The National Organization for Marriage, arguably the nation's largest and fiercest opponent of marriage equality, is disappointed by this year's election results, but wants to reassure everyone that they're winning the war, even if they lose some battles.
"Our opponents and some in the media will attempt to portray the election results as a changing point in how Americans view gay marriage, but that is not the case. Americans remain strongly in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman."
Look, I realize groups like these have to put out press releases, putting a positive spin on discouraging news. I don't seriously expect the National Organization for Marriage to announce, the day after the election, "We're screwed; we're on the wrong side of history; so we've decided to close up shop."
But reality is stubborn. After never having lost a statewide race, anti-gay activists lost in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and apparently, the state of Washington this week. In Iowa, conservatives failed to oust a state Supreme Court justice who approved marriage equality, and in New York, NOM's plan to change state law failed when Democrats took the state Senate.
The vast majority of independent national polls show that most Americans believe if two people meet, fall in love, and want to get married, there's nothing wrong with that, and there shouldn't be laws to prevent this from happening.
Last year, the president of the far-right Focus on the Family was asked about the future of marriage equality, and he conceded, "We've probably lost that."
The sooner other conservatives reach the same conclusion, the better.
Postscript: For pun-challenged readers confused by the headline, The Nile = da Nile = Denial.
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You nailed it Mr. Benen - Da Nile is the longest river in the world, and we are watching as some among us are attempting to swim it.
They will surely drown! -Kevo
It ain't over 'til it's over.
Every public officeholder swears an oath of office. Ask yourself, 'What's the point of ANY additional pledge?' Follow the money.
Any officeholder who genuinely believes in representative government should have already publicly denounced the Teaparty/Taliban's efforts to disenfranchise Americans.
If you stood in line to vote, write your STATE legislators an invitation to the 21st century. Washington state voters had their ballots weeks before election day.
The Teaparty/Taliban are still afraid of women making decisions. (John 8:3-11)
Trickle down not only doesn't spur economic growth, it stifles it. It’s what led to the American and French revolutions.
"Corporations are people" = "He with the most gold rules"
We can only hope that people will wake up. But they won't.
PS to your PS: When someone uses this pun, I say "Of course not. The Nile starts in Uganda and goes through seven other countries before it gets to Egypt."
RNOHB banned, comment spammed 1.1 a whopping 40 times. Not okay.
note to NOM: Hatred may be a viable fund raiser, but is NOT a political winner.
It earns Rush 50M per year so there will be no change there. The question is where Ailles' motives will take him. If he wants money and power he has a great product to sell to the Archie Bunkers, at the price of GOP viability as the demographics change.
If he wants GOP dominance, then he will have to make Archie uncomfortable occasionally- like get him to stop using the word "Illegals" or using code words to blame darkies for his problems. Because Fox viewers extend their bubble, using this language and matrix ideas as they latently evangelize the GOP viewpoint.
If they continue to telegraph exclusion, they are doomed.
I am not betting Ailles will perform a dispassionate analysis of the strategic dilemna though- I think he drinks the reactionary kool aid. They may be able to stumble along for a decade if they con enough latinos into voting on social issues and give the GOP a pass on immigration and fair pay- getting the numbers back up to Bush II- like 40% of the hispanic vote.
I...THINK...that's the point. But shhhh! Don't tell anyone on their mailing list. It's a secret!
Let's hope they become "purer" and try to re-litigate the outcome in 2014. We may get the House!
And let's not forget about that election in 2014. All of the House and one-third of the Senate will be up for election. Get out and VOTE!
Good point. We need to start working now to remove the Republican majority from the House and make the Senate veto-proof. To bad the focus was so heavily on the presidency that no in-roads were made, but if the Republicans can be demonstrated as clearly responsible for the recession and forced to cooperate they should be able to be made to go. I think, however, that they are going to behave better this term because they are looking at 2016.
"Reality has a well known liberal bias"
While people and groups like this may never entirely go away they will eventually be marginalized and made irrelevant to the broader society.
It's always a better prospect giving rights to people, than it is to take them away.
There's the Liberal vs. Conservative philosophy, in a nutshell.
"In our religion, in our families, in our places of worship, in our civil contracts.. We must have entropy!"
[And Time yawned..]
LOL thanks I needed that
[And Time yawned..]
What a great line! And what an effective response to so much of what is going on today. Thanks, Trollop.
Hehe.
I think the Repubs will sing a VERY different tune on gay rights and Latino issues in 4 years.
I don't think so. Same tune, just louder.
SOMEONE had to be the last person who believed the earth was flat. So it is with these yahoos. They are true believers (the scariest kind) and they'll still be claiming imminent victory even as the 50th state votes "Yes" on marriage equality.
"It's turtles all the way down"
"Our opponents and some in the media will attempt to portray the election results as a changing point in how Americans view gay marriage..."
No they won't, you're opponents have already known that as an "issue" gay marriage should be just as legal and as protected as heterosexual marriage. And NOM needs to get over it!
Nate Silver is the best of the best. Let him to the stats on how many years it will take for Tea Party type folks to fade away into a vortex!
