Maggie Gallagher Makes Her Predictions

Jim Burroway

August 20th, 2009

As we noted earlier, Steve Chapman challenged three same-sex marriage opponents to predict the consequences of same-sex marriage in those states where it is legal. None of them took him up on his challenge. But after protesting that Chapman’s question was a “game of ‘gotcha’,” Maggie Gallagher changed her mind and decided to give it a go:

  1. In gay-marriage states, a large minority people committed to traditional notions of marriage will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way.
  2. Public schools will teach about gay marriage.
  3. Parents in public schools who object to gay marriage being taught to their children will be told with increasing public firmness that they don’t belong in public schools and their views will not be accomodated [sic] in any way.
  4. Religous [sic] institutions will face new legal threats (especially soft litigation threats) that will cause some to close, or modify their missions, to avoid clashing with the government’s official views of marriage (which will include the view that opponents are akin to racists for failing to see same-sex couples as married).
  5. Support for the idea “the ideal for a child is a married mother and father” will decline.

This looks like a preview of the Maine battle in November. Have you donated yet? What are you waiting for?

Derrick Davis

August 20th, 2009

I’m willing to bet that Maggie is right. Of course she might realize how stupid she sounds if we were to adjust her “predictions” to 1955 when integration in schools was occurring:

1. In integrated states, a large minority of people committed to traditional notions of segregation will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way.

2. Public schools will teach that all races are equal.

3. Parents in public schools who object to equality being taught to their children will be told with increasing public firmness that they don’t belong in public schools and their views will not be accommodated in any way.

4. Religious institutions will face new legal threats (especially soft litigation threats) that will cause some to close, or modify their missions, to avoid clashing with the government’s official views of equality (which will include the view that opponents are akin to bigots for failing to see black people as equal).

5. Support for the idea “separate but equal” will decline.

David C.

August 20th, 2009

We can easily infer from this what NOM’s messaging will likely be. Each of Maggie’s 5 “predictions” need to be neutralized.

Expect NOM to do what they did in California: pound on their favorite soft spots: threats to religious freedom, and teaching children about the normalcy of alternative family structures: these have been shown to be effective scare tactics.

No on 1/Protect Maine Equality needs to tune their messaging to counter these NOM messages. No on 1 has already been doing a good job of showing the normalcy of gay families in the state, particularly healthy children and family structures. As NOM attempts to perfect its anti-gay, anti-equality messaging, No on 1 will need to be ready to bear with the NOM targets. That is going to take money and other resources.

Readers should donate while matching funds are being offered by other givers. Remember: money available in the early part of the campaign makes the greatest impact.

Penguinsaur

August 20th, 2009

What a weasel. She chooses the most vague and unrelated stuff.
1. Impossible to prove. A ton of people protest gay marriage, more are hiding. almost no one did, they’re all being oppressed! Of course this is gays fault, not just people being tired of getting laughed at every time they express a stupid opinion like “we should take rights from gay people” or “we didn’t land on the moon”

2.I went to highschool in Texas and we talked about gay marriage in government class. Those darn Texans oppressing True Christians by not refusing to acknowledge national events and the parents of afew of the students.

3. the idiots who think the earth is 6000 years old are also told with increasing public firmness that they don’t belong in public schools and their views will not be accommodated in any way. Are gays also responsible for schools not honoring parent’s requests to never mention the healthcare debate in class?

4.this ones alittle indecipherable *probably intentionally* but it sounds like she’s either whining about everyone with a cross on the buildings not being able to deny gay couples the same benefits as straight ones or any lawsuit ever is proof the poor oppressed bigots are under siege. just like McDonalds is because some idiot sues them for being fat. She’s basically gambling that someone, somewhere, in the northeast will sue a church for something gay-related.

5. A. how the hell do you measure “Support for the idea “the ideal for a child is a married mother and father””? did someone do a poll before gay marriage? I doubt it, because no one actually gives a damn about the ‘ideal’ family except when using it as an excuse to attack other families.
B. 5 bucks says this is just code for “not objecting to gay parents” which makes total sense what with legalizing gay marriage, funny how the people SO concerned with the ‘ideal’ family don’t do anything about single parents.

