An analysis of more than 350,000 interviews conducted by Gallup in 2008 finds Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas to be the most religious states in the nation. Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts are the least religious states.

... The United States is generally a religious nation, although the degree of this religiosity varies across states and regions of the country. A robust 65% of all Americans (across the entire U.S. population) reported in 2008 that religion was important in their daily lives.

... Additionally, at least half of the residents of all but four states (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts) say religion is important in their daily lives.

This hasn't stopped some groups in New England, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, from taking out ads in Rhode Island which read: "Keep Religion Out of Politics."

The Values Voter bus made a stop in Rhode Island on its way from New Hampshire to Ohio so speakers could talk about the importance of protecting religious liberties.

The bus stopped at Roger Williams National Memorial, named after Rhode Island's founder and champion of religious freedom, to make the point, according to Chris Plante, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-gay marriage group the National Organization for Marriage.

Among the visitors on the bus was Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group that promotes what it considers to be family values. Perkins who walked out of a long colorful bus that serves as a mobile office said the American family must be preserved an allowed to maintain its religious freedoms.

"If we want to change the size and scope of government first strengthen the American family. We do that by encouraging family formation without policy and protecting the right of faith in the community and the right to be aggressively involved in local community."

In early July, Rhode Island became the fifth state to pass a law creating civil unions for homosexual couples. Since then, only nine couples have applied for them.

... “Same-sex marriage advocates will seek to redefine marriage again in January,” [NOM-RI's Christopher] Plante said. “I’m not sure what they’ll be asking for this time. They can’t say, ‘We need this right or benefit or protection,’ because they’ve got it.”

Though the law contains a limited religious exemption—protecting churches, religious organizations and their employees—Plante said legislators are already moving to eliminate it. Meanwhile, his group plans to fight for its expansion.

“The truth is that attacks on religious liberties happen on an individual basis,” he said.

In their shouts for tolerance, the advocates for homosexual marriage neglect to include tolerance for people and institutions of religious faith. Sadly, in many states politicians -including some who call themselves Catholic- have sacrificed religious liberty on the altar of political correctness run amuck. Time and again when given the opportunity to allow the principle of religious liberty to be applied to religious institutions that provide much needed social services, the totalitarian apparatchiks of the homosexual marriage movement have attacked religious liberty and freedom in their relentless quest to redefine marriage at all costs.

We are thankful to Rhode Island Representative Arthur Corvese who had the courage and tenacity to stand up against this pervasive totalitarian mentality that attacks religious liberty seemingly in the name of tolerance and equality. We call upon all Rhode Islanders, especially members of the Catholic community, to continue the fight for religious freedom and the right of conscience, so that people and institutions of religious faith are able to practice their beliefs without interference of the state. It is clear that this is to be a long-term battle, and there are more attacks on the horizon. Together we can fight for our first liberty, religious freedom, for it must be never be allowed to be sacrificed by the intolerance of our secular society.

The National Organization for Marriage-Rhode Island will urge lawmakers next year to specifically outlaw gay marriage by defining it legally as being between a man and a woman, according to executive director Chris Plante.

“Then we look at 2012,’’ Plante said. “Marriage Equality Rhode Island will make this an election issue, and it will come down to who can bring the most leverage. We believe marriage is a winning political issue.’’

It’s possible the contentious debate could resurface yet this year, during a special legislative session this fall. Lawmakers intend to use the fall session to focus on the state’s mounting public pension crisis but could debate other issues as well.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence has issued a strong statement lamenting the passage of legislation allowing for civil unions in Rhode Island, and warned Catholics that they cannot be involved in such unions.

The legal acceptance of civil unions, the outspoken bishop said, involves “a social experiment that promotes an immoral lifestyle, is a mockery of the institution of marriage as designed by God, undermines the well-being of our families, and poses a threat to religious liberty.”

