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NOM Marriage News: February 19, 2010

 

NOM Marriage News.

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Dear Friends of Marriage,

The National Organization for Marriage is at CPAC this week--the annual gathering of political conservatives across this country. NOM's booth is awesome! If you are around in D.C. today (and a member) stop by and visit us! 

MSNBC's uber-liberal pundit Rachel Maddow just stopped by. She grabbed a National Organization for Marriage pen and said, "Wow. You guys have great pens. Can I have one?" "Sure," I told her. And then Rachel said: "I got to go tell the NRA guys they really should get your pens." A few moments later an NRA guy shows up and says, "Rachel Maddow says NOM has the best pens. ...Can we have one?"

Surreal, huh?

Not as surreal, though, as what just happened in the District of Columbia. The local city council not only passed gay marriage, but relentlessly refused to even attempt any real religious liberty protection.

And so this week, sadly, the Archdiocese of Washington announced that the Catholic Church was ending adoption and foster care services in D.C. The Catholic Charities adoption and foster care services will be handed over intact--so as not to hurt any kids--to a third party.

Maggie Gallagher was at the Cato Institute this week debating Andrew Sullivan, who said the city council is right. He said taxpayer funds shouldn't be used to "discriminate" against gay couples. But who is it that is getting hurt here? Who is being helped by driving one of the best charities for deprived children out of the public square? Will one gay couple really be better off because no Catholic adoption and foster care service exists?

And yet the politician in the D.C. city council ruled that to let a Catholic institution be Catholic, and still help in the public square, would be "aiding discrimination."

I said it is sad, and it is, but truthfully my blood boils when I think about it. I never imagined living in an America where the government would tell the church how to run its charities. Remember this day the next time someone tells you that gay marriage is about love and tolerance, that it won't have any consequences. 

The featured speaker at Cato on the panel with Maggie and Andrew Sullivan was Nick Herbert, a British member of Parliament who proudly noted that there is no political party in Britain anymore who would defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman. All parties are devoted to what he calls "gay equality." He laid out very clearly, in far more measured tones than Andrew, that this vision includes a massive expansion of government power to repress the forces of intolerance and inequality, everywhere from the sports arena to the schools. (Including, Nick said incredibly, faith schools.) I don't know many Americans who want to head in the direction that Great Britain is pioneering, where the government tells Catholic bishops they may not fire school principals who enter a same-sex civil union, or fined an Anglican bishop more than $100,000 for refusing to hire a proudly and actively gay youth minister for his diocese.

Noelle wrote to us the next day to tell us what a difference NOM's work has made for her:

I have been reading and admiring your work since early 2008, when, as a California voter tasked with voting on Prop 8, my intellectual instincts told me to vote for it in defiance of my exclusively left-liberal education, San Francisco cultural inheritance, and entirely opposed twenty-something peer group. Nagged by a guilty conscience about this, I began researching the marriage question, and your rigorous, fair-minded, arguments single-handedly confirmed me to the cause of preserving traditional marriage and the unique public goods it provides society.

Noelle added, "P.S. I'm also a fan of everything your NOM has done and will donate what little I can spare."

Wow, Noelle. Thank you. NOM exists because of people like you. Because you care. You care about truth. You care about civility, democracy, about justice and the common good. Against all probabilities you first felt the truth and then you found the truth, and knowing you are not alone, you are standing your ground for marriage. Thank you for making our day here at NOM with your letter.
 
I have to get back to manning the booth at CPAC. Until next week, semper fi! 

God bless you and your family, always,

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

P.S. If you want to swell Noelle's mite with one of your own, you can donate to NOM and help us build an army of marriage supporters $5, $10, and $100 at a time.

NOM Featured Interviews
Jennifer Roback Morse on National Marriage Week USA
Video here

Chuck Stetson on National Marriage Week USA
FOX News
February 12, 2010
Video here

NOM in the News
"Why Everyone's Sick of Washington"
Maggie Gallagher
New York Post
February 17, 2010
Cultural power, explains Hunter, is the power to "name reality." Culture is mostly created in urban centers and spread to the periphery. E.g.: Harvard Law School decides that gay marriage is a basic human right, which spreads through judges until it runs smack up into the one source of cultural power in America that isn't controlled by urban centers -- the American people.

Video interview: Christopher Plante of NOM--Rhode Island and Jimmy Lasalvia of GOProud
Politico.com

"Marriage Leads to Better Overall Health, Scholar Says"
Deseret News
February 16, 2010
"The most important thing is to speak up, in love, for the truth about marriage," said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage and co-author with Waite on the book, "The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially."

"There Is a Place for Gays in Conservative Politics, Says British Politician"
Talk Radio News Service
February 18, 2010
Conservatism is not only compatible with the principle of equality between homosexuals and heterosexuals, but such equality is an essential element of conservatism, says prominent British politician Nick Herbert.

Herbert, who was elected and became the first openly gay conservative member of Parliament in 2005, participated in a panel discussion on Wednesday hosted by the Cato Institute, along with notable gay blogger Andrew Sullivan and National Organization for Marriage President Maggie Gallagher.

"Why Maggie's Wrong"
Chris Geidner
Metro Weekly
February 17, 2010
How can I write this so that Maggie Gallagher -- of National Organization for Marriage (NOM) infamy -- will understand?

A child loses his or her parents. That child is then an orphan. Still others are removed from their parent or parents' home for any of a number of reasons.

©2010 National Organization for Marriage.

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