Maggie Gallagher’s disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we’re guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University’s “Day of Dialogue,” and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.
We do appreciate the debate over whether our “intolerance” for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That’s Gallagher’s position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we’re being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.
But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. The folks who push forth the myth that gay marriage somehow impacts their rights, and thus we should not be viewed as legitimate couples the way heteros are, is hatred.
We don’t hate you, Maggie. There are some nice things about you. You’re pretty eloquent. And we like your bangs. We do, however, hate your manipulation of information to perpetrate discrimination.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
But here’s the soundbite we’re holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: “[Your marriage] may be better, but it’s not a marriage. … It’s probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn’t talk about my marriage in such glowing terms.”
YellowRanger
“We don’t hate you, Maggie.”
Speak for yourself…
I for one wouldn’t piss on that woman if she were on fire.
walt
Oh, I’d piss on her.
Jacob
“We don’t hate you, Maggie. There are some nice things about you. You’re pretty eloquent. And we like your bangs. We do, however, hate your manipulation of information to perpetrate discrimination.”
Love the sinner, hate the sin?
AlanInUtah
I’d take a big shit on her. 🙂
vernonvanderbilt
Can I piss on her and then set her on fire?
AxelDC
Why does Gallagher think that she needs to turn Catholic theology into US law?
If Catholics ran the US the way they used to run Quebec, Ireland and Spain, they would abuse children until they were run out on a rail. Have you noticed how erstwhile Catholic areas like Quebec, Massachusetts, Spain and Ireland are rapidly becoming the most liberal and anti-Catholic areas in the world? They were probably fed up with bigots like Gallagher shoving their twisted versions of Catholicism down their throats via the government.
ChristopherJ
We do not like her bangs. Now who is “trafficking in misinformation”?
Fitz
We don’t hate her? I would PAY for the chance to hold her head under water.
Jeffrey
I’d like to know what woman proclaims the many benefits of marriage for couples and their children, and then says a portion of the population can’t have access to marriage?! I think she’s a monster, actually. No normal person advocates a public policy position that hurts children, and that’s what denying marriage to same-sex couples does to their children.
chris
@Fitz
If I saw Maggie Gallagher crossing the street I wouldn’t just speed up, I’d go back over in reverse and then…..Oh god, i shouldn’t let my imagination run wild like that.
Attmay
I’d piss on her if she was on fire … if I pissed kerosene.
Joey
Well I like her bangs. So there!
Flex
I hate her, and I hate the religious bigot corporations that she launders money for.
R.I.P. proposition 8! Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial on 1-11-2010 @ 8:30 AM!
Peggy
I don’t even need to hear the context to know that Gallagher is pointing out the obvious phoneyness in Marino-Thomas’s description of her ‘marriage.’
It’s no different than hearing every gay man say he’s monogamous. After a while nobody listens because the facts don’t back it up.
hyhybt
I want her to fail utterly in her attacks on marriage, and then to fade into obscurity… but other than that, I have nothing against her.
Sapphocrat
The stupid cunt* must be psychic, as she knows nothing about love and/or marriage.
“Gallagher wants a world where wives baby husbands like mothers baby sons (she uses the mothering image too often for it to be careless). Her contempt for women and men is staggering; for Gallagher, a man is apparently an eternal child and every woman is called, perhaps like Mary, to be long-suffering, maternal, and self-abnegating. … For Gallagher, humiliation and degradation are feelings to be suppressed, denied, and overcome, while happiness itself — especially for women — is a ‘dangerous temptation.’ …”
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2009/04/01/despair-on-the-right-of-depressed-social-conservatives-a-lost-culture-war-and-the-misogynistic-underbelly-of-the-marriage-movement/
Who’d so much as want to fuck that sick cow, let alone marry it?
* P.S. Wow, the second time I’ve ever typed “cunt” on the Intertubes. The pig just brings it out in me.
P.P.S. to Queerty: You’re alone in not hating her. I hate her to the depth and breadth and width of my soul, and I would wish she’d hang herself from a tree, but I don’t, because I like trees.
P.P.P.S. Don’t worry, Baggie-Maggie, you have nothing to fear from me. I’m the nonviolent type… but that doesn’t mean I won’t say an “imprecatory prayer” for you.
SoylentDiva
You mean her “marriage” to that guy we never see, and rarely hear about? The one that’s likely a figment of her imagination considering only an insane and/or desperate person would f*ck her, let alone marry her?
