Box Turtle Bulletin

Embarrassing images from NOM’s Providence Rally

When NOM’s Big Bus of Animus pulled into Providence, Rhode Island, things veered from the usual. Previously, counter-protests had been non-confrontational: Augusta’s was off-site, Manchester’s stayed a distance, and Albany’s surrounded NOMmers but did not disrupt the speakers.

Not so in Providence.

There the counter-protesters at first stood outside the anti-marriage rally and chanted, hoping to distract and annoy the speakers. And, as the equality supporters – by all accounts other than Brian Brown – outnumbered the anti-gay rallyers, this did serve to agitate them.

And some of them began to pray… more on that later.

But then the counter-protesters failed to stay united. Some went behind the speakers and began chanting and a few went up and began screaming in the face of NOM President, Brian Brown.

Not smart.

While I’m sure the young people in the picture certainly felt at the time like They Told Him!!, all that really happened is that they allowed the National Organization for Marriage to have an opportunity to capture an image that they could sell as The Militant Homosexual Activists!!being disruptive. A version of this picture – not including NOM’s “security” guys standing there unconcerned – has been making the rounds of anti-gay sites.

And this confrontation did something even worse than creating an embarrassing image, it made NOM’s Summer for Marriage Tour interesting.

Consider for a moment: you’re a nice young Catholic lady who is trying to decide what to do for the afternoon and you’ve come up with three options: finally write to Great Aunt Melba to thank her for her lovely Christmas fruitcake, pull weeds in the petunia bed, or go stand for an hour in the sun and listen to Jennifer Roback Morse and Brian Brown lecture you about marriage. Weeds seem pretty exciting by comparison.

And NOM’s circus hasn’t had much draw so far. No celebrities or prominent politicians; even Rhode Island’s anti-gay governor Don Carcieri didn’t make an appearance. It’s just mostly senior citizens and uber-religious folk and, heaven forbid, you might run into Aunt Melba.

But now suppose that there’s a possibility that you might get to confront Militant Homosexual Activists. Well, that might be interesting. Good for a story next Thanksgiving when you’re stuck sitting next to Aunt Melba, at least.

So confronting Brown was an ill-advised choice. It took an extremely boring situation and gave the press a reason to cover it and anti-gay activists a reason to bother.

Now, this is not to say that I don’t understand the emotion which led the kids to go confront Brown. Rhode Island is expected to be the next Marriage battle ground and, depending on November’s election, may have a legislative vote in 2011. I would be emotional as well.

And equality supporters were not the only ones who let their emotions cloud their wisdom. So did Pastor Jay Stirnemann of the Christ Temple United Pentecostal Church in Tiverton:

For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, Stirnemann is “speaking in tongues,” also called Glossolalia, a religious practice is predominantly engaged in by Pentecostals and other Charismatic Christians. There are a variety of hypotheses about speaking in tongues, but most include a high level of emotionality and lower level of logic or direct communication.

Those who speak in tongues experience it as letting go of themselves and letting the Holy Spirit speak through them. Some think Glossolalia is God’s spirit within them communicating in a celestial tongue, some as a way to praise without distraction of thought or of Satanic influences (Satan being unable to understand the language), but all agree that this is a very holy experience. And they agree that speaking in tongues is an evidence that God has granted them with specific spiritual powers.

In this case, Stirnemann clearly believes that he is engaging in spiritual warfare, that his praying in tongues enables angelic forces for good to invisibly battle demonic forces for evil. His prayer is one of authority and power and he is “binding spirits of darkness.” He genuinely believes that the chanting gay people are attacking him spiritually and that his prayer is effective in defeating such attacks.

But it doesn’t matter so much exactly what it is that Pastor Jay believes, what matters is what he is doing and how it will be perceived. And NOM can’t be too happy about the latter.

The National Organization for Marriage is in many ways a Catholic lay organization. And it is rather unlikely that Brian Brown or Maggie Gallagher are comfortable in the presence of those who are praying in tongues. Nor are legislators, voters, or contributors to their cause.

