Dear Friends of Marriage,

Anti-Prop 8, pro-gay-marriage candidate Tom Campbell is in trouble. The just-released PPIC poll shows he has dropped into second place two points behind Carly Fiorina, and just 7 points ahead of Chuck DeVore.

Hotline just broke the news: "Campbell Cuts Back on Ads."

Ex-Rep. Tom Campbell (R) is cutting back on TV advertising. . .Campbell will not be on TV this coming week. And he has cut his ad buys for the final 2 weeks of the campaign significantly, according to sources who watch campaign ad spending; data shows Campbell has purchased $286K in ads over the last 2 weeks, less than the $393K he had previously reserved.

Reducing your ad buys a few weeks before an election usually means one thing: You are running out of money.

The election is just three weeks away and a huge block of voters remain undecided. Anything can happen. Many conservative organizations and leaders (including the Susan B. Anthony List and Sarah Palin) have endorsed Carly Fiorina, while Chuck Devore has summoned real grassroots conservative energy. Both DeVore and Fiorina supported Prop 8, while Tom Campbell publicly urged its rejection. The vote split between these two is the only thing allowing a core liberal like Tom Campbell to stay close in a GOP primary.

Yesterday NOM announced a new phase in our Marriage 2010 Truth Squad campaign, a telephone outreach to 609,000 California likely GOP primary voters with a clear message: Vote against pro-gay- marriage, pro-tax Tom Campbell.

Anything can happen. But NOM is your voice  and one thing we can promise you: No pro-gay-marriage Republican is going to emerge without a fight!

Our ad campaigns are up and running in Minnesota, and yesterday we announced we are joining the fight in a new state, Hawaii.

Hawaii is a blue state, very Democratic, but it was also the very first state in the country to reject court-ordered same-sex marriage. In a special election that concludes tomorrow, Charles Djou faces two pro-gay-marriage Dems--and he has a fighting chance to be the pro-marriage Republican Congressman from the great state of Hawaii!

100,000 Hawaiians will hear a message from NOM: Vote for the pro-marriage candidate, Charles Djou!

Thanks to each and every one of you who make this kind of game-changing action possible. Thanks to each one of you who've supported NOM and trusted us to treasure your contributions, bundle them with the mites of others, and use them to make sure your voice and your values get heard! Thanks for praying for NOM and for all the other on the front lines of the marriage fight.

Thank you for calling your Congressman, your state Rep, your Senator, or your Governor when we asked you, for sending email alerts and alerting your friends.

This is how great movements are formed, when we come together in love across boundaries of race, creed and color to make a difference!

Stay tuned, or better yet, look for NOM's Marriage Election Watch 2010 bulletins, and be prepared to celebrate good news from Hawaii!

A bit of good news from the international front. A group of Argentinians have put together their own equivalent of the Manhattan Declaration, the "Declaration of Citizens on Life and Family." Those of you who speak Spanish (or don’t mind the eccentricities of Google translations), check it out here.

Meanwhile the painful schisms between African and the West wracking the Anglican communion have moved to the Lutherans. Christian Century reports a major assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, representing Lutherans in Tanzania and Ethiopia, issued a statement opposing "same-sex marriages and those who support the legitimacy of such marriage."

The Christian Century reports, "A statement posted April 29 on the Web site of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) said it will neither accept money nor work with groups that 'support the legitimacy' of same-gender marriage."

All over the world gay-marriage advocates are using class networks to punish those who disagree with their views. Nowhere is the courageous resistance to this strategy more moving than in Africa, where African Christians are telling their rich brethren in the West: We cannot be bribed into giving up the Gospel.

As one African bishop told a European one: "You brought us the Gospel, and it was a great gift. But if it is not true, why did you bring it?"

Our marriage traditions are not like racism; they are good.

The Christian vision of marriage as a coming together of male and female in the service of new life, a vision shared by virtually all of humanity until the last couple of years, is not at all like bans on interracial marriage.

In fact in a new essay on The Public Discourse, Baylor Prof. Frances Beckwith shares some new legal research that points in quite the opposite direction.  Not only does the race analogy fail to hold, actually it is gay-marriage advocates who, like advocates for bans on interracial marriage, are seeking to misuse the law to impose a politicized ideology of marriage on the whole culture.

He's a philosopher, so you may find his argument a bit complex, but hang in there with me; this is important and brilliant.  Beckwith writes: "At common law there was no ban on interracial marriage." What does that mean? ". . .This means that interracial marriage was a common-law liberty."

The race analogy, he says, "does not work":

"For if the purpose of anti-miscegenation laws was racial purity, such a purpose only makes sense if people of different races have the ability by nature to marry each other. And given the fact that such marriages were a common law liberty, the anti-miscegenation laws presuppose this truth. But opponents of same-sex marriage ground their viewpoint in precisely the opposite belief: people of the same gender do not have the ability by nature to marry each other since gender complementarity is a necessary condition for marriage."
 
