Meet The Speakers Behind The Anti-Equality Supreme Court Rally

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has organized an anti-equality rally outside the Supreme Court this week as the Court mulls over the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Media outlets should be aware and report the extreme anti-LGBT animus that motivates many of the prominent speakers NOM has invited.

 

Anti-Gay Spokespersons

Brian Brown

Brown Is President Of The National Organization For Marriage, Where He's Made A Career Out Of Peddling Misinformation About Marriage Equality. [GLAAD, accessed 3/26/13]

  • Parents Of Gay Kids Should Attend “Ex-Gay” Conferences To Prevent Their Children From “Embracing This Destructive Way Of Life.” [Good As You, 2/16/12]
  • People Should “Feel Good” About Study Allegedly Showing That People Can Change Their Sexual Orientation Through “Ex-Gay” Therapy. [NOM Blog, 9/29/11]
  • Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Will Pave The Way To “Normalize Pedophilia.” [NOM Blog, 8/18/11]
  • Gays Are Engaged In “Jihad”To Achieve Marriage Equality, Want To “Take Away Your Rights.” [NOM Newsletter, 8/25/11]
  • Promoted A Blog Post Claiming Gay Parents Are More Likely To Molest Their Children Than Heterosexual Parents. [Equality Matters12/8/11]

Jennifer Morse

Morse Is A NOM Spokesperson And President Of NOM's Ruth Institute, Where She's Developed A Track Record For Anti-LGBT Commentary. [GLAAD, accessed 3/26/13]

  • The Push For LGBT Equality "Parallels" What Happened In Nazi Germany. [Right Wing Watch, 9/2/11]
  • Gay Sex Is A “Completely Shameless Activity.” [Good As You, 12/28/11]
  • “There Really Isn't Any Future In Sodomy.” [Equality Matters11/8/12]
  • Gay Men Want To “Feel Better” About Their “Deeply Wrong” Homosexuality. [Equality Matters2/26/13]
  • Gay People Can Be “Release[d]” From The “Compulsive Aspects Of Their Behavior” Through “Ex-Gay” Therapy. [Equality Matters10/3/12]
  • President Obama Is “More Gay Than He Is Black.” [Equality Matters10/6/11]

Tami Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald Is The Executive Director Of The North Carolina Values Coalition And Led The Effort To Pass NC's Amendment Banning Same-Sex Marriage. [GLAAD, accessed 3/26/13]

  • Sexual Orientation Includes “28 Other 'Sexual Orientations' Ranging From Pedophilia To Bestiality.” [Christian Action League, 6/5/09]
  • “Deconstructing” Traditional Marriage Is A Plot To "'Mainstream' Homosexual Lifestyles." [Christian Action League, 12/19/09]
  • Homosexuality Is An “Abomination,” "Not TheGreatest And Highest Good" For Gay People. [Reconciling Raleigh, 1/8/09]

Gary Bauer

Bauer, President Of American Values, Has A Long History Of Promoting Damaging Smears About LGBT People. [GLAAD, accessed 3/26/13]

  • “Ex-Gay” Ministries Offers “Hope And Healing” To Gay People. [American Values, 10/14/98]
  • Marriage Equality Will Have “Devastating Impacts On Our Society.” [Right Wing Watch, 5/21/12]

Serial Race Baiters

Harry Jackson

PFAW: Jackson Is A “Point Man For The Wedge Strategy.” In a 2009 report, People for the American Way (PFAW) documented Jackson's history of acting as a spokesperson for the Religious Right's efforts to drive a wedge between LGBT people and African-Americans. [PFAW, 2009]

  • “The Black Community Is In An Adulterous Relationship With President Obama.” [Christian Post, 5/17/12]
  • Obama May Have Been “Paid” To SupportMarriage Equality. [Daily Caller, 5/25/12]
  • “There Is A Measure Of Racism In The Gay Movement.” [Larry King Live11/19/08]
  • The LGBT Equality Movement Is Comparable To “The Times Of Hitler.”[AFA Radio, 5/16/12]
  • Gay People Are Trying To “Recruit Your Kids.” [Right Wing Watch, 8/2/12]
  • Marriage Equality Is “A Satanic Plot To Destroy Our Seed.” [Right Wing Watch, 4/18/11]

Bill Owens

Owens Heads A NOM “Astroturf” Group Geared Towards Pitting African-Americans Against Gay People. According to The Washington Post's Lisa Miller:

Owens isn't a story. He's a figurehead in what political operatives call an “Astroturf” campaign. It looks like a grass-roots movement, but it's really a political stunt.

