Maggie Gallagher outlines NOM’s messaging strategy on same-sex marriage
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Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage was recently a guest on the radio program Religion, Politics, and the Culture to talk about her organization’s strategy to prevent states from legalizing same-sex marriage and to pass anti-gay marriage amendments in states that don’t already have them.
In the interview, she said that when marriage amendments are referred to as efforts to “ban same-sex marriage,” NOM’s efforts lose around 10 points in the polls.
Appealing to marriage amendment supporters, Gallagher said that they should talk about how gay and lesbian couples cannot have children.
“Just say, ‘I think marriage is the union of husband and wife for a reason: these unions make a new life and they connect children to their mother and father,’” she said. “‘So it’s a bad idea for the government to step in and change the definition of marriage.’”
She said the messaging that tests the best with the public is one that says gays and lesbians should live how they choose.
“The one-liner that tests well, that I find less satisfying, is the idea that gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose but none of us has the right to redefine marriage,” she said.
On how not to talk about banning same-sex marriage, she said it’s best not to mention that marriage amendments would ban gay marriage.
“I don’t like the phrase ‘ban same-sex marriage’ because I think it’s not true, and it also suggests that in respecting and protecting the historic understanding of marriage we are doing something that is pointed at hurting gay people,” she said. “So I always take the trouble of saying that we want to support and protect laws defining marriage as between husband and wife.”
She continued, “And it’s certainly true if you test the language ‘ban same-sex marriage’ that it produces probably a ten point drop in public support.”
“It also misleads people because then they go into the voting booth and they say marriage is the union of one man and one woman, they vote ‘yes’ but the ban language implies to some people, at least, that we are criminalizing as opposed to simply refusing to change our public and government’s understanding of marriage,” she said.
She said, “Our point of view is not that gay marriage should be banned, but same-sex unions are not marriages and therefore there is no reason to treat them that way.”
Here’s the full interview:
Maggie claims that Christians are against marriage equality. That is simply not true. Most Christians believe in the Christian principles of equality, social justice, and religious freedom. She is forcing her perverted “view” of Christianity on other Christians and non-Christians.
Christian: I don’t know about “most,” but certainly many. And minds are changing on this day by day… virtually always in the same direction.
Too bad for the NOM the federal court system shall erect a legal wall of insulation around the gays. The professional, Christianist bigots can try as they might, but once the gays get their way in court, the pious marriage bans will be powerless. Furthermore, I would like to see Maggie G., and Brian Brown, investigated, thoroughly, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for every violation they’ve committed. They deserve their faces rubbed in their mess they’ve created. Their families are a bunch of assholes too.
Gallaher says it pretty much like any good Nazi would… pretty much right out of their message book.
Developing nicer ways to trash gays is still an act of trashing gays. Maggie can spin until the cows come home, but straight couples lose nothing if gays enjoy marriage equality. Preventing marriage equality hurts gays and helps nobody.
NOM and its ilk really don’t believe in “religious freedom”.
There are many denominations supporting the right of gays and lesbians to marry. NOM seeks to impose its narrow interpretation onto the rest of us.
Our nation was founded on religious freedom. Our civil laws should be built upon religious tolerance, not upon one group’s narrow religious beliefs.
If you make something illegal, it’s a ban, no matter how much you want to sugarcoat it, Maggie.
By the way, thanks for giving us your entire game plan!
They can not “have children” … but MANY of them do “have children” … and those kids deserve the protections and benefits of marriage just the same.
And regardless, with all the complaining I hear from those people about how promiscuous gays apparently are, should not society be pushing commitments like marriage instead of banning them? What does that tell a gay kid growing up if all their leaders are tying to punish the couples that try and settle down (and with a supposed moral authority none-the-less)?
“I don’t like the phrase ‘ban same-sex marriage’ because I think it’s not true”
That is exactly what it does.
“it also suggests that in respecting and protecting the historic understanding of marriage we are doing something that is pointed at hurting gay people”
That is exactly what it does. Just like protecting, after people should have known better, the equally long and ‘traditional’ policies of mistreating racial minorities was an attack on racial minorities. These BANS don’t help a single soul, but do plenty of harm to millions. NOM has, by the way, fought against all kinds of protections for gay people, not just marriage.
Maggie lives her life to damage the families of others for money. I think it is time for her to go back home to her own family. You wouldn’t think she was married the way she ignores the existence of her husband.
Yikes!!! The fat*ss from Jersey is at it again! Can we all chip in and send her a subscription to Jenny Craig?
Why on earth Maggie Gallagher wants to see the children being raised by same-sex marriage raised outside of the security of wedlock is beyond me. This woman is not playing with a full deck. What kind of person advocates a public policy that directly hurts children, just because you don’t personally approve of their parents???
Ms Gallagher did not need to be married to have a child; why dictate to others they have to be? And, Mags, I don’t want same-sex marriage; I want MARRIAGE EQUALITY…and you want to deny me that right. Why do you feel you can do that? Why am I not as GOOD AS YOU? And you claim to be “Christian?” To paraphrase Gandhi, “I like your Christ; your Christians…not so much.” Maggie, you give Christians a bad name; where does Jesus teach hatred and not love? I can’t find it in any Bible. Please help me understand.
Here is a great article, Hate’s Hideous Hooker Maggie Gallagher:
http://www.politicususa.com/en/hate-maggie-gallagher
Maggie is also vastly incorrect about something else: The so-called “historical understand” and “societal purpose” or marriage that (she claims) is known and realized in every culture and every time period on Earth! Only thing is? She’s completely wrong. What she is doing, here, is rather clever and devious… She is arguing backwards; in essence, because marriage has principally only been THOUGHT of as heterocentric in the modern US and Western civ., than (according to her) that MUST be how it’s ALWAYS been! However, it’s not. There are samples that allowing Gay couples to legally marry is found all over the world, in every society. Maggie doesn’t want us aware of this, however, that the Chuckchi shamans, the Native Americans, the Mesoamericans, the Celts, the Greeks and Romans, ad nauseum, all allowed the FREEDOM to marry! It is so common, in fact, that the Anthropological Assoc. of America (the largest such body of scientists on Earth) has released a policy statement opposed any ban on Marriage Equality based not only upon thousands of years of historic data, but also upon more than 100 years of direct field work!
But, why should the fact that Gay couple cannot “naturally reproduce” mean a damned thing? What about elderly or barren couples? And, couples that get themselves purposely sterilized because they NEVER want to parent a child of their own or another’s? Why should these childless relationships–even intentionally-so–be thought of as “real marriages”, and the romantic life-long Union of a Gay couple cannot? Maggie has, to my knowledge, NEVER addressed any of this publicly!
Also, if Maggie is to be believed that marriage is about securing the rights of children to know and be loved by the parents who made them, than where are the rights of a Gay child to know and be loved by THEIR parents when their parents kick them out and even move away from them, or when they tell them that they don’t deserve to live once they Come Out as Gay to their parents?
