NOM BLOG

Monthly Archives: October 2010

Adopt NOM’s “Vote Pro-Marriage” Twibbon on Facebook today!

We’ve just released a great new opportunity to stand for marriage online.  It’s our new “Vote Pro-Marriage” profile ribbon (aka twibbon).  Send a clear message about how you’re voting this midterm election and urge your friends to join you by posting NOM’s “Vote Pro-Marriage” twibbon to their profile pictures as well. It won’t replace your profile pic – just overlay a “Vote Pro-Marriage” message across the bottom of your existing picture. Click here to preview and adopt your Pro-Marriage avatar today!  Then spread the word! And don’t forget to click all the way through to set your new Twibbon as your profile picture.

Bye Bye Barney?

Netroots are reporting an internal Bielat poll shows the race tied:

"October 27, 2010 -  We obtained a Bielat campaign internal memo on their polling from last week showing the race is a statistical dead-heat against incumbent Congressman Barney Frank.  The memo, sent from an anonymous source,  illustrates and echoes only what we’ve been hearing and seeing on the ground.  While Sean Bielat’s number of supporters seem to be increasing at every event, Barney Frank’s supporters are all but non-existent."

Check out the very funny Bye Bye Barney Shuffle, here:  www.byebyebarney.org

Breaking News: New Poll Shows MN Gov Race a Dead Heat!

Dayton's lead among women is dropping, Emmer's support from men is rising: 5 days before the election 9 percent of voters are still undecided:  39 percent Dayton, 38 percent Emmer, 13 percent Horner. Read more.

Visit MNforMarriage.com for information on where all Minnesota candidates stand on marriage.

Does Religion Kill Gay Teens?

Maggie Gallagher takes up the question in her syndicated column.

Maggie talks SSM to Australia!

In part one of an interview with the Australian Conservative, Maggie responds to the equality argument for same-sex marriage:

If you ask gay rights advocates this question they will say “separate is not equal.” In other words the practical benefits are not the real issue – the real issue is the moral symbolism. The heart of the argument for gay marriage is “There is no difference between same-sex and opposite-sex relationships, and if you see a difference, there is something wrong with you – you are like a bigot who opposes interracial marriage.” That’s why this is ultimately not about what people do in private, but about the public expression of a powerful new norm that will be backed up by the power of the state.
 
Equality is the state religion. If equality demands we accept that there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex relationships, then people who cannot accept that, who do not believe it is true, will become second-class citizens – tolerated perhaps, but only in a marginalised and stigmatised way.
 
We are already seeing the engine of state power being used to exclude traditional religious believers, especially from posts of cultural power – in the U.S. for example, graduate schools are now kicking out counselling students who say they cannot help gay couples maintain their relationships. They are willing to refer politely such couples to others – but that’s not good enough. “Discriminators” cannot be marriage counsellors. In England, courts are beginning to rule that Christians cannot foster or adopt children – because they might be gay and that might be bad for them. (Never mind the abundance of evidence that religion is in fact good for children).
 
The gay rights movement believe that “sexual minorities” are the new minorities, that gay is like black and people, culture and government should respond to any distinctions or objection in exactly the same way we respond to racism. That’s the model. They say it because they believe. Believe them!

Iowa Judges Bus Tour in Winterset

The Iowa Judges Bus Tour got off to a great start yesterday, with whistle stops in Des Moines, Winterset, Atlantic, Red Oak, Shenandoah, and Council Bluffs. Rep. Steve King and Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Council joined NOM President Brian Brown in speaking at yesterday’s stops. Below are a few pictures from the Winterset stop. Get all the latest tour info at www.judgebus.com

As Rep. King told the crowd in Winterset – John Wayne’s birthplace – “John Wayne would want you to vote NO . . . The court’s decision is so bad that it there are many reasons in it for getting rid of [the judges]. . . . This is a radical decision.  A bad decision.  They believe they can find even rights that are "unrecognized now."

