Continuing its strategy of scaring families into thinking same-sex marriage will lead to the recruitment of their children into the homosexual lifestyle, the National Organization for Marriage has been mailing out brochures to Rhode Island voters claiming âImposing same-sex marriage has consequences,â consequences that allegedly include, âMassachusettsâ public schools teach kids as young as kindergartners about gay marriage. Parents have no legal right to object!â PolitiFact has already debunked NOMâs myth, and bully for them! But whenever I hear these sorts of arguments, however misleading, I always come back to: Yeah, so? What if NOMâs claim is true?
So what if schools are telling children about gay marriages? And that theyâre legal in some states, and illegal and others. And that theyâre the unions of two loving people. Teachers are not telling students AND THEN THE TWO MEN FUCK EACH OTHER IN THE ASSHOLE, the same way they arenât teaching âkids as young as kindergartnersâ that mommy spreads her legs for daddyâs third leg.
Christopher Plante, NOMâs Rhode Island chapter head, has been making this scary argument at least as long as I remember first hearing his name. (Itâs usually accompanied by evidence of fag books found in school libraries.) But itâs time to stop playing this game about how NOM is somehow wrong about what gay marriage means for kids in school. We already know this is an organization that will distort the truth, outright lie, and distract its intended audience in any way necessary to get them to be scared of LGBTs. See the above ad the group is running in Rhode Island.
Instead, we could only hope NOM is right: that teachers and administrators feel comfortable enough about same-sex marriage to relay to kids that, hey, yeah, this is something thatâs happening out there, and itâs perfectly okay. Itâs not enough to say NOMâs claims are unfounded. Itâs time to say the only reasonable way to move forward is to normalize same-sex marriage in the eyes of kids, at least as much as they see opposite-sex marriage as de rigueur.
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.
We continue to play by NOMâs rules, refuting their claims and reacting, instead of acting. Which, sometimes, is necessary. But that canât be our game plan to change hearts and minds. Weâll be a lot further along when we show that kids really donât have a problem with gay couples, even married ones, and there is nothing to be scared of.
Cam
As with every story about NOM, I have to once again ask one of their heads, Maggie Gallagher the same questions.
Maggie, as a woman who seems to be making the fight for “Traditional Marriage” your life’s work, I have a few simple questions.
1. Why do you rarely if ever wear your wedding ring in public?
2. Why, as an advocate of traditional marriage, did you not take your husbands last name?
3. Why are you and your husband rarely if ever in the same city?
4. Why, when every “Family Vaulues” politician out there uses pictures of their family to illustrate their point, do you NEVER, EVER appear with your husband to show your “Traditional Marriage”?
McMike
I would offer this challenge to Maggie, Tony and every other “Family Values” leader:
Take a peter-meter test while viewing gay porn (Maggie, you can just use your strap-on) and if you don’t get turned on then gays and lesbians will happily STFU.
btw, NOM and every other hate group resort to flat-out lies. And, gee, why shouldn’t civil rights be put up to a vote? Maybe because our constitution tells us they shouldn’t.
greenmanTN
This is just the flip side of the Big Lie that education has perpetrated all along, that gays don’t exist. Really, gays are a fact of life and always have been but there has been a conspiracy of silence about it for hundreds of years. If you listened only to the opponents of gay rights you might think that homosexuality was invented in the 1960s just to piss off religious folk and the right wing, even though in reality it’s something that’s been documented in every known human culture throughout history. The protest chant “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” is probably on of the truer things ever said. You may have the the right to determine how you feel about something but you don’t get to determine reality itself and education is, or should be, about teaching facts not opinion.
Rick Gold
Because OBVIOUSLY if children are AWARE of homosexuality, then the will BECOME homosexuals.
It’s the same reason we don;t teach children about France or blacks or cannibals, because if you do they will instantly be transformed into black, French cannibals.
Some people are SOOO dumb.
Ian
“Great” job Queerty in feeding directly into using the right’s primary memo on denying basic Marriage Equality for Gay Americans by using THEIR terms of “gay” marriage and “same-sex” marriage. NO, it’s about marriage period and equality PERIOD. When media outlets use the language you did you separate the LGBT community and frame them as the “other”. Would you ask the African-America couple down the street, “How is your BLACK marriage doing?” Of course not, it is marriage period for every and any group, no more or less.