Elliot

August 20th, 2009

Here’s a prediction from an anti-abolitionist just before the civil war.

1. In free states, a large minority people committed to traditional notions of slavery will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way.

2. Public schools will teach that it isn’t okay to enslave black people.

3. Parents in public schools who object to abolitionism being taught to their children will be told with increasing public firmness that they don’t belong in public schools and their views will not be accomodated [sic] in any way.

4. Slave owners will face new legal threats (especially soft litigation threats) that will cause some to close, or modify their missions, to avoid clashing with the government’s official views of slavery (which will include the view that opponents are akin to rapists for failing to see that slavery is wrong).

5. Support for the idea that “black people do not deserve freedom, or rights” will decline.

Why doesn’t Maggie think of something that’d be an actual detriment to society?

Richard Rush

August 21st, 2009

To paraphrase what someone else said: Are those “consequences” the worst that Maggie can come up with? If that’s the case, the same-sex marriage debate really is over.

Christopher Waldrop

August 21st, 2009

For most of the predictions, my response was, “Yeah, sounds like a good thing to me.” With no.3, though, I don’t believe religious institutions really will “face new legal threats”. Rather I think many will face increasing pressure from within their own congregations to change.

John Ozed

August 21st, 2009

I think Maggie realizes that if she loses her anti same sex marriage battle, she will be out of a job and it will be back to her quality control position at Dunkin Donuts. Oh how she hates to wear a hairnet and a bib!

homer

August 21st, 2009

Maggie Gallagher makes her living by creating hatred and fear of homosexuals. This is her full-time job. She is no different than a leader of the KKK. What a disgusting “person.”

Alex

August 21st, 2009

John Ozed,

I think that’s exactly what’s going on. Maggie Gallagher and many people like her have a pathological need to feel needed. As long as she has an audience for her anti-gay attitudes, she’ll feel like she’s doing her job.

Brady

August 21st, 2009

Wait, so civilization won’t end? Marriage won’t be devalued? Divorce rates won’t go up?

I’ve got to agree…if this is the worst she can come up with, then this debate’s basically over…

Jarred

August 21st, 2009

1. First of all, did Maggie Gallagher just admit that those committed to “traditional notions of marriage” are a minority? Will wonders never cease? Beyond that, how do they wish to speak up for their views? It’s one thing to say, “I prefer a more traditional marriage, which is why my marriage is like this.” It’s another thing to say “Your marriage should fit this mold.” The former is expressing one’s views and something I would defend. The latter is trying to force others to adopt your views.

2. Gay marriages are a reality. Does Maggie really expect schools to avoid facing reality? “Pay no attention to the two nice men hugging your classmate when they pick him up kids. We can’t talk about them. Maggie Gallagher would be mad.”

3. Parents who want to shelter their children from reality need to reassess their approach to parenting. Those kids are going to have to learn to deal with the reality that Heather has two mommies at some point. Unless you plan on keeping them in a compound isolated from the rest of the world forever.

4. This is such a vague bogeyman that it makes no sense.

5. And perhaps support for that idea needs to go away. The ideal situation for a child is a stable environment filled with love and nurturing. There are a lot of environments that provide this. And let’s not forget that this whole “nuclear family” idea is a relatively new concept in itself. Entire clans used to live together and help raise each others children. And grandparents and other living relatives living in the home was quite regular for the longest time. And yet these “traditional family” advocates don’t seem to be complaining about denying a child regular access to a live-in grandparent.

Timothy (TRiG)

August 21st, 2009

http://worthlessdrivel.net/2009/08/20/nom-nom-nom/

Zeke

August 21st, 2009

Wait a gosh darn minute, does she not argue, ad nauseam, that the threat of gay marriage is that heterosexual marriages will be damaged and reduced by the “new definition” of “marriage” and that children will be harmed because heterosexuals will be less inclined to enter into a “reduced” institution leaving more children of heterosexuals without a “mother/father” family?

