Many, many thanks to all of you who came out (even with the threat of thunderstorms!) to stand for marriage as we kicked off our Summer for Marriage RV Tour yesterday in Augusta! 
It was wonderful to meet so many of you, and your energy and enthusiasm made for the perfect start to our 33-day, 23-city tour that will take us from the Northeast to the upper Midwest, then down to Florida before finishing in our nation’s capital on August 15th.
Take a minute to check out our tour coverage at www.marriagetour2010.com, including photos and videos from yesterday, ongoing tour coverage, and much more! Even the press is starting to pay attention, and we’ll have the media coverage posted as well.
We are simply thrilled that so many of you came out yesterday, and for those who didn’t make it, you missed a good time as we took a public stand for marriage, made new friends, and left inspired with messages from Rev. Emrich, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, and Charla Bansley.
If you’re able, in addition to standing publicly at the state house yesterday (or for those who couldn’t), please consider standing with us financially during this summer tour. Over the next five weeks, we will be meeting with thousands of new marriage supporters all across the eastern U.S. Your gift of $25, $50, or even $100 would be a great help as we take the message of marriage directly to the American people, meeting new activists, supporters and friends all along the way. Click here to make your donation today!
We can win this battle for the future of marriage in our nation. And with God’s help, we will!
20 Comments
Interesting thing. About 90% of the people in the photo are old white people.
Q: Where will they be in about 15 years?
A: In a coffin
Ninety percent? Seriously? Seven out of the 34 attendees pictured above look to be 60 or over. It's not terribly surprising that they'd be white in the State of Maine where the population is about 95% white!
And, just what is wrong with being white? Or, being old for that matter? You're not for the side that's chanting "no discrimination" and "no bigotry" -- are you? Because comments like yours smack of ageism and racism.
Well said Suzanne.
I've hardly heard comments as violent and discriminatory as those coming from the activists aiming to destroy real marriage.
The anti-gay marriage movement is losing big time. DOMA has been rules as unconstitutional, DC upheld gay marriage, and Argentina - a population overwhelmingly Roman Catholic - just legalized gay marriage. Any day now, California will have a ruling on prop. 8, and even NOM admits that prop. 8 will likely be toast. Shaun T could have been more tasteful in his argument which is that older people, who overwhelmingly are anti-gay marriage, are dying off, while the younger generation overwhelmingly support gay marriage, will be a majority of the population in the near future. NOM may still exist, but its significance will be less than minimal.
Mostly senior citizens, no surprise. Fighting a dying cause, you don't see hundreds of enthusiastic college students at these rallies. Most of these people are on their way to the graveyard, as is the cause of gay oppression.
Perhaps you aren't aware Leo, but young, hard working families make up the bulk of the marriage supporters in this nation, as is evidenced by the votes in Maine and California. Just because you don't see them at a rally doesn't mean they don't exist. We support marriage wherever we stand--- from our offices, mini vans and school yards, as well as the streets.
Jennifer, the gay activist anti-marriage movement may have friends in a few high places, manipulating the system to their advantage, but they don't have the hearts of the people. If they did, they wouldn't have to resort to buying lawmakers and legislating from the bench. The growing pressure the gay activists insist on putting into indoctrinating school age children is evidence of their failure in the arena of ideas, and will backfire. Parents don't appreciate having their children subjected to perverse political movements.
TC Mathews, quote frankly the marriage equality movement does not need to win the hearts of the people to gain justice in this country. As seen by organizations like NOM, homophobia is far too ingrained. The courts and our legislators will take care of that.
Actually Matthews,
Anti-gay marriage advocates are almost exclusively seniors. Look at the polls, people under 45 support gay marriage, people under 30 overwhelmingly so. If nobody over 45 was allowed to vote, gay marriage would be legal in 35 states.
Good news for you is that your demographic votes alot more than young people. Bad news for you is that every election more young people begin to vote and more old people become demented or dead.