I’m not at all surprised the sperm donor who sired her two children didn’t stick around. I *am* surprised she (allegedly) got someone to marry her later down the road. Did he need a green card or something?
uffda
She is twitching around like she’s got palsy through this whole thing. Playing with her hair, the water bottle, the pen. She is wound waaaayyy too tight. A neurotic nightmare.
Steve
Gallagher’s body language through most of that footage is pretty clear. She is squirming around and averting her eyes from the camera during the periods when she is presenting her organizations talking points. She knows she is not telling the truth.
At the end, she calmed down. She genuinely believes that a same-sex marriage “is not a marriage”.
But, of course, every one of the arguments she presents to convince others, is not true.
Robert, NYC
She was fucked a few times before she married and as a result, became pregnant, an unwed mother. Nice work, Maggie, hypocrisy and the double-standard know no bounds when you’re a right wing straight bigot.
naghanenu
I dont support NOM. But i dont like the way gays have turned this into a hate agenda. It is wrong info. If a man says due to my religious beliefs i cannot condone gay marriage is he a bigot?? Really?! Is it not following the laws of his religion?
I am Catholic..as a Catholic i have the laws as a christian and catholic that bind me and gues what i love my Christianity. It has been a blessing to me and i have no doubt in my mind the billions that follow it are not cult members or hatemongerers. It is unfair to say because i do not support your view therefore im a bigot.
And also gay marriage is being pushed by gays…is this not you endorsing your beliefs into law? Are u not allowed that as a member of this democracy? What is so different about NOM then??their pushing their ideas too.
Lets stop being hypocrites
Robert, NYC
Naghanenu, religious beliefs have NOTHING to do with CIVIL marriage. Demanding civil marriage is NOT a belief system. There is no deity invoked or any reference during a civil marraige ceremony. The fact of the matter is, LGBT people aren’t demanding religious marriage, nor do the majority of us care about that. If anything, it is NOM and others who are forcing a religious view on an issue that is strictly secular. State governments issue marriage licenses, not religious cults. Heterosexuals force their sexual orientation down our throats everytime we see them exchanging a kiss or holding hands in public or in the media, including intimate sexual scenes. I don’t hear people like you complaining about that. You don’t hear LGBT voters complaining about that now do you or demanding that their rights be taken away, nor do we support referenda designed to deny rights from one group of people simply because religious cultists are offended.
Peter
Naghanenu: You can be a catholic all you want. BUT you do not have the right to vote your religious views as law onto other people, as that is against the US Constitution; because you are then violating their religions.
NO, gays are NOT “pushing their beliefs into law; they are simply asking for the “right” to live their lives as you are presently doing (except when you discriminate so blatantly).
You are simply not accepting the fact that you are “using” your religion to deny me the right to believe what I believe. YOU can belive what you want; but you do not have the legal right to destroy that same right for me. It is just that simple! Just this last week we saw how the pope could change a catholic rule at the drop of a hat to gain some additional members.Really weird religion.
naghanenu
Many christians would beg to differ on marriage not being religous.. but that is for another day.
The civil right to live is every living beings right. This a totally agree with but with life comes differences in points of view. You belive u are right and i believe i am right….that is the beauty of humans.
Just because many Christians are not waving their gay mariage flag does not give you the right to censor them or call them bigots. RELIGION IS THEIR JUSTIFICATION AND YOU NEED TO RESPECT THAT. That is my point.
Many terrible crimes have been commited by so called Christians or muslims. Those people are decieving themselves if they assume that they were doing God’s work. I do not claim affiliation to such people and u should not assume their religion teaches hate either.
Attmay
“RELIGION IS THEIR JUSTIFICATION AND YOU NEED TO RESPECT THAT. ”
Like Hell I will.
Religion was the justification used during the Spanish Inquisition, did I also need to respect that?
Get off this site, breeder.
TikiHead
Maggie keeps repeating, like a God damned broken CD, ‘Is there a difference between men and women?’
I have a question for you Maggie dear: Do you believe gay and lesbian people exist?
Mostly it seems like you don’t.
naghanenu: We are under no obligation to respect anyone’s beliefs whatsoever. Not when we see the harm they do.
And I don’t care if Christians think marriage is religious. I don’t respect that opinion EITHER. As a matter of simple fact, marriage is a civil matter. That’s why atheists are allowed to get married, and call it a marriage.
