Poor NOM. Their supporters just keep peeling off like so many garments at a strip club.
The latest defector: former Iowa Senator Jeff Angelo. Not so long ago, he sponsored an anti-gay constitutional amendment. Not anymore! This week he launched “Iowa Republicans for Freedom,” a group of right-wingers who’ve suddenly noticed that it’s not OK for the government to get all up in gay peoples’ weddings.
“The freedom to marry is an issue of personal freedom,” he says. “The stability and responsibility of marriage and the sanctity of personal liberty are the foundations of conservative values. We should be glad those values are spreading and being embraced in so many walks of life.”
You always hear about people coming over to our side, but when’s the last time you heard someone say “you know, I’ve been thinking, and that Maggie Gallagher has really won me over”?
How about we take this to the next level?
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How’s the response been? Well, the Iowa Independent notes that other Republicans have mixed feelings. Some are giving him a thumbs-up, but Chad Airhart, head of the Iowa Republican County Officials Organization, says that our marriages are comparable to incest and polygamy.
Chad, if you can’t tell the difference between statutory rape and two adults in a supportive, committed, healthy, long-term relationship, maybe you are the one who should not be allowed to get married.
Cam
Wow! That is a pretty big shift, what the hell happened?! Great news.
Elloreigh
@Cam: I can’t help but think it probably has at least a little to do with NOM increasingly aligning themselves with vocal hatemongers making extreme statements about homosexuality. NOM keeps saying it wants a civil debate on the issue, but the rhetoric coming out of the groups it partners with have pretty much shown that to be a lie. The more their real agenda gets exposed, the less willing politicians are going to be to associate themselves with NOM and its extremist allies.
imarko
Amazing Grace. I was blind but now I see…
Jeffree
NOM used to live in a world where no one challenged their tactics, facts or motives. They had carte blanche to spew their fact-free hate speech, and grew increasingly rabid. Their bus-tour ended up a bust, other than for fast-food joints along the route.
Thanks to a defector (Louis M.) from within, watchdog groups, & socially-moderate Republicans realizing they’d been feeding a monster, I think we’ll see more pushback and distancing from that single-issue sinkhole.
Those gearing up for elections who want to stand out from the hard-right faction of TeaPeople & super-fundies will need to pick better, saner allies. And start talking about what matters to most Americans: the economy, jobs, and American Idol.
Indigo
@Jeffree: Very well said, thank you. And especially the American Idol part.
PLAINTOM
I am glad to see any new allies and Jeffree is right the extreme actions of NOM and other hate groups are driving away their old supporters. The increased level of scrutiny on these groups reveals their hateful lies.
robert in NYC
This is good news. I’d rather have any straight for us rather than against us and we need them more than ever.
billy wingarden
one interesting thing that i’ve dug up is re the “sanctity of marriage”
the same claims were used during the fight to legalize blacks marrying, and also to allow inter-racial marriage.
the claims – “it would destroy the sanctity of marriage”
and……….”it would destroy the sanctity of the white race”
Same feces, different day.
BTW if you’ve heard about the homophobic black ministers talking about ‘ Protecting their seed from gay marrige’
……………..
thats so similar to how the Hutu justified protecting their seed from the Tutsi during the genocide of the Tutusis by the Hutus in Africa a few years ago.
No wonder NOM is on the hate group list. Lots of churches should be on it, but it doesnt apply to religious beleifs.
We need a new hate group list re the vatican (not the catholic people), the evangelical christians for the most part, and believe it or not, the orthodox Jews,
Some who have (in Israel for sure) indirectly called for the genocide of gays. By people whose close relatives shared hitlers ovens with the gays of Germany and elsewhere.
billy wingarden
@Elloreigh: NOM is, last time I looked on the hate group list. their sign showing “solution to gay marriage”, with two Nooses shows what they are.
And NOMs founder , maggie gallagher, defends marriage by having two illegitimate children and her husband seems to be a rumor. It may be because he is black,or he may not exist, no one seems to be sure. Also, she doesnt wear a wedding ring, claims it is because she has arthritis. I have arthritis in my hands, sometimes even flipping a page of paper can be painful. And yet I wear a wedding ring and another ring on the otherhand..
Like Diaz in NY, who is so opposed to marriage equality for gay people, turns out he is divorced and his gay grandaughter had to bitch him out at a anti gay rally.
And hatefull bishop Eddie LOng – he just had to settle privately a case where he apparently abused 4 males, but the case is sealed
its a fair bet that most of the leadership of the anti-gay agenda is just terrified gay people , throwign out hate on other gay people to hide who they are.
And we have that in the MD legislature. The chief white homophobe is rumored to have danced half naked in a gay bar some years ago. I know kids who know his kids and I’m told they think he is “crazy”. the chief black homophobe – Burns – watch him walk, he has what is sometimes called the gay glide.
And one of the homophobes in the state senate – Dyson – its all over the web how he was involved with another guy some years ago. The other guy jumped off a roof, aparently when he was exposed.