Remember our young Catholic lady above. She would rather spend a whole day visiting with Aunt Melba discussing her bursitis than spend any time with “crazy people babbling nonsense.”

So in Providence, I’d have to say that both sides suffered from image issues. And remember, this whole campaign – along with the counter campaign – is crafted solely for media and public image consumption.

Going forward, the winners in the battle over image and perception will be determined by which can avoid appearing to be raging lunatics or babbling nutjobs.

NOM’s President administers the NOM site that NOM claims is not their own

Ya know that National Organization for Marriage Facebook page that that spews pure nastiness and contempt? The one that NOM’s PR firm claims is run by “a private party”?

The Facebook account on which these statements were reportedly made is not NOM’s Facebook page and neither NOM nor anyone representing NOM made these statements. The Facebook account in question is operated by a private party and NOM does not control what is allowed to be posted on the account…

Yeah, well guess who was doing using the site’s administration today.

Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman Brian: Fun rally today in Albany. Protestors came out with colored balloons and umbrellas. I posted the whole account over at the Marriage Tour blog, complete with pictures.

That “Brian” would be NOM’s president, Brian Brown.

(p.s. My favorite comment was this one… and she wrote it without irony:

Dawn Benjamin: in the end times people will call evil good and good evil. They will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money. Pray for these people and ask God for their spiritual eyes and ears to be opened. It is a spiritual warfare but God has won the Battle!)

Another bad day for the National Organization for Marriage’s Giant Flop tour

Today NOM’s Big Bus of Animus came to Albany, NY. And the rhetoric and spin from the National Organization for Marriage is reaching comical proportions.

NOM: “Local supporters were happy with the turnout, explaining that downtown Albany is a “ghost town” on weekends.”

More NOM: “We started off in Augusta with close to 200 people on Wednesday, had roughly 150-200 in Manchester on Thursday, and around 100 in Albany today.”

Courage Campaign: “It’s fair to say that Albany turned into yet another NOM FAIL, due to the beauty of creative counter-protest and the paltry NOM attendance (Danny hand-counted 57 attendees).”

Yes, it looks like NOM continues to have problems with simple mathematics. Or perhaps they suffer from Honesty Deficiency Syndrome.

In Albany, local supporters of equality came up with a very creative way of countering NOM’s message. Inspired by their warnings of gathering storms, the community showed up with colorful umbrellas and surrounded the rally.

And NOM & crew are not happy. NOM’s Louis Marinelli is getting increasingly bitter as each day goes by.

Today he continued his pattern of putting the names and pictures of gay people on his blogsite, this time a young activist named Danny. While this is a common tactic for the some of the crazier of the anti-gay loons, I’m not sure what Marinelli is hoping to accomplish. I guess he thinks that this is still 1972 and that gay people are living in the shadows hoping no one finds out that we are gay.

He also waved his martyr flag with a little story about how some woman wasn’t able to dictate to the “rude interlopers” where they should stand or which way they should face.

Poor NOM, things aren’t going so well for them in the North East. Tiny crowds, “rude interlopers”, and unflattering photos of NOM’s Brian Brown scowling, glaring, and snarling. We’ll see how things for for them tomorrow in Rhode Island.

UPDATE:

Marinelly has lost it. He’s really completely lost it.

He has now dedicated an entire blog post to the fact that some counter-protester brought his dogs. Seriously.

NOM tries relabeling their Facebook site

The National Organization for Marriage is feeling the heat resulting from the nasty-ass hate speech that is being spewed at their One Man, One Women Facebook page. They’ve already tried to announce that this site – which they tout as their own – is not really theirs but is all separate, you see. Just ignore the logo and the slogan and that the site’s “owner” is – as I write this – driving NOM’s Big Bus of Animus around on a 23 city tour.

Well, no one bought it. So now they are trying a different approach. NOM has now changed the picture that accompanies the site administrators to this:

Because they aren’t really NOM.

Nope, they are a coalition. Yessiree, a coalition. See, it says so right there!