After reaffirming the Church’s teaching that homosexual activity is gravely sinful, Bishop Tobin instructed the faithful not to be a part of civil unions:

Because civil unions promote an unacceptable lifestyle, undermine the faith of the Church on holy matrimony, and cause scandal and confusion, Catholics may not participate in civil unions. To do so is a very grave violation of the moral law and, thus, seriously sinful. A civil union can never be accepted as a legitimate alternative to matrimony.

Hiding behind the idea of “compromise” and ignoring the almost universal opposition to this bill, the Rhode Island Senate has opened the door for the courts of Rhode Island to redefine marriage without a vote of the people.  The Senate’s refusal to allow a definition of marriage to be inserted into the bill is either a deliberate omission to set the stage for a future law suit or a naïve belief that homosexual marriage advocates will now go away.  Further, by not including an “inseverability” clause, the Senate has left vulnerable the hard won religious liberties protections put into the bill by the House of Representatives.

The National Organization for Marriage – Rhode Island is pleased that this bill has unprecedented protections for religious liberties in a civil union bill, however we are well aware that the protections do not go far enough to protect the religious liberties of business owners and professionals who wish to run their practices according to their deeply held religious beliefs.  By not extending these protections to individuals the Senate has put at risk the myriad of small businesses and practices run by people of faith.  These voters do not have the resources to defend against lawsuits and as such are left with the tragic choice of betraying their faith or risking their livelihoods.

Nevertheless, the National Organization – Rhode Island is pleased that marriage was successfully defended in Rhode Island against very long odds.  The voters of Rhode Island fought for marriage and defeated the number two priority of the Governor and one of the highest priorities of the Speaker of the House.  With a strong coalition of faith communities, NOM – Rhode Island was able to assist the House of Representatives in drafting and passing religious liberties protections that are unprecedented in other Civil Union laws.

The National Organization for Marriage – Rhode Island will continue to defend marriage and religious liberties in the Ocean State in the next legislative session and the electoral season to come.

Calling a bill that would legalize same-sex civil unions “onerous and discriminatory,” more than a half-dozen gay advocacy groups called on Governor Chafee Tuesday to veto the legislation if it passes with language that was added to protect religious organizations and their employees.

... While gay-marriage advocates say the protections go further than those in any other state, groups such as the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Marriage say they do not go far enough.

Follow the latest developments in Rhode Island on the NOM-RI website.

While it was clear there was overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage legislation in Maryland and Rhode Island, where the measures failed, New York "is a little bit of a unique creature," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage.

He said his group will work to defeat lawmakers who voted yes. That's what it did in New Hampshire.

Brown and others who oppose same-sex marriage said legislators should let voters decide the issue in a referendum, rather than decide themselves.

The author goes on to call for his progressive readers to "confront" local businesses over their lack of explicit public support for the gay movement's legislative priorities in Rhode Island and elsewhere.

Gay-rights groups such as Marriage Equality Rhode Island and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders said a House floor amendment that added religious protections goes further than similar measures in any other state. MERI, in a statement issued Thursday, said the bill would “legalize discrimination” and enable “faith-backed health-care organizations to ignore the legal status of same-sex couples.”

Other speakers, such as Joseph Cavanagh, of the National Organization for Marriage’s Rhode Island chapter, said the bill does not provide enough religious protections and would leave business people — photographers and bed-and-breakfast owners, among others — open to lawsuits if they do not provide services for civil-union ceremonies or events.

“People should not be forced to recognize something like this, and be charged with discrimination,” Cavanagh said.

... Asked when the Senate Judiciary Committee will vote, Chairman Michael J. McCaffrey, D-Warwick, said “the decision will be made whether to post it, if it’s going to be posted, within the next couple of weeks.”

Dear Marriage Supporter,

Coming to a public school near you?

Just when you think it can't get any weirder or more disturbing, an Oakland public school decided to teach grade-school children about multiple genders, under the banner of preventing bullying.