Donna
First of all, did Maggie eventually break the pen she was nervously twisting?
Secondly,
At least she’s honest on that point as we all know about the estranged Raman Srivastav http://indiana.bilerico.com/2009/09/maggie_gallagher_-_raman_srivastav.php
Robert, NYC
Naghanenu, nobody is calling for the censorship of anyone’s beliefs. Religious beliefs are a personal issue, a chosen lifestyle, learned behavior, therefore not immutable, and as such, given the supposed separation of church and state, they should not be interfering in the political process. If they want that right, then compel them to forfeit their exemption. Religious cults enjoy tax-exempt status at the expense of the rest of society, including LGBT voters. The majority of religious cults most certainly do in fact promote hatred and intolerance when they use those personal beliefs to campaign to take away rights already gained as was the case in California and probably in Maine. LGBT people don’t campaign to have religious cults banned just because they conflict with our views or push to remove people from exercising their right to belief in whatever they want. Who are they to say who should be entitled to rights, since when? This is not a theocracy after all.
Further, no religious cult owns marriage, the secular state government has the final say on that when it issues non-religious marriage licenses. Various forms of marriage existed long before judaism and christianity were in the picture and changed everything, originally a patriarchal institution where women for millenia were considered property until recent times and less equal to men, in some religious cults they still are to this day.
In France for example, the only recognized marriage is the civil marriage, no religious element in that either. If people choose to have a religious solemnization of their marriage, they are free to do so and its not mandated. Nobody protests to ban that either. The two are entirely different. Civil marriage also does not use the procreation mantra either. If procreation is one of the reasons you oppose same-sex civil marriage based on religious tradition or superstition, then by the same token you have to oppose straight couples entering into a civil marriage who choose not to or cannot procreate.
John in SF
@naghanenu re No.21 :
What makes you a bigot, sir, is that not that you don’t believe in gay marriage. What makes you a bigot is that you believe that no one can believe in gay marriage. What makes you a dangerous bigot is that you want to enshrine bigotry into law.
Robert, NYC
John in SF, and what’s more, he wants to make sure that religious rights trump civil rights above all others. He and other of his ilk should move to an Islamic country, he’d have much in common with them and sharia law. Virtually indistinguishable.
Not Maggie's Husband
Question: Why don’t we ever see Maggie’s husband with her? Is she really even married? Or is it that the man she married (after getting knocked up by at least one other man) is of a ‘duskier hue’, and that she knows a ‘mixed marriage’ would alienate a lot of the bigots she’s appealing to, decrease fund-raising, and highlight the hypocrisy of her stated positions?
Think about it: In all these years that she has been speaking about the joys of hetero marriage, and spewing hate to deny homos the same joy, have you EVER seen a picture of her alongside the man to whom she has committed herself? Methinks it ain’t a coincidence that she keeps him hidden.
1EqualityUSA
Robert P. George, Chairman of the Board
Robert P. George has served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He has also served as a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. He is the author of In Defense of Natural Law, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, and The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis. He has published numerous scholarly articles and book reviews. Professor George is a recipient of many honors and awards, including the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2008 and a Bradley Prize for Intellectual and Civic Achievement in 2005. He holds honorary doctorates of law, ethics, letters, science, civil law, humane letters, and juridical science. Professor George was the 2007 John Dewey Lecturer in Philosophy of Law at Harvard University. He holds degrees from Oxford University (D.Phil.), Harvard University (M.T.S. and J.D.) and Swarthmore College (B.A.).
This is the man on which to focus attention. Maggie is not the brains behind the operation, just a well-paid foot soldier. Someday, I feel as though Mag’s is going to finally snap, to throw up her hands to the heavens and acquiesce, saying that what NOM is doing to fellow Americans is wrong. She seems conflicted and quite alone, as the NOM ship, the U.S.S. Bigotry, takes a pounding. Funny how “Jurisprudence-man” is so shadowy. His little experiment is failing to live up the the Constitutional test. Shine light on the dark corridors of Princeton to see the real rat of intolerance, “Jurisprudence-man”, Robert P. George.
“He who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.” Thanks, Ed Tubbs, for this maxim of Voltaire’s, forgotten by many. Your OpEd was food for thought on a balmy afternoon.
Robert of NYC, I’m enjoying your posts. As long as exclusive rights are being granted to heterosexual couples, the law will not be considered equal. This will change. I like to hear it repeated, however. Equality is inevitable.