In fact ole Maggie was on Lou Dobbs the other night laying out her “threats” from gay marriage. You can read about it here:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/12588/tobias-wolff-and-lou-dobbs-slay-noms-gallagher-on-doma

And yet in her list of THE 5 main dangers of allowing gay marriage NOT ONE SINGLE ONE of these arguments was in ANY way mentioned. Not narry a one of the things that she claims in her daily television rants and raves makes the top five list when she actually has to put it in writing, knowing that she can later be challenged on it.

Does this not prove, WITHOUT A DOUBT, that this woman is full of sh*t and that her whole “movement” is bogus?

Johnson

August 21st, 2009

Maggie Gallagher is nothing but a media whore, whose organization NOM is a front for and funded by the Mormon Church. She also takes over 40 percent of all NOM donations to put directly into her own pocket. She is beyond contempt.

fannie

August 21st, 2009

“To paraphrase what someone else said: Are those “consequences” the worst that Maggie can come up with? If that’s the case, the same-sex marriage debate really is over.”

Yep, I agree. My first thought on reading her statement was “…and? so what?”

Gallagher’s statement is a significant backtrack from the Marriage Will End Civilization As We Know It rhetoric that anti-gays have been spouting for years.

This is exactly why we need to always press them for specifics.

Lindoro Almaviva

August 21st, 2009

This woman not only sounds like a broken record, she sounds like a mouth piece for someone else. There is not one original idea coming out of her mind.

Ben in Oakland

August 21st, 2009

Johnson– do you mean to say that if she did it for free, she would be only contemptible?

Rob Lll

August 21st, 2009

Two observations:

1) All of the predicted consequences (with the exception of #4, which I think is a pure canard) could and ARE happening in places where SSM is not legally recognized.

As American society grows more receptive to its GLBT citizens, more and more people are coming to the conclusion that opposition to SSM is bigoted, the issue is being addressed in schools, and gay couples are increasingly recognized as just as capable of being good parents as straight couples. This is a part of a general social evolution, and while legal recognition of SSM might arguably *accelerate* that movement, I don’t think you can credibly claim it as a cause. If anything, it is belated “official” (i.e., governmental) recognition of a social reality that has now been around for some time.

2) The supposedly nefarious consequences that Gallagher cites aren’t really effects on society at large. What she’s really concerned with is how marriage equality will affect HER and people who think like her.

Basically, the anti-gays are worried that society at large will end up regarding them with the same kind of opprobrium to which they have long subjected gay people. Very telling.

CLS

August 21st, 2009

Chapman asked for “concrete predictions about measurable social indicators—marriage rates, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, child poverty, you name it.” He was quite clear what he was looking for — something, anything that fit with the dire predictions that the bigots have been making. Maggie doesn’t offer a single one. If Chapman weren’t a syndicated, national columnist she would have ignored him. Because he is, and she was humiliated by her lack of response, she gave the illusion of a response without actually providing any of the sort of predictions requested.

Priya Lynn

August 21st, 2009

Very interesting Rob and CLS

Johnson

August 21st, 2009

Ben in Oakland–Yes, but rest assured she doesn’t do anything for free–it takes a big trough to feed that hog, if you get my drift.

Burr

August 21st, 2009

Maggie is clearly not an expert on the damage that homosexuality can cause to society..

Where is her TORNADO prediction?!? D:

GreenEyedLilo

August 21st, 2009

Well. Leave it to Maggie Gallagher to answer the phone.

It seems most of what I will generously call her “points” boil down to, “We’re going to have to be nice to same-sex couples and their kids! We can’t use the law to tell them we hate them anymore! And we’ll be called bigots if we’re mean! WAAAAHH!!!”

Threat to civilization that I am, I’m perfectly okay with that.

Dan

August 21st, 2009

I don’t know why it is so hard for nonlawyers to understand that marriage laws do not give anyone the right to sue a church or religious institution, nor do they determine school curricula. Separate laws decide those issues, and you can have laws in those areas that Maggie likes or dislikes without regard to whether there is same sex marriage. In fact, some of the infamous anecdotes that they constantly bring up occurred in states where there was no SSM (New Mexico, NJ).

I don’t know why it is so hard for our side to simply explain this in an ad. I hope the No on 1 people can finally do it.

Her other predictions have to do with feelings. That is not exactly the collapse of Western civilization that NOM has been talking about heretofore.

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