Here's where Beckwith underscores how interracial marriage bans and gay marriage are similar: They are both attempts to politicize marriage, to have the government misuse its power to try to make marriage achieve not its own natural ends, but the government's ideological goals.

By injecting race into the equation, anti-miscegenation supporters were very much like contemporary same-sex marriage proponents, for in both cases they introduced a criterion other than male-female complementarity in order to promote the goals of a utopian social movement: race purity or sexual egalitarianism.

He ends this important essay by quoting none other than NOM's own Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, president of the Ruth Institute.

This is why, in both cases, the advocates require state coercion to enforce their goals. Without the state’s cooperation and enforcement, there would have been no anti-miscegenation laws and there would be no same-sex marriage. The reason for this, writes libertarian economist Jennifer Roback Morse, is that "marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government. Hence, this explains its standing as an uncontroversial common law liberty. "By contrast," Morse goes on to write, "same-sex 'marriage' is completely a creation of the state. Same-sex couples cannot have children. Someone must give them a child or at least half the genetic material to create a child. The state must detach the parental rights of the opposite-sex parent and then attach those rights to the second parent of the same-sex couple."

Regimes that are founded on lies about human nature cannot last. That is one reason I am so confident that all your support, your contributions, and most importantly your prayers on this issue will not be in vain.

God bless you and your family, and thank you again for your support and encouragement. It means a lot to me, and to all of here at NOM.

Faithfully,

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
[email protected]

PS: NOM relies on your donations! Please consider whether you can spare $20, $50, or even $200 to protect marriage throughout this great country!

NOM in the News
"Anti Gay Marriage Ads Come to Minnesota Airwaves"
WCCO
May 18, 2010
A national group is sinking $200,000 into TV ads opposing gay marriage in Minnesota.

"TV Ad Zeroes in on Same Sex Marriage"
Star Tribune
May 18, 2010
Keying off of a Minnesota lawsuit filed by three gay couples to protest the state prohibition against same-sex marriage, the National Organization for Marriage says it is running $200,000 worth of television ads to protest those who would "redefine marriage in Minnesota."

"Ad Targets Lawmakers on Gay Marriage"
ABC 6 News
May 18, 2010
A Washington-based group says Minnesota is the newest battleground in the fight over gay marriage.

"Group Targets Gov Candidates on Marriage Amendment"
Minnesota Public Radio
May 20, 2010
I'm getting to this a little late because of the rush of the end to the legislative session but the National Organization for Marriage is starting a statewide ad campaign targeting candidates on the issue of same sex marriage.

"Kagan's Views"
Evansville Courier and Press
May 17, 2010
Opponents, like the National Organization for Marriage, say she will be "a vote for imposing gay marriage on all 50 states." But during her solicitor-general hearings, Kagan said there is "no constitutional right to same-sex marriage."

"Republicans Not Planning to Filibuster Kagan: Sen. Kyl"
LifeSite News
May 17, 2010
The National Organization for Marriage pointed out immediately following the announcement of the nomination that a brief authored under Kagan, who is the current U.S. Solicitor General, was revised to gut the legal arguments upholding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). While ostensibly issued in order to defend the federal law against a legal challenge, the brief actually condemned DOMA as "discriminatory," setting up pro-family advocates to fail in legal challenges down the road.

"Maine Gay Marriage Vote Funds in Question"
Associated Press
May 14, 2010
At issue is whether the National Organization for Marriage, which contributed $1.9 million to the campaign to repeal the gay marriage law, should have filed as a ballot question committee.

"Marriage Conference for Students"
Boundless Line
May 14, 2010
ave you considered attending a marriage conference this summer? Not married? No problem. The Ruth Institute will host its second annual student marriage conference August 12-15. This year's theme is "It Takes a Family to Raise a Village: Training the Next Generation to be Marriage Champions.”

"The Ruth Institute: Making Marriage Cool"
Kresta in the Afternoon
May 19, 2010
On August 6th 2009 at the University of San Diego, 32 students from across America along with experts in their respective fields, came together for three days to discuss the institution of marriage; how it stands in today's society, what challenges and jeopardy it faces and what we, as a free society, can do to nurture and protect it. The Ruth Institute's First Annual Student conference was a resounding success. Now they are on to step two, and this year’s conference is bigger and better. We talk with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse about the Ruth Institute: Making Marriage Cool.

"Media and Activists Come Out for Palin's Antiabortion Speech"
David Weigel
Washington Post Right Now blog
And the most prominent activist I've seen who doesn't work on antiabortion issues right now -- Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage.

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