Robert, NYC
1EqualityUSA, glad you enjoy my posts, I’ll keep them coming where appropriate. I enjoy yours too.
Fitz
“hate” is a normal human emotion. Don’t let the milk toast crowd tell you that you shouldn’t hate. Just learn to use that natural human emotion, and not get used by it.
Donna
No. 31 Not Maggie’s Husband
fyi Maggie’s Husband No Welcome at NOM event?
http://indiana.bilerico.com/20…..vastav.php
Jerry Priori
Add me to the list of people who wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire. I would, however, gladly piss on her grave.
Maggie is a cunt–fuck her and the Jesus she rode in on.
1EqualityUSA
The fat fire would burn forever, like tires piled for miles
Barney
jeffery: No normal person advocates a public policy position that hurts children, and that’s what denying marriage to same-sex couples does to their children.
I’m sorry Jeffery – this is non-sensical. Unless we all just got transported to the twilight zone, by the very standard of mother nature herself same-sex couples cannot have children.
There sure seems like a lot of very hateful things being expressed on this blog that is supposedly run by a group that is fighting against the so-called hate of the philosphical view that marriage, by its very nature and purpose, can only be between a man and a woman. Civilized people can agree or disagree with this philosophy or about the origins, purpose, and nature of marriage – but all of the words posted on this blog clearly indicate the group in-general that is just dripping with hate.
John in SF
@Barney No. 38
Using official US Census data, UCLA School of Law estimates that 20% of same sex couples in the United States are raising children under the age of 18. http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/publications/USCensusSnapshot.pdf
Not permitting those parents the right to marry directly harms well over a million children.
If you truly care about families, the welfare of children, and creating a more just society, you would be knocking down the doors of Congress and state legislatures to repeal DOMAs at the Federal and state levels.
Robert, NYC
Barney, there are many gay men who were once married to women and who had children with them and in a lot of instances, gained custody of the children. Similarly, there are many divorced bi males and females in the same situation. There are also gay couples having children via surrogacy, male and female alike. Biologically no, males can’t procreate together but we can have children by other socially accepted methods as do some straights where one of the partner’s is infertile, invitro fertilization for example if the male is infertile. Civilization has been procreating long before the abrahamic cults came along and invented their version of marriage and changed everything. There are many straight couples who marry and who don’t want children or can’t. What next, ban them because they’re not procreating? Maggie Gallagher and her posturing on the one man one woman nonsense does harm to the very children of gay and bisexual parents, no question about it which proves that NOM and others like them are definitely not pro-family or have pro-family values when they blatantly call for discrimination against gay men and women and their children. Don’t be so naive to think that it doesn’t.
Robert, NYC
Barney, there are many gay men who were once married to women and who had children with them and in a lot of instances, gained custody of the children. Similarly, there are many divorced bi males and females in the same situation. There are also gay couples having children via surrogacy, male and female alike. Biologically no, males can’t procreate together but we can have children by other socially accepted methods as do some straights where one of the partner’s is infertile, invitro fertilization for example if the male is infertile. Civilization has been procreating long before the abrahamic cults came along and invented their version of marriage and changed everything. There are many straight couples who marry and who don’t want children or can’t. What next, ban them because they’re not procreating? Compel widowed mothers or fathers to marry for the sake of it? Maggie Gallagher and her posturing on the one man one woman nonsense does harm to the very children of gay and bisexual parents, no question about it which proves that NOM and others like them are definitely not pro-family or have pro-family values when they blatantly call for discrimination against gay men and women and their children. Don’t be so naive to think that it doesn’t, or are you like her, burying your head in the sand or up your ass?
1EqualityUSA
“It isn’t discrimination when you treat different people differently.”
– Maggie Gallagher for Yes on 8 on Dr. Phil.
1EqualityUSA
“Just as the nation could not endure half slave and half free but eventually had to go all one way or all the other, we will not be able to get by with a situation in which some couples are married in one state, not married when they move to or travel through the next, and married again when they reach a third.
If same?sex marriage is legally recognized in a small number of states, it will spread throughout the nation, either through judicial action under the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause or by the working of informal cultural pressures. Some states – Utah would be one – may try to hold out, but sooner or later they will be whipped into line.”
–Robert P. George, Chairman,
National Organization for Marriage,
speaking at Brigham Young University,
October 28, 2008
1EqualityUSA
The majority vote does not count as due process of law.