[...]

Owens has been, for years, a religious liaison for the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative lobbying group whose aim is to block or roll back same-sex marriage legislation wherever it occurs. Though he told me in a phone call that he receives no compensation from NOM, his new campaign called Mandate for Marriage, aimed at urging African Americans to withdraw their support for the president, is made possible in part by individuals affiliated with NOM. “We have asked a few people for contributions - some of them from the National Organization for Marriage,” he told me.

To drive home the point: The day after Owens's press conference, NOM's president, Brian Brown, went on Fox and said that “key Democratic constituencies do not support same-sex marriage.” NOM created a truth and then went out and proclaimed it. [The Washington Post8/2/12, emphasis added]

Owens: Don't Let Gay People “Steal” The Civil Rights Movement. In a sermon captured for a NOM-produced video in 2011, Owens urged his congregants not to let gay people “make a mockery” of the civil rights movement:

OWENS: It is our job as black people ... let's don't let them take that from us and make it a sham and make a mockery of it.

[...]

OWENS: Don't let them steal it. And they will steal it if we do nothing. They will steal it if we do nothing. [NOM, 6/14/11]

Owens: Homosexuality Is Akin To Bestiality And Is Caused By Molestation In Early Childhood. During a press conference in July of 2012, Owen stated:

OWENS: A few months ago, the Commercial Appeal carried an article with a young man's picture in it. He was charged with having sex with a dog. Now I wonder was that his civil right? Will we go down that road where whatever we choose to do, we'll call it our civil rights? Well if it's a civil right for a man to marry man, and a woman to marry woman, what's the difference of a man deciding he wants to have sex with a dog?

[...]

When people that you don't know they're homosexuals, and they get caught into something, they will tell you it was early childhood that they were molested. Sometimes by a family member, sometimes by their father, or sometimes by a friend. It starts in early childhood. [Right Wing Watch, 7/13/12]

Gays Against Equality

Doug Mainwaring

Mainwaring, Co-Founder Of The National Capital Tea Party Patriots, Identifies As Gay But Chose To Marry A Woman And Have Children. He Is A Vocal Opponent Of Marriage Equality. [Public Discourse, 3/8/13]

  • Marriage Equality Reduces Children To “Chattel - Like Sources Of Fulfillment.” [American Thinker, 12/27/12]
  • Same-Sex Marriages Are “A Joke,” “An Absurd Frolic,” “An Act Of Contempt Toward Marriage.” [The Washington Times7/11/12]
  • Gay Men “Often Lead Diminished, And In Some Cases Nearly Bankrupt, Lives.” [Public Discourse, 3/8/13]

Robert Oscar Lopez

Lopez, Who Was Raised By Same-Sex Parents And Identifies As Bisexual, Has A History of Arguing Against LGBT Equality And Demonizing LGBT People. [Good As You, 8/9/12; Public Discourse, 8/6/12]

  • Gay Men Have “Chosen To Go Into A Dating Scene That's Small,Often Incestuous, Vulnerable To Disease.” [American Thinker, 12/24/12]
  • Men Who Engage In Homosexuality “Live Like Rutting, Uncontrolled Animals.” [American Thinker, 12/24/12]
  • Men Get Involved With Gay Sex Because Of Drugs, Problems With Women. [American Thinker, 12/24/12]
  • Same-Sex Parenting Has Created A “Human-Rights Crisis” That Merits International Intervention. [English Manif, 1/20/13]