So, sure. Okay, they are a coalition. A coalition that goes by the name of National Organization for Marriage.

NOM’s Marinelli can’t count

National Organization for Marriage’s Louis Marinelli is blogging about the “enthusiastic rally for marriage in Manchester”. He says

Then we got to work and everything went pretty smoothly which gave us time to play some music prior to the rally, which started on time at noon with an introduction by Brian Brown who gave a very charismatic speech about how we will not tolerate being labled as bigots for standing up for what we believe in.
…
He received great applause from a crowd of marriage supporters that had quicky grown to over 150.

And here’s his wide-screen shot of the crowd:

How many heads are in this picture? I count 74. And I compared it to the others from the same event and while some folks seem to have been milling about, this was pretty much it.

Don’t you wish the ones who claim moral superiority would at least try to speak truthfully?

The “families” on NOM’s Big Bus of Animus are fake,

Anti-gay activists love to call same-sex relationships “artificial.” But those brightly smiling happy families beaming from the side of the National Organization for Marriage’s tour RV and van truly are fake.

As Jeremy at GoodAsYou.org shows, they are stock photos of models posing as families.

Oh, but when has NOM ever cared about honest representation?

NOM’s Marinelli “miscounts” the counter-protesters

Louis Marinelli, the organizer of NOM’s Big Bus of Animus nineteen city tour (and driver of the RV), blogged about the two girls who served as silent observers of the rally in August, ME. From the rather unsettlingly named One Man, One Woman: Inside Look:

Meanwhile, after an all-out call for homosexuals and gay rights activists from around the state, Equality Maine and other national gay rights groups which have been scrambling to organize counter rallies in opposition to the Marriage Tour were only able to turn out one lesbian couple who attended the rally silently and without any disruption.

They were “only able to turn out one lesbian couple”? Really? I guess that’s what you have to say when you don’t want to admit that your rally was dwarfed in size by the counter-protest.

And it’s not like Marinelli didn’t know about the counter protest; he dismisses it a “press conference” before going on to deride the girls for not wanting to be identified (he names one anyway) in NOM’s tour blog (He needs to get his NOM talking points straight). This “Summer Marriage Tour” is so pathetic that Marinelli is willing to say anything so as not too appear a complete failure.

NOM’s Big Bus of Animus tour continues to struggle

I guess the public exposure about National Organization for Marriage’s new image is starting to sting a little. NOM’s Brian Brown posted “Brian Brown said that we have ALWAYS stood for respect for the dignity of ALL people” on NOM’s tour site. Perhaps it would have been more effective if he hadn’t followed it with “Notes that civil rights activists in the African American community are sick and tired of opposition attempts to hijack the legacy of that movement.”

Brown also posted a picture from his rally in Manchester, NH, the second stop on the marriage tour of NOM’s Big Bus of Animus.

The crowd doesn’t appear to be any bigger than in Augusta, ME; I counted about 53 in this picture. But while the crowd may not be large, NOM certainly has a lock on the long-black-skirt wearing crowd.

I wonder what those “sick and tired” civil rights activists in the African American community think about the sign of the fellow up front? It says “Want diversity? Have more kids.”

NOM claims to be separate from the Facebook page they tout as their own

The public relations firm for the National Organization for Marriage has sent us a statement about the Protect Marriage: One Man One Woman facebook page:

“The Huffington Post on Wednesday falsely attributed statements to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) about discrimination faced by gays and lesbians. The statements were apparently posted by an unnamed “administrator” of the “Protect Marriage: 1 Man 1 Woman” Facebook account. Huffington Post falsely claims that this is NOM’s Facebook page. The Facebook account on which these statements were reportedly made is not NOM’s Facebook page and neither NOM nor anyone representing NOM made these statements. The Facebook account in question is operated by a private party and NOM does not control what is allowed to be posted on the account, a fact that could have been easily known to Huffington Post had they reached out to NOM to verify the report.”

Because BTB was referenced in the piece, they wanted to be sure that we know that NOM is not responsible for the false, hostile, and hate-filled statements being made by the administrators of the site.