THE MAJORITY VOTE DOES NOT COUNT AS DUE PROCESS OF LAW.
(One of my favorite letters to the Editor)
Sept. 26 — To the Editor:
I am a straight, 71-year-old grandma who just doesn’t get the fight against gay marriage!
I have enjoyed the benefits (and burdens) of being married nearly 50 years. For 90 percent of us, it’s been easy. Fall in love, get a license, find a religious or lay official to say the magic words and ba-da-boom! For better or worse.
So why can’t the gay community enjoy the same process guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment? Who does it hurt? What does it cost? Why deny anyone the right to a legal life together? Thus, wise lawmakers of Maine recognized that all of its residents deserved equal, civil rights to marriage.
There is no basis in fact or fairness to deny these rights. When religion cannot be used as a defense because of the prudent church and state separation, opponents resort to making stuff up to maximize baseless fear and rage among the homophobic. Kids cannot be hurt learning equal rights, but can be irreparably harmed and permanently tainted by parents preaching prejudice and hate while denying constitutional rights.
My Maine neighbors are good people. If their family members were attacked for being different, they’d fight hard for lawful rights for their own. Gay Americans are our own. Neighbors, friends, family, coworkers are 10 percent of us. No vote against them will change that fact, no matter how big the bigotry. Every voter who opposes gay marriage must ask themselves what they would do if it was their child or aunt or parent or cousin or fellow employee or good friend who was denied the right to marry a loved one.
It’s almost 2010. How many more decades and lives do we have to waste before we can all reject intolerance and embrace human rights?
Carol Selsberg
Eliot, Maine
Chapeau
She is a c*nt !
Mark
Maggie, I hope you are feeling just pleased as punch with yourself. I have to ask you though, if being is a christian is about love, acceptance and all that you speak so much about, how can you justify being a christian taliban? Jesus must be really pleased to see how he is being used to justify hatred against gay men and women. I pity you madam. You are obviously so unfulfilled in your own life you wish everyone to be as miserable as you are. “Whenever you do this unto the least of these my brethern, you do it unto me.”
Robert, NYC
Mark, the thing is, these right wing psycho talkers such as Gallagher circumvent the argument that they don’t hate gay people by using the “love the sinner hate the sin” mantra. Its a ploy to cover it up. Notice how everyone of them denies they hate us by using that tactic? Every Mainer who voted YES on 1 would deny they are homophobic and they don’t even have to be religious. This was an exercise in bigotry. The ballot initiative was actually fraudulent and should have been struck down. It implied that religious denominations would be obliged to marry same-sex couples but when marriage equality passed the legislature, it was categorically stated that these cults would be exempt as they are in every state that has equality and every country that allows us to marry. This is the same devious m.o. that was used to pass Prop. H8 in California, all based on lies. Ballot initiatives and other forms of referenda set a dangerous precedent. With republican governors in any of the states, you have fertile ground for hate groups, just like NOM, to foment. Its dead wrong and its undemocratic. Minority rights already granted must be protected under the constitution, whether the majority agrees or not. Ochlocracy (mob rule) is not democracy which is what this is all about. I hope full disclosure of the names of our opponents are made public, so we can see who these people are.
Jaroslaw
1EqualityUSA – thanks for sharing that letter.
Now EVERYONE here, send a copy of it to their local bigot – Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh (conservative radio hosts)
Print it out and stick it up on bulletin boards at work, share with friends via email etc.
MAKE IT COUNT. That is about the most eloquent letter I’ve read on the subject. Written in easy to understand english and not too long. Pretty much covers everything in a few paragraphs.
Is that Sept. 26 of 2009? Which Newspaper?
THANKS
Joe
Bigotry will begin to wane even faster if institutions like major universities would quit inviting people like Gallagher for a “dialogue”. It only gives creedence to the silly idea that she and her dispicable ilk have something of value to say. Imagine a university having a debate on wether or not the earth is flat and inviting flat-earth people to a “dialogue” on the subject. Gallagher has NOTHING to bring to the table, not even her little girl bangs.
Jaroslaw
Joe 49 – I know how you’re thinking but unfortunately even at Universities there are people whose minds are not open or who have “wrong” ideas about equality and liberty.
Hopefully, since the audience is hearing good rebuttals against Maggie’s points, that if even a few people come away with an elightened point of view, then it is worth it.