“Honorary Iowan” Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas gave the judges a quick lesson in the separation of powers: “If someone feels called to be a legislator, then run to be a legislator.  You are not to legislate from the bench...it is not your job.  They said in their decision that they are above the law. . . . The check Iowa has is the retention election and let your neighbors know to get out and vote ‘no, no, no.’”

And NOM President Brian Brown pushed back against those who have argued that it is wrong to use the retention vote to hold judges accountable: “God bless you for coming out today.  We need to vote for officials that will protect marriage.  We have to be active and don't accept any other advice.”

    

Join NOM on the “No Retention” Bus Tour

With just a week left before the November 2 election, Iowans are poised -- for the first time since the retention system was put in place – to oust a sitting judge. Polls show voters narrowly divided on the retention vote, with many voters not yet tuned in to the issue. In the final days before the election, NOM is joining with Iowa Freedom and FRC Action on a statewide bus tour urging Iowans to vote “no retention” on three activist Supreme Court judges who voted to force same-sex marriage on the state last year.
 
Visit www.judgebus.com for all the latest news and schedule for this week’s bus tour!

Gay Groups Train Fire on NOM!

This story in Politico demonstrates that NOM has become the number one target of the Human Rights Campaign--and they admit it's because we effectively work for your values in the democratic process:

"The nation’s largest gay rights group is going to war with the leading opponents of same-sex marriage, as gay activists work to quiet tensions within their movement and with their Democratic allies and redirect their energies on their actual opposition."

HRC's charges are mostly absurd, and as Brian Brown told the reporter, aimed at distracting from the internal rifts within the gay rights movement.

“I imagine what they’re doing is deflecting criticism,” he said. “I think HRC’s failures speak for themselves.”

ElectionWatch: New MN Poll Shows Pro-Marriage Emmer Closing Strong!

The latest Rasmussen poll shows the race for Minnesota's governor is a statistical dead heat.  Pro-Marriage Tom Emmer is closing fast, now just 3 points behind Pro-SSM, anti-let the people vote candidate Mark Dayton.  That's within the margin of error. More good news: the pro-gay marriage independent Tom Horner's vote appears to be fading, and his voters are moving disproportionately into the Emmer camp.

Why You Can’t Redefine Marriage

Human Life International interim president Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula calls on Catholics to make marriage a voting issue on November 2nd, explaining that law should reflect the true nature of marriage, and cannot redefine it. 

[Marriage] is a natural institution and genesis of the family, the most basic element of any society. No matter how some may clamor that this natural view of marriage is somehow oppressive or restricting, they cannot change its basic biological, societal and spiritual character. . . .
 
In Spirit & Life the last several weeks we have been focusing on our political responsibility as Catholics and Christians to exercise our right to vote in a way that is consistent with our faith. Since the moral and social teaching of our Church stands far above the meager political options we face in the upcoming election, this is necessarily a non-partisan effort. Truth is like that: if there were a party of Truth we would have no objection whatsoever to declaring our partisanship. So we must carefully examine the positions on marriage held by those who are asking for our vote, and side with the truth.
 
We are partisans for Truth and the common good. We reject the distortions surrounding the topics of sexuality and marriage, and we gladly proclaim the truth, in season and out of season. And in this political season, we proclaim it all the louder, grateful for the teaching of the Faith that unites us in the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Read the whole column here.

No Such Thing as an Activist Judge?

That’s what some would have Iowans believe as they head to the polls on November 2nd. NOM explodes the myth with our latest TV ad supporting the hardworking Iowans holding their state supreme court justices accountable for votes to force gay marriage on the state.

Marriage and the Law of Tradition

Great piece from Professor R.J. Snell of Eastern University over at the Public Discourse. Contra Judge Walker, can tradition alone provide a rational basis for law?

Custom is an expression of reason and will made by the whole people with their repeated actions over time, and since an expression of reason and will is a promulgation of law, custom is a promulgation of law, with the same binding force.

