents prevail it's all over the news.
Did you know that we prevailed in Hawaii last week and efforts to redefine marriage have been abandoned in that state? Hawaii — like all the others — was supposed to be "inevitable." Or that we also won in Wyoming? Did you know that we're making a real contest in Rhode Island, and that polls show overwhelming voter support for the right to vote on marriage? Were you aware that upwards of 200,000 people in Puerto Rico rallied the other day to show their support for true marriage (on an island with less than 4 million people!)? Or that over 1 million citizens in France recently filled the streets to protest redefining marriage? And did you realize that a nationwide public opinion poll conducted on election day right here in America showed that 60 percent of voters believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman?
No, if you depended on the media you wouldn't be aware of those great victories for marriage and the resounding show of support they have marshaled here and around the world.
Instead, you would have heard this great lie of "inevitability."
The history of the U.S. Supreme Court is that once they decide a fundamental legal issue, they don't quickly revisit it. If the Court rules in the Prop 8 case and DOMA cases that there is no federal constitutional right to homosexual "marriage," it is highly unlikely that they would revisit the issue for many years — perhaps decades.
Hopefully, you can see how much is riding on the upcoming Supreme Court battle. Will you help us secure that victory by making a generous contribution right now of $75, $150, $25-, or even $1,000 or more?
The truth is that there is nothing inevitable about the future of marriage. It's an issue that is very much up for grabs, and its future will depend on how hard people work to win the battle.
Are you prepared for the hard work that lies ahead?
Once we win before the U.S. Supreme Court, then we are likely facing a much longer-term battle to win the minds and hearts of Americans to understand the true nature of marriage, its connection to children and the importance of maintaining it. Sure, we'll have many intense legislative battles — in Congress, state Legislatures and at the ballot — and those battles will be hard-fought. But victory before the Supreme Court will give us the ability to engage this issue over the long term by working with churches, young people, ethnic groups and others to show the importance of preserving marriage for society, for future generations and, especially, for children.
That's what this battle is all about. The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, recently summarized it very succinctly. He said, "Children, who are our future, have a right to be raised by their mother and father together... For the sake of our nation, and especially for the sake of our children, marriage should be promoted and protected at every opportunity, never undermined."
Please take a minute right now to support all the critical work that the National Organization for Marriage is doing every day to get ready for the U.S. Supreme Court's hearings on the Prop 8 and DOMA cases (including filing legal briefs and organizing the critical March for Marriage), and to carry the fight for the truth of marriage in the halls of power and the court of public opinion. Thanks to a generous benefactor, every dollar you give will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $500,000. So it has never been a better time to give — your gift of $50 will instantly become $100. Won't you please contribute right now?
The only thing that is inevitable about the marriage issue is that if we surrender, we will surely lose. That's what our opponents hope we do. They're holding a bad hand and they're doing everything possible to convince you to fold.
Are you going to give up, or fight?
Frank Schubert is NOM's National Political Director. He managed the successful marriage campaigns in California, Maine and North Carolina and is one of the nation's leading strategists for advancing social issues.
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