[Correction: The Oakland class in multiple genders was addressed to fourth-graders, not kindergarteners, and this post has been update to correct the error.]

Watch that video. Look at the children's faces. And then look at the activist from a group called "Gender Spectrum" who wants to embed in these children's minds the idea that we all have a right to make up our own gender(s).

"People can be girls, feel like girls, they can feel like boys, they can feel like both, and they can even feel, like I said, kinda like neither," he teaches them.

This is a movement that knows what it is doing.

This has been our busiest and (so far) most successful spring ever! We've seen victories in Rhode Island, Maryland, Minnesota, and next (we hope) New York.

But this week I want to step back from the incredible flow of events to focus on the great, great challenges we are facing ahead.

I mean what we are facing as a nation, as a civilization founded on moral truth, "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

As our Founders understood it, that equality rested on the self-evident decrees of nature and of nature's God.

Could Christianity, which gave birth to America, become an illegitimate stepchild in our own nation?

The evidence is mounting this week that too many advocates of gay marriage aim at nothing less than a revaluation of all values—to create a new, government-backed sexual morality in which those who adhere to traditional views of sex and marriage are demoted to second-class citizens.

"Marriage equality," in other words, means some people will be more equal than others.

I do not believe that most ordinary gay people, or gay-marriage advocates, intend to do harm. Most ordinary Americans are good people, for whom "live and let live" is good enough.

But the architects of this movement, it is increasingly clear, know exactly what they are doing, and why.

What is the evidence?

In Illinois this week, the Rockford Catholic Charities shut the doors to its adoption and foster care program, because a new civil unions bill with the Orwellian title of the "Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act" failed to explicitly protect religious liberty. The threat of litigation made continuing to help these children too risky—to the rest of the good work Catholic Charities continues to do.

The state legislator who sponsored the bill says that was not his intent, but too bad. He tried to go back and add specific religious liberty protections later, but too late.

He has regrets, but Illinois activists (who understood from the beginning that religious freedom would NOT be protected) are loud and proud about it.

Benjamin Wolf, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois who represents juvenile wards of the state as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, even noted that children would be the losers because of the special difficulties in finding good child-welfare organizations.

"Rockford would not be the place I would've chosen to start these transitions," Wolf said. "I am very sorry that they would give a greater priority to their commitment to continue discriminating than the health and welfare of Illinois children."

In other words, drive Christians and other traditional faith communities out of the public square, and then blame the victims for your own intolerance.

In Rhode Island, GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) has actually and actively opposed language in the House bill designed to protect religious institutions like Catholic Charities.

Karen Loewy, Senior Staff Attorney for GLAD, called the exemption "unprecedented," and designed only to inflict "gratuitous harm on Rhode Island's gay and lesbian families."

What about the gratuitous harm inflicted on children when religious adoption agencies are told they are no longer welcome unless they agree with the government's views on adoption? What about the gratuitous harm inflicted on every member of a traditional faith community in Rhode Island, when they are told their institutions and their beliefs make them second-class citizens?

Surely we can find a way to help same-sex couples make medical decisions for each other in hospitals, and fulfill other similar needs, without doing that much gratuitous harm?

But what if it's not gratuitous to the activists proposing these same-sex union bills? What if inflicting that kind of harm on religious institutions and people is part of the point?

It's not the details of religious liberty protections which bother these folks, it's the idea that there is anything worth protecting in the great faith traditions' views of sex and marriage.

The crisis in Illinois was precipitated by the conscious decision of same-sex couples not to go to the many agencies known to do same-sex foster care and adoptions, but to seek out religious agencies so they could lodge discrimination complaints.

A modus vivendi that finds room for all is not their goal. A new government-backed morality, which punishes and stigmatizes dissent and dissenters, is the goal.

Marriage Equality Rhode Island is actually now insisting that the Rhode Island senate revise its own civil unions bill to strip it of religious liberty protection, which in the eyes of these advocates is just a "loophole." Religious liberty—a loophole?

