Brian Brown, president of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, last night claimed that “Gay and lesbian people already enjoy full equal rights under the law,” a clear lie. Same-sex couples are legally prohibited frBrown, who issued the claim in response to President Obama’s historic call for full LGBT equality in his inauguration speech, also “criticized President Obama’s decision to use his Inauguration Day address to further divide the nation on the question of what is marriage,” in a press release posted to the NOM blog:
“They have the same civil rights as anyone else; they have the right to live as they wish and love whom they choose. What they don’t have is the right to redefine marriage for all of society. In fact, six federal courts have rejected the idea that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court in a summary decision in 1972. Furthermore, the vast majority of states have codified the commonsense view held for thousands of years that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. The President is profoundly wrong to imply that those who have acted to protect marriage have denied anyone’s rights by doing so.”
Curiously, Brown was forced to go back in history four decades, to 1972, to support his claims. Meanwhile, in the 21st century — an era which Brown conveniently forgot to mention — dozens of federal judges have declared DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that bans the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, unconstitutional, and branded his special brand of anti-gay animus as reason to toss California’s Prop 8 out the window.
Also, Brown’s ludicrous lie of “the commonsense view held for thousands of years that marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” flies in the face of same-sex unions blessed by Christian Churches centuries ago, and the fact that the Bible itself supported men marrying as many women as they could afford. It wasn’t long ago that Mormonism supported polygamy, as other religions do to this day.
“A presidential inauguration should be a time for the nation to come together; instead President Obama chose to voice his support for a radical agenda advanced by some of his biggest campaign contributors to redefine marriage for everyone,” Brown claimed, which, again, is false.
When women were given the vote, was it redefined? Did we call “voting” something else when only male landowners were allowed to vote? Was marriage called something else before Blacks and whites were allowed to marry each other in this country?
“Marriage brings our nation together. The concept of gay ‘marriage’ would have been totally alien to our founding fathers, and the protection and advancement of marriage between one man and one woman will immeasurably serve the common good of this country and further strengthen our Union. Today the President should have thrown his support behind this beautiful vision of men and women coming together in love to raise the next generation. Nonetheless, we pro-marriage Americans pledge to defend the institution which the President has chosen to undermine once again.”
The National Organization For Marriage is facing a devastating reality that its anti-gay hatred, its corporate policy of promoting racial division, and its anti-equality raison d’être, is a losing battle, as the majority of Americans for several years, in poll after poll, and now in elections across the nation, from Washington state to Washington D.C., from Maryland to Maine, have voted to extend the institution of marriage to same-sex couples.
Clearly, we can continue to expect heightened rhetoric from Brian Brown and his National Organization For Marriage, as they continue to lose their fight.
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Related:
NOM’s Marriage Anti-Defamation Spokesperson: Obama Is A Terrorist
NOM: ‘Americans remain strongly in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.’
NOM: In 2009 We Spent $8 Million Fighting Same-Sex Marriage
New NOM Poll: ‘Should Obama Force Homosexual Marriage On Everyone?’
NOM’s New Anti-Gay Ad Suggests Gay Parents More Likely To Abuse Kids