I don’t buy it.

Not only has Jeremy at GoodAsYou.org fully documented that Louis Marinelli and his organization/website have become integrated into NOM’s structure, but NOM is touting the site as their own. From Twitter:

And what do you see when you get there?

So this is “not NOM’s Facebook page”? Really?

Now, I understand the distinction between running a site and just linking to others who may share similar goals but different perspectives. In fact, Box Turtle Bulletin has a whole blogroll of sites we offer for those who are looking for additional coverage of issues which we discuss. But we don’t put them under our heading, let them use our Logo, or utilize their site to collect names for the “BTB Team.”

And let’s take a little look at the language on NOM’s Big Bus of Animus:

Gee, it certainly looks to me like the National Organization for Marriage has adopted the phrase “One Man, One Woman” as their own. And who is driving that bus? Louis Marinelli, who is the “owner” of the facebook page that NOM is simultaneously touting and denying.

And finally, if “neither NOM nor anyone representing NOM made these statements”, then maybe you should tell him that. Earlier today, James Preece, writing as an administrator, had this to say about the comments which were quoted in the Huffington Post:

Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman I’m not making a retraction: Through out history homosexuals have never faced persecution at the level Jews, Christians, and Blacks have. For the homosexual population, their only focus is WWII.
…
Jaimi, when you work in the area I and others of NOM and Protect Marriage, you will hear a lot of thing from the homosexual activist…

So, no, I don’t believe that NOM has any right to complain that anyone might have confused the two organizations. In fact, they have so commingled their image, their staff, and their slogans that they have for all practical purposes become one entity.

If NOM doesn’t believe or support the statements made by the facebook page administrators, then they need to publicly denounce them and pull their logo from the site. Otherwise, claims such as the one made by NOM’s PR firm are not worth the digital space they occupy.

National Organization for Marriage gets paltry welcome in Maine

NOM’s Bus of Animus has rolled into Augusta, ME. And thousands hundreds a hand full of people came out to greet them and support their wackadoodlery. (WCSH)

The National Organization for Marriage, a group which helped local efforts to overturn Maine’s law, made Augusta its first stop on a 20-city tour, targeting areas where it feels traditional marriage is under attack. Brian Brown, the organization’s executive director, told his crowd of about 50 people that court cases in Massachusetts and in California affect the marriage issue across the country.

Across town, a counter protest pulled in about 150 folks with the Governor making a surprise appearance. (Maine Watch Dog)

Should NOM be as successful in ever stop as they were with the launch of their 29 city tour, they have the potential to reach up to 1,000 people and change hundreds of dozens of no minds.

NOM’s new message

National Organization for Marriage’s new facebook site, Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman, has an interesting new message:

Protect Marriage: One Man, One Woman

Mike, in part I agree with you. It will cost a lot of money to fight this fight. However, no one is taking rights away from homosexuals. They are wanting rights that heterosexuals don’t have. There are no laws provided to heterosexuals based on their sexuality.

Next, they are “first-class citizens” like the rest of us. They are not being repressed, discriminated against. There is no and never has ever been a homosexual man hunt for them. Jews, Christians, and Blacks were hunted down and murdered. Homosexuals have nothing in common with the three.

Are they completely delusional?

NOM goes completely wackadoodle

In the grand spectrum of anti-gay activism that ranges from relatively respectful disagreement through nasty and spiteful on its way to ragingly hateful and on to bizarre and downright insane, Maggie Gallagher and her National Organization for Marriage have managed to retain the appearance of being rational and principled. While their intentions were hostile and based in animus and the presumption of superiority, their rhetoric was more mainstream and avoided trips into the realm of paranoia, villainizing, or blatant hatred.

Until recently.

But increasing Maggie has been losing it, demonstrating an increasingly bitter and hostile persona and saying things that she never would have just a year or so ago.