Of course, any human law, whether promulgated by the sovereign or by custom, can be irrational and in opposition to the natural law, in which case the unjust law is no law at all and has no binding force. This is true of any and all human laws, but the laws of custom are no more or less revisable than the law of a sovereign or legislature—or the ruling of a court. Custom can be irrational and reprehensible, as can a court decision; custom can be rational and praiseworthy, as can a court decision. But it is just simply not the case that custom or tradition alone per se fails to provide a rational basis for a law. Not only might custom provide a rational basis for a law, but a good custom is a rationally binding law.

And good custom, as a rationally binding law, cannot be changed without being prejudicial to the common good. A rational custom, like any human law, should, as Aquinas concluded, “never be changed, unless in some way or other, the common weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm done.”

And there is, to put it mildly, evidence that the harms of redefining marriage cannot be compensated.

Read the whole article.

Does Gay Marriage Prevent Gay Teen Suicide?

Major gay rights groups are claiming those who oppose gay marriage are responsible for tragic gay teen suicides. Maggie Gallagher considers the charge in her latest syndicated column:

Do I have blood on my hands?

Major gay rights groups are saying so. Each of us who opposes gay marriage, they say, is responsible for the terrible and tragic suicides of gay teens that recently hit the news. . . .

It's a horrific charge to levy in response to some pretty horrifying stories. Will gay marriage really reduce or prevent gay teen suicide? I felt a moral obligation to find out.

Massachusetts has been tracking gay high school students for a decade using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

LGBT teens are roughly four times as likely as other students to have attempted suicide in the last year.

They are also about twice as likely to report being in a physical fight at school, three times more likely to say they were injured by a weapon, and almost four times as likely as pther teens to say they missed school because they felt physically unsafe.

These kinds of negative outcomes are consistent with the idea that anti-gay bullying is mainly responsible for the higher suicide rate among gay teens. But as I kept reading, I kept finding the pieces of the puzzle that don't seem to fit the "it's homophobia pulling the trigger" narrative:

Gay students are also more than twice as likely to report having had sexual intercourse before age 13 -- that is, to be sexually abused as children. They are three times as likely to report being the victims of dating violence, and nearly four times as likely to report forced sexual contact. A majority of LGBT teens in Massachusetts reported using illegal drugs in the past month. (Perhaps most oddly, gay teens are also three times as likely as nongay teens to report either becoming pregnant or getting someone else pregnant.)

Forced sex, childhood sexual abuse, dating violence, early unwed pregnancy, substance abuse -- could these be a more important factor in the increased suicide risk of LGBT teens than anything people like me ever said?

The deeper you look, the more you see kids who are generally unprotected in deeply tragic ways that make it hard to believe -- if you are really focusing on these kids' well-being -- that gay marriage is the answer. . . .

And that's exactly what the Youth Risk Behavior data also show: In 2001, gay teens in Massachussetts were almost four times more likely to have attempted suicide (31 percent vs. 8 percent). In 2007 -- after four years of legalized gay marriage in that state -- gay teens were still about four times more likely to attempt suicide than nongay teens (29 percent vs. 6 percent).

Whether you are looking at their faces or looking at the statistics, one thing is clear: These kids need help, real help. They should not become a mere rhetorical strategy, a plaything in our adult battles.

Each of these teens is a child of God. And each one deserves better from all of us that becoming a "teachable moment" in someone else's culture war.

Read more.

NOM California PAC Releases TV Ad Supporting Andy Pugno for California Assembly

In a new TV ad released Friday, NOM California PAC backs Andy Pugno for California Assembly. The ad contrasts Pugno’s defense of life, marriage, and jobs with his opponent’s extremist support for taxpayer-funded abortion and same-sex marriage. Brian Brown, Treasurer of the NOM California PAC, told the media Friday: “Andy Pugno has been a champion for the people of California and voters need to know his admirable record.  Attempts by his opponents to smear him based on his stance on family values issues only clarify what voters in California already know: Andy Pugno identifies with their values and their rights and will fight for them as Assemblyman. The National Organization for Marriage enthusiastically supports Mr. Pugno and applauds his efforts in the Proposition 8 fight.”

Opposition to Gay Marriage Rising Among Practicing Catholics

Our Sunday Visitor points out the new Pew poll finds that practicing Catholics' opposition to gay marriage is actually rising, slightly.