Just ten years ago, gay marriage was an unthinkable fantasy, even for gay people. Now it is a cultural reality barely worth noticing. Gay marriage is a civil right that exists independently of the whims of the majority, but it looks like the majority is about to embrace the inevitable.
How convenient to lay all opposition to the anti-marriage agenda at the feet of something as nebulous as "homophobia". As long as anti-marriage activists refuse to acknowledge the real issues, they will continue to underestimate the strength and meaning of marriage in society.
TC Matthews: Really, TC, callling gays anti-marriage just makes you look foolish. Any rational person knows that just because same-sex couples want marriage rights, it doesn't mean they have something against heterosexual marriage. It may sound good to you but to most of us it just sounds really silly.
Chris, Redefining marriage destroys it. That is the argument of marriage supporters. I don't care who opposes marriage, or what their orientation is. This isn't a gays vs. straights fight. It's a marriage vs. everything else fight. People with same sex orientation fall on both sides of the marriage question, just like people with opposite sex orientation do.
Actually looking at the numbers of those who support the redefinition of marriage is a fascinating study. The rise in numbers of people who support infidelity, who don't value monogamy and who are open to "swinging", so called "open marriages" and other non-marital trends tends to mimic support for same sex "marriages". It's a much bigger issue than simply gays vs. straights. It's fidelity, monogamy and everything that traditional marriage stands for versus all other ideas. There is only one marriage. Either you participate or you don't. That's your choice, but forcing society to be "more open minded" when it comes to monogamy and the things that create stable society just isn't a good idea.
Gay marriage advocates like to point out that most young people support gay marriage as evidence that their cause is inevitable and will succeed once the old people died off. But that would only be the case if none of their views will ever change as they grew older and wiser, and they often do.
It was once claimed right after Roe vs. Wade that everyone would be pro choice by the year 2000 once everyone over 60 kicked the bucket. Now, here it is, 2010, and abortion is STILL a hot button topic. They said during the 70s that communism/socialism would become world wide by the turn of the century too (remember the domino effect?) and now, the world has yet to embrace it as the epitome of wisdom.
No one ever thought that referendums defining marriage as being between a man and a woman would pass in California and Maine, two notoriously liberal states. But they did. And as of today, over 40 states have adopted statues defending REAL marriage from the gay activist onslaught against the Judeo-Christian values that have made this country great.
The principles gay activists attack are not the kind of values that can be outdated. They are based on biological laws that have been in effect for hundreds of millions of years and will continue to be in effect for hundreds of millions of years. And no amount of judical activism or laws passed by legislators can ever possibly change them.
These values can be placed under attack and put down as raw bigotry. But the fact of the matter is that this radical agenda will never gain the general concensus of the people. Why else do gay radicals have to rely on judicial activism to force their views on this country?
ConservativeNY,
Excellent comments. I TOTALLY agree and stand with you in everything you said.
And soon your pathetic bigoted views will be a thing of the past. Just watch. I can't wait till we prove you wrong Conservative NY and your idiocies are proven wrong. And I bet anything that just like the Mormon Church funded Prop 8, they probably rigged the voting for it too. They probably only made it win by 53% because they didn't want to make it too obvious that it was rigged, same goes for Maine. You guys are nothing but liars and cheaters and always will be. It's just sad hatred fills your souls so completely.
I was a radical liberal. Now I grew up, became wiser, and oppose SSM not because I'm anti-gay, but because I know real marriage is different: it's the best place for any human being to be raised, and it's the only place that can easily teach a baby what a man and a woman are.
Yes: the SSM issue is not gay agains non-gay: it's reality against ideology; it's antropological truth against hate and self-destruction.
ROFL Sean! Wait! I thought it was the little green men....
"And soon your pathetic bigoted views will be a thing of the past. Just watch. I can't wait till we prove you wrong Conservative NY and your idiocies are proven wrong."
Well who made you the Nostradamus of the 21st century, Sean?