Brian Brown Contradicts NOM’s Spox And Media Sponsor To Lie About Anti-Gay Hate Rally Numbers

Each year NOM president Brian Brown inflates attendance numbers at his annual anti-gay hate rally, but now he’s really gotten caught.

On Saturday the National Organization For Marriage held its annual and possibly final March For Marriage, an anti-gay hate rally during which mostly New York City evangelical Christians from State Senator Ruben Diaz’s home district in the Bronx, Queens and upper Manhattan are bussed to Washington, D.C., having been promised a free tour of the nation’s capitol.

While D.C. Capitol Police do not release crowd estimates, each year reporters and groups attempt to deliver guesstimates on the number of people in attendance.

And while this year’s attendance was reportedly slightly higher than last year’s, NOM President Brian Brown today just blatantly lied in an email to supporters.

ThinkProgress’ Zack Ford, who was on the ground attending the hate rally, including the speeches from far right wing religious zealots most Americans have never heard of, put the crowd estimate at 6000.

Life Site, a right wing website publishing anti-LGBT and anti-choice “news,” was the March for Marriage’s the official media sponsor. “Attendance estimates ranged from 5,000 to 10,000,” they reported today. 

Last year’s official media sponsor, the Washington Times, reported only that there were “thousands” present on Saturday.

The International Business Times reported that NOM spokesman Paul Bothwell “estimated the crowd at approximately 10,000,” and added, “Social media photos suggested attendance may have been decidedly lower than Bothwell’s estimate.”

So, of course, today Brian Brown sent supporters a fundraising email today that double or even tripled every other estimate we could find.

“On Saturday we had an amazing March for Marriage — our biggest and most successful ever! There were approximately 15,000 marchers present!,” Brown wrote in an email and post on NOM’s website this afternoon.

NOM has a history of lying, but really? 15,000? Was the lie worth it?

UPDATE:
Joe Jervis reports, “On Saturday the Washington Post reported that Brown was claiming attendance at 7000.  Outside observers pegged the number at 2000 – 3000.” 

 

Image: Screenshot via UStream/NOM