Christopher Plante, the executive director the National Organization for Marriage's Rhode Island chapter, ought to learn his history. Because the man had no idea that Orson Scott Card, the science fiction writer who believes we became gay because of abuse, molestation, and rape, sits on NOM's board. And just because Card was most recently overheard screaming about overthrowing the government if Proposition 8 didn't pass is no reason for Plante to to think his anti-marriage equality group is trafficking in crazy. 'Cause that would be lunacy.

Nor does any of it change Plante's feelings about his organization: It's soooo not a hate group, he insists in a new interview.

And the little rally he helped throw earlier this month? The one for "Celebrate Marriage & Family Day," where keynote speaker Maggie Gallagher coudn't even get her husband to come? That was a not a hate rally!

So why's he so against the gays getting married? "It truly makes fathers or mothers optional," he says. "An institution that has been clearly important, proven to be crucial to the upbringing of children, proven to be the ideal place to raise children with a mother and a father makes that optional. Why would we want to legalize and give the force of law to something that we know is less than the ideal? By codifying same-sex marriage we are intentionally creating a class of children that are denied either a mother or a father. There’s nothing compassionate about that." This is funny, because for almost all of human history, children were born into an institution also called marriage, but we're pretty sure back then it was used for to secure property rights, and as regularly as not, women had no say in the matter. Yes, let's uphold that definition!