I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a women (that me) I also have a gay sister and a gay brother. so th question do I believe that I have the right to tell them that they can not fall in love and get Married? No
The problem is that they cannot admit anything isn't going their way because they are sure that their god will ride to their rescue. IF they say they've lost, that means their god either doesn't agree with them or doesn't exist. They can't have that.
Some times God just says no. They can't grasp that.
repubs think that THEIR god has more lessons for President Obama to learn that only THEY CAN TEACH HIM.
The ones who try hardest to "protect marriage" for only them and their fellow heterosexuals are of the same ilk as those who were disappointed when segregation was abolished. Fear drives their world and motivates their actions to take liberty from others while insisting on it for themselves.
Hard to change the minds of people who actually believe the Earth is 9000 years old and people lived among dinosaurs. They talk about kids who get "indoctrinated" in "liberal public schools and colleges" yet, ironically, don't see how they are "indoctrinating" their children to believe something 95percent of rational thinking people know to be untrue.
What will NOM (Nutcases Off Meds) do when the U.S. Supreme Court dumps DOMA? Or declares that same-sex marriages are a civil right? Oh! The humanity!
Hopefully, the NOMbies will weep, wail, gnash their teeth -- then sit in the corner rocking and drooling until they crumble to dust.
I imagine that when they finally lose the marriage fight, they'll turn their guns on what will apparently be the next target: trans rights. There's always another front to fight on. Hell, maybe next NOM will team up with PETA to go after leather fetishists. That would be interesting.
America is becoming much more ready to allow LGBT folks their equality. It is time to drive the radicals into their own closet, while remaining vigilant knowing they still exist. Let's make it more than embarrassing to be a far right wing lunatic. I respect your right to think crazy things, I just do not wish to hear it.
Perhaps a nice thought, but the vast majority of them don't have the capacity for shame, embarrassment, compassion, or humility, a symptom of sociopathy.
We don't have to stoop to their level, we just have to keep on doing what we're doing. Apparently, it's working!
I respect your right to think crazy things, I just do not wish to hear it.
Nor do I wish you to make your crazy thoughts public policy.
repubs have proven that they are UNembarassable, OR...
they think that the things they are doing are NOTHING TO BE EMBARASSED ABOUT.
Excuse me, but my equality is not for "allowing". When, oh when, will this country get it. Peoples rights are not for voting on. There are......or in this case, they are not. It is not for my fellow citizens to "allow" me to marry the person I love. It is my right to do so, just as it is their right.
Therein lies the difference between a Democratic life and a Republican life; A Democrat believes in EVERYONE'S rights, a Republican only believes in THIER rights...
I think this election was a wake up call to the GOP. With the amount of Women and minorities that turned out, they will no longer be able to run on Older. White. Conservative. Views. They have come to a crossroads.... either change your views or end up on the endangered species list.
I think they discredit older, white voters a bit too much. Remember, the conservative "Greatest Generation" is dying out. The Boomers are not all conservative. In fact a lot of us are The HIPPIES we did not lose our liberalism with age. We became the teachers, social workers, and human rights activists. We might be quieter than some, but we are still around and still voting for human rights and Democrats. This mischaracterization of older white voters really bothers me and makes me feel unrepresented. I became a liberal at the age of 7 when I saw the restrooms at the Birmingham Zoo that were labeled Men, Women, and Colored. I have never changed, not even growing up with conservative parents.
i'm an angry, old, white, male voter.
straight DemocratIC ticket all the way.
I am an old angry white voter and I have voted Democratic since JFK!
'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.' - Upton Sinclair
In a nutshell, It's like I always say: "Fortune favors the bold, But not the STUPID and bold."
Those who are trying to frame this as a religious rather than a Civil Rights Issue are, in the end, going to be on the losing end.......
i've heard that the wctu is looking for somebody to share office space.
If people are so concerned about marriage, can we get a movement making divorce illegal?
then would Republicans who want trophy wives do?
I expect NOM's funders to start walking away, not as quickly as I'd like, but walking away. NOM's business model has been pitching itself as the winning force on the marriage issue, an investment which generates an expected result. As it becomes clearer that NOM is losing, not winning, the big funders (Catholic bishops, for example) will balk at pouring good money after bad.
Another piece of the NOM pitch to big funders, I expect, is that this would be a finite campaign: Big investments would pay off at some point, and within 5 or 10 years, the big donations will no longer be needed because marriage equality will have been turned back.
Tony Perkins just promised that the fight would continue unabated for decades (like the anti-abortion crusades) if necessary. Maybe so, but 10 years down the road, the Knights of Columbus will no longer be writing multi-million dollar checks to NOM every year. 3-6% of civil marriage licenses will be going to same-sex couples in many (if not all) states, with no big impact. Catholic bishops may still be fuming, but the country will largely have gotten over it.
what gives a person the right to tell someone they cant marry a person of the same sex?? its not right to do that! you see more gays that have been with the same partner for many years and they just want to put that label on it just like the straight people do! if you love someone why not get married?? it shouldn't matter if its between two men or two women!! they are human too!! so the GOP needs to wake up and realize that the Americans have spoken and get off there high horse and listen to what we are saying!! EQUAL RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE ON EVERYTHING!!!!
But don't you think it's more in line with Orly Taitz? It's a 'clever' way of getting 'believers' to part with more of their money.