B
No. 1 ¡ Cam wrote, “As with every story about NOM, I have to once again ask one of their heads, Maggie Gallagher the same questions.” (About why Maggie is allegedly rarely seen with her husband).
Well, one possible reason – her husband might be embarrassed to be seen at any event related to NOM. Maybe he’s a closet liberal.
David
It would be a pleasant change if schools at least tell kids that gay people exist. I had known about using “gay” as a general disparaging term, but before I could figure out I was gay, I had to sneak in countless hours online (which was a lot harder than it would be today) to figure out what the word “gay” even meant or that it was possible for a guy to be into guys. They don’t even have to “promote” being gay by going out of their way to say it’s perfectly normal; they certainly spend a lot of time explaining that a lot of things straight people do sexually is wrong, immoral, and dangerous. At least tell the kids being gay is humanly possible. It’s really hard to come to terms with something when the only evidence anyone else is going through the same thing is on page 20 of a Google search. And really, when has not talking about something ever helped anybody?
Ian
@David: It’s different today though. The media is saturated with more gay images, & finding gay facts on the computer isn’t TO hard. I remember back circa 1990 and just starting college and only THEN around 19 was able to find what the word ‘gay’ actually meant as I was isolated in a hick midwestern town growing up. So yes though, it would be great to have those image of marriages with gay couples in childrens books etc. for kindergarten etc. for those kids who ARE gay but won’t know it until later down the line.
ProfessorVP
Why does the body of the article use the term “same-sex marriage” which I believe is the 2nd best choice of what it should be called, (“marriage equality” being the best) but the headline says “gay marriage?” Me no like. In case anybody didn’t know, many gay men & lesbians are already married. Right now. Legally. In every state. To people of the opposite sex. And no, not just Scientologists. Not always, but you can generally tell when someone in the MSM writes or says gay marriage, that the person is snickering a little. Gay marriage, that’s play-time marriage, pretend marriage, as opposed to real marriage. I think even for gay people, it’s hard to write or say “gay marriage” without a little mental eye-rolling.
hephaestion
Maggie Gallagher & Phyllis Schlaffly and all the anti-gay cretins are closeted homosexuals.
Ian
@ProfessorVP: It’s about changing a large cultural zeitgeist of what is deemed as currently acceptable terminology to coin marriage between two people of the same gender as “gay” marriage. Culturally it’s just as hard as 100 yrs ago when African-Americans were called “boy”, “mammy”, & of course the ‘N’ word. It took a long time to change that standard through continued education of the masses that took multiple decades.
What the gay community needs to do is actually for once copy what the GOP and the right wing are SO very good at in putting out their weekly talking point memos and speaking in complete lock-step. We as a whole have to begin to say “marriage equality” and correct over and OVER again when the media tries to use “gay” marriage. It will take awhile & require united discipline on our parts, but it can be done.
Michael
Why not return to a curriculum of reading, writing, and arithmetic and forget about teaching sociology to these kids? Maybe then, the US can at least one day hop back into the top ten in terms of education.
Michael
@ProfessorVP: Gay or straight, there’s never “marriage equality” in a relationship split or divorce.
Jurlesia
Once you dig behind the facade of Gallagher’s public life, it’s not hard to see what motives her. Gallagher wants abstinence-only sex education in schools, yet her own life story is proof that it does not work. That whore’s unprotected promiscuity lead to her first bastard child. If the founding president of the National Organization [Against] Marriage [Equality] can’t even keep her legs closed long enough to create a child IN wedlock, what makes her think that will be a realistic approach to birth control for America’s teens? I think she’s just so embarassed and angry about the egregious sins in her life that she is trying to right her wrongs by bringing down and punishing her fellow man. What a sad and sorry woman, indeed.
Brian Miller
I agree with the strategy advocated in the article.
In Maine, NOM screamed “children will learn about GAY PEOPLE IN SCHOOL if gay people are treated equally!”