In Great Britain this week, another huge step down that road was taken. A gay man asked a Christian counselor to help him change his orientation, or at least live in accordance with his alleged religious beliefs. But this gay man was a liar. Excuse me, an "investigative reporter." He did not want her help, he wanted to punish her for being willing to help.

One need not agree with reparative therapy to see that this tactic represents a deeply troubling attempt to prevent anyone else from getting a kind of help that you don't want for yourself.

And it worked. This week a disciplinary panel found Mrs. Lesley Pilkington guilty of "professional malpractice," according to the Telegraph: "The ruling stated that her accreditation to the organisation will be suspended and she will be ordered to complete training. If she fails to comply she will be struck off the register."

In his newspaper article, Mr. Strudwick said: "I am an out, happily gay man. I was undercover, investigating therapists who practise this so-called conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy)—who try to 'pray away the gay'.'I asked her to make me straight. Her attempts to do so flout the advice of every major mental-health body in Britain.'"

Folks like Mr. Strudwick are loud and proud and utterly convinced that "live and let live" is a one-way street that ends with his power to punish and hurt those with whom he disagrees. And in Great Britain he can!

Here in the States, for the first time in recent memory a major newspaper has begun to cover the kind of open, ugly hatred that is directed against anyone who dares to stand for marriage as the union of husband and wife.

The New York Daily News, to their credit, reported, "Same-sex marriage foe State Sen. Ruben Diaz & family hit with death threats over stance on issue":

[Sen. Diaz's effort to protect marriage] has also drawn the Pentecostal minister into venomous, online clashes and spawned death threats called into his office. Now a Brooklyn gay bar will host a "F--- Ruben Diaz Festival."

"I have never preached hate," Diaz told the Daily News. "They're showing that they're the ones that are doing the hateful things."

Diaz said he and his family have received death threats due to his vocal stance on keeping gay marriage unlawful in New York State. They were reported to the FBI and Albany police, he said.

"We are in America; we are supposed to agree to disagree and respect each other's positions," the senator said.

On May 10, tweets by opponents of Diaz's May 15 rally included one in which the sender expressed the desire to sexually assault Diaz's daughter.

(Yes, that's me there standing proudly by Sen. Rev. Díaz's side at his rally in May.)

"Be not afraid," I tell you, as the Lord told us. In every crisis there is opportunity, and out of this civilizational crisis, if we come together and stand with courage and love, will come something great.

Let me close by pointing you to a column Maggie published in Patheos, in response to a young Catholic writer who said our fight for marriage is doomed.

Maggie called it "Why Life is Winning," and she pointed out, "Some say that no one will oppose gay marriage a few decades from now. They used to say the same about abortion":

When I was, well, a few years younger than Tim Muldoon is today, the message of despair now directed at marriage was directed at the pro-life movement. All the powerful elites favored abortion. Media coverage of anyone who was pro-life was dreadful. All the wives of Republican power-brokers favored abortion rights. If you said you opposed abortion, people would shout, "You are calling my sister a murderer!" They informed me that by the time I turned 50, the pro-life movement would be dead because young people were so pro-choice.

I'm 50 now, and yet the pro-life sentiment is surging as today's young people are more pro-life than their elders.

How did that happen?

There are many ways to answer that question, and what I offer here is more of a missing piece—the role of politics in cultural change—than a comprehensive theory. ...

By the 1990s, both sides agreed (at least publicly) that pro-life values should be respected, even if they continued to disagree on the specific legislative strategies for reducing abortion.

That political accommodation created a new cultural space for pro-lifers. The pro-life position became "respected" by both sides in the public square, rather than relentlessly de-legitimized by elite organs of culture.

Politics and culture are not separate activities. Sometimes culture determines politics. But sometimes politics, by raising the costs of demonizing pro-life positions, and raising the profile of the issue in the public square, serves cultural change as well.