To which the answer should have been “so what? By the way, every state and province surrounding Maine has equal marriage already — you’re advocating that kids not learn about reality. That’s as ridiculous as demanding that kids not learn about the existence of Jews, or Canadians.”
thematics
NOM seems to forget that marriage equality has been achieved in many countries, and that none of Maggie Gallagher-Srivistav’s dire predictions have come true.
Opposite-gender marriages have been progressively less enduring/stable LONG before same-gender marriages even were a reality. How could NOM not know this?
For NOM to *LIE* about Massachusetts’ schools shows how few facts they have, and how their campaigns are based purely on hate, fear, and bad science.
greenmanTN
From Fox News to NOM and all the various conservative “Family” organizations, telling the same lies over and over is their best strategy. Yeah, I know about “Godwin’s law” and the ridiculousness of calling anyone and everyone a Nazi, but that doesn’t mean the comparisons are never valid. Jon Stewart and others were all over Rep Steve Cohen for comparing Republicans and Fox News to Joseph Goebbels but judge for yourself. Based on these Goebbels quotes the strategy is the same.
âIf you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
âThe most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly – it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and overâ
Larsonal
do tell me this. if we all let gays get married, whats next? Legalizing to marry children? I mean come on, being gay is about as wrong as if you want to merry a child and when that happens, May God have mercy on us. look at the other countries. they have less stricked laws on pedo’s and America will do the same. it may not be tomorrow. a weak later. but in the future. Dont get me wrong guys, I dont mind being friends with homosexualls its just that we need to be careful on what we premote because it will have its consiquinces.
greenmanTN
@Larsonal: Sorry, that’s only worth a 6 on the trollometer. The misspellings were a nice touch though.
thematics
@Larsonal: No state or country that has passed marriage equality laws has allowed children to marry. Age of consent laws are not the issue.
Heterosexuals are much more likely to be pedophiles than LGB people, so I would never trust someone like you to be alone with my children.
You need to get an education. A GED would be a good start.
justiceontherocks
@Larsonal: Dude, how do you “merry” a child? What sort of things do you want to “premote”?
I’m so glad you don’t mind being friends with the gays but, frankly, we don’t want to be friends with you.
Shannon1981
Well apparently Nickelodeon doesn’t think anything of marriage, gay or straight. It is just a life choice, as it should be. This is an episode from Rugrats: All Grown Up. If you grew up in the 90’s like I did, with cable, you watched Rugrats. Tommy, Angelica, Lil, Phil,etc and their adventures. This is them in middle school. In this episode they do a life project where they pretend to be married. There are gay marriages and straight marriages in the project. It is really cute, and I hope you all watch when you have a chance. It is about 23 minutes long.
http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/NTV_agu_wouldntitbenice_full.html)
wewe
Well apparently Nickelodeon doesn’t think anything of marriage, gay or straight. It is just a life choice
pete N sfo
In the first line of this post, shouldn’t homosexual lifestyle be in quotations? After all, it is a fictitious notion invented by our critics to instill ignorant fear.
Larsonal
@thematics: Oh really, you think im a pedo for stating my oppinion? if i was a pedo i wouldnt of bothered posting here. In fact. you need to get your facts straight. just because i think being gay/lesbian is wrong doesnt make a person a pedo. and fyi I care about life more than you do. and for the record, dont you librals force crap down others throat and telling the conservitives that their raciasts not to mention burn the american flag? another thing. I did get an education and to let you know that i have had major blood clot in my brain and yes i suck at spelling because of that. fortunly you dont give a damn anyways. all im saying that the world isnt getting any better and fortunely you dont see it and to get another fact straight if you care about america, you would not be distroying what the forefathers set up but what do i know. im just another person that thinks nothing about people when im just stating a concerne. So excuse me if i dont meet your taste
Oprah
Why the need for gay marriage push? Why cant gay union with equal benefits and rights of the conventional marriage enough? I mean, is it really necessary to be equal to str8 people? All religions clearly state homosexaulity is a sin, we know that, we get that, but we all know Biology talks. One is born homosexual, pure and simple. What do you do with this scientific fact? Do not engage in homosexual sex since it is sin. What do you do in the meantime? Stay celibate, and pray to God, that would be enough. đ
carrie
just pass…i think it is normal,