Speaking of politics changing culture, we just helped form a new ballot initiative committee, Minnesotans for Marriage.

In 2012, we hope, pray and expect that the people of Minnesota, after a dignified and civil debate, will join 31 other states in voting to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

They will give a visible rebuke to those who claim that the majority of Americans support gay marriage, and rebuking the voices of despair who claim that the fight for marriage cannot be won.

Thank you for all you make possible. At NOM we want no less than to be your voice for your values—and for the truth about the human person: We are born male and female, called to come together in love so that the future can happen.

God bless you; and please pray for Sen. Rev. Díaz, and for everyone on the front lines of this great battle for God's truth about marriage.

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

P.S. For the sake of the next generation, marriage must be defended and the truth about marriage must be proclaimed in the public square. But for us to get that message out, we need your help. Please consider what you can give, whether it's $15 or $150. We will do everything in our power to make your voice heard, to win more victories for marriage.

On Sunday, I locked arms with Sen. Rev. Rubén Díaz and marched through the streets of the Bronx.

It was like nothing I've ever done or seen before: thousands of people, of every race, creed and color, but heavily Latino, with balloons, salsa music, and Bibles, determined that their voice will be heard in New York!

The festive atmosphere and the warm response of the people in the Bronx made it seem like, well, a ticker-tape parade, if the Bronx had ticker-tape parades.

As we marched, people waved to us from the their apartments buildings, signaling, with thumbs up and high fives, their agreement with the message of the march for dignity—we march in love to protect marriage as the union of husband and wife.

On the steps of the courthouse our thousands met a tiny counter-protest—a few dozen at most—but one of them was Rev. Díaz's granddaughter, who wishes to marry a woman.

I urged the crowd not to be silenced, but to stand for marriage.

One of the most touching moments came when Rev. Díaz called his granddaughter up to our side of the podium and kissed her.

She told reporters that she respected her grandfather even though she disagrees with him.

The only TV news station to cover what the Daily News called a "massive" rally on our side was New York 1—but they captured the touching exchange.

Respect, and love, in the midst of serious and important moral disagreement. That's the way this good fight should be fought!

The powers that be are unleashing an all-out push for gay marriage in New York which is like nothing we've ever seen before.

When Gov. Cuomo decided to barnstorm the state, raising public pressure on legislators, he declared that gay marriage was one of the top three issues he was trying to push this session. The New York Times editorialized that legislators should be "shunned" if they do not pass gay marriage (with a scarlet "M" maybe?).

This week, Mayor Bloomberg went to Albany to lobby and declared that passing gay marriage was the most important issue facing New York.

I'm scratching my head thinking, huh? Do these powerful pols really think that will play outside a small narrow circle? (Call it Manhattan!)

New York's economy is in the tank, housing prices continue to fall, taxes are rising, schools are failing, there's no budget in sight, and state pols keep getting locked up for stealing from the people's purse—but the most important issue facing New York is passing same-sex marriage?

Mayor Bloomberg also promised to support any GOP senator who voted for gay marriage in the next election—and of course that means big bucks.

The irony is that while Gov. Cuomo says he makes "ethics reform" one of his other top issues, we're watching spectacularly wealthy men try to pressure legislators to vote for something their constituents don't want.

The signs show that despite this incredible pressure, it's not (yet) working.

The blog City Hall News reported this week: "By the end of yesterday, none of the missing votes [for gay marriage] had yet materialized. And with only 14 days left in the legislative session, one Democratic Senate insider acknowledged that passing a gay marriage bill may not end up viewed with the same time pressure as renewing rent regulations, which must be completed by June 15."

Not a single Republican in the senate has come forward to say they will vote for gay marriage. Dean Skelos, the GOP senate majority leader, is backtracking from an earlier promise to put gay marriage to a vote—saying this week that he will caucus first with his conference before deciding whether to vote on the bill.

This is the same bill that died 38-24 just two years ago, remember.

Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long's announcement that the Conservative Party will not endorse any Republican who votes for gay marriage helped. As the New York Times reported in a profile this morning of Long and his influence: "'He's a man of his word, and his handshake is one of the last handshakes completely trusted in New York politics,' said Bruce N. Gyory, a Democratic political consultant and adjunct professor of political science at the University at Albany. 'And when he makes a threat, it counts.'"

The Conservative Party released this print ad this week, to remind squishy Republicans what happens to Republicans who vote for gay marriage:

NOM has pledged $1 million to inform voters about any Republican senators who votes for a spokesman for gay marriage (and to help brave Dems who oppose gay marriage too!).

We can't possibly match Bloomberg's money but we don't have to. All we need is enough money to get our message out.

As Maggie told the New York Times in this May 18 story, "The Republican base is incredibly united on this issue. . . .It's a really bad idea to be for gay marriage if you're a Republican, and I don't think Mayor Bloomberg's money is going to change that."

It's a tough fight, and it will go down to the wire.

Meanwhile, we're momentarily expecting good news from the formerly blue state of Minnesota. And in North Carolina, 3500 people rallied to demand the same right to vote for marriage. Kudos to Bill Brook and the North Carolina Family Policy council, Tony Perkins of FRC and all the good people who came together for that impressive rally.

Let me close with some words of encouragement. Over at Patheos, Maggie Gallagher responded to a Christian who wanted to give up on the fight for "civil marriage":

"Once we decide to give up on the public fight on marriage, what's next? What's next is shaming, punishing, and economically harming those who speak up for the biblical view of marriage—as the fates of Peter Vidmar and Damian Goddard have recently illustrated. What's next is the use of government, through the public schools and other avenues, to teach that the biblical view of marriage is discredited bigotry. See 'Can We Please Just Start Admitting That We Do Actually Want to Indoctrinate Kids' for evidence."

She goes on, "Gentlemen may cry truce, truce, but there is no truce. Those who decide to submit or withdraw or to mute themselves and their beliefs, under the heat now being generated against those who stand, will find it hard to find a principled place, later on down the very short road, on which to stand."

Maggie's always eloquent, but I also resonate to the gruffer wisdom of Mike Long, who explained to the New York Times:

"I can't go around life making everything a deal breaker. But there are certain things that you have to stand for. If we don't stand for this, then why are we in business?"

Thank you for helping us make victory possible, in His name,

Semper fi,

Brian S. Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

P.S. Every victory we win is really your victory, because we rely on your support. With every dollar you donate we help make your voice heard so that your values are upheld. Whether you can give $20 or $200, or perhaps a monthly donation of just $10, you can contribute to these great victories for marriage!

Amid the fallout over the failure to pass a gay marriage bill, a national gay news site has published a controversial report accusing the very organization that was leading the fight—Marriage Equality Rhode Island—of actually undermining the cause.

The report, which was published yesterday in the national gay news site, the EDGE, cites numerous sources who say that, even though MERI has consistently and publicly advocated for gay marriage, behind the scenes some MERI officials struck a deal with current and former Democratic legislators to scuttle the legislation in favor of a civil unions compromise.

Larry Berman, a spokesman for House Speaker Gordon Fox, told GoLocalProv there was no merit to the report.

... Joe Siegel, the author of the [EDGE] report, said he stands by the story. He said he ultimately received confirmation of his story from five separate sources—all with ties to MERI.

“There was absolutely backroom deals with Gordon Fox to pass the civil unions bill and delay the passage of the gay marriage bill until after the 2012 election,” Seigel told GoLocalProv.

The protests started as soon as Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox sounded the death knell for gay marriage legislation and said he'd back civil unions instead. A cop-out, gay marriage supporters said. A compromise for no one. One man made a sign proclaiming, "Fox Hunting Season is Open."

... "In my opinion he's a self-loathing homophobe," said Gary D'Amario of Cranston, who attended a rally at the Statehouse called after Fox made his decision.