And things have changed for NOM, as well. No longer behaving like a marriage advocate, NOM now seems to have morphed in to a radical anti-gay activist group with views and opinions similar to those of Peter LaBarbera or Brian Camenker. The new NOM doesn’t love heterosexual marriage anywhere near as much as they dislike gay people in general.

A few weeks ago we let you know about NOM’s merging with an anti-gay extremist group, One Man, One Woman, headed by Louis J. Marinelli. Although at first it seemed that NOM was trying to downplay their affiliation, this tactic has been abandoned and Marinelli’s facebook site is now at least semi-officially the voice of the National Organization for Marriage.

And a nasty voice it is, indeed.

Language about “the best interests of children” has been replaced with ranting about “the homosexual agenda” and posts about how violent gay people are. And Jeremy at Good_As_You has extensively documented Marinelli’s extremism from trying to equate gay people to pedophiles and prostitutes to repeating the old Paul Cameron lies.

Yes, NOM has decided it’s time to attach its bus to the wackadoodle train… and I marvel at that decision. Frankly, I thought Maggie was smarter than that.

NOM’s double standard on public exposure

NOM's Bus of Animus

Maggie and crew over at the National Organization for Marriage were furious when the courts ruled that Washington State was not incorrect in wanting to release the names of the signatories on public referenda. She was aghast that the courts did not shroud the identity of those who wanted to testify in favor of Proposition 8. And she was apoplectic when the Maine courts told her that she could not keep secret the identity of those who funded the campaign to block marriage equality in that state.

They Could Be in DANGER! They might lose business or have people say mean things to them if the public came to know that these individuals sponsored anti-gay discrimination!

But it seems that NOM’s concern for privacy and secrecy extends only to those who agree with them. When it comes to those who oppose NOM’s agenda, all concerns for privacy, security, or “participating in the democratic process” no longer matter.

This week, activist Louis Marinelli and NOM President Brian Brown are traveling about in a big Protect Marriage bus and a little Protect Marriage van, seeking to encourage and rally those who are dedicated to keeping you, your family, and your rights inferior to their own. And here is what NOM had to say on Thursday:

Yesterday, a handful of teenagers packed into a small white car beside the NOM van at a red light took notice of the van’s exterior design which reads “Protecting Marriage Between One Man and One Woman”.

“Hey, you guys are against gay marriage!” one girl yelled out, calling the NOM van to the attention of her friends, who proceeded to yell out vulgarities and show their middle fingers to us. Then they got camera shy when Louis started taking photos of them from inside the van. The girl in the front passenger side tried to cover her face.

Real courageous group.

This was accompanied by a photograph of the car and its passengers. I’ll not include it here.

NOM Is Furious — Just Furious!

Reading this press release from the National Organization for Marriage made my spit my beer through my nose:

“Under the guidance of Elena Kagan’s brief that she filed when she was Solicitor General, Obama’s justice department deliberately sabotaged this case,” charged Brian Brown, President of NOM, referring to the Justice Department’s brief which described DOMA as discriminatory. Despite the explicit language in DOMA that the law was designed to protect children’s right to their mothers and fathers, the judge disavowed that DOMA has anything to do with responsible procreation. “With only Obama to defend DOMA, this federal judge has taken the extraordinary step of overturning a law passed by huge bipartisan majorities and signed into law by Pres. Clinton in 1996. A single federal judge in Boston has no moral right to decide the definition of marriage for the people of the United States,” Brown continued.

“Does this federal judge want to start another culture war?” asked Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM. “Does he really want another Roe. v. Wade? The simple fact is that the right of the federal government to define marriage for the purposes of its federal law and federal territories has been clear since the late 19th century, when Congress banned polygamy. Only an incompetent defense could have lost this case. We expect to win in a higher court.”

NOM joins forces with virulently vile anti-gay activist

It seems that the National Organization of Marriage has been gradually slipping off message. Long pretending that “we don’t hate homosexuals”, NOM tried to keep up the image that they were just opposed to same-sex marriage (for the children, you know). But it seems that Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown have found the effort of appearing pleasant to be daunting (or perhaps less financially fulfilling) because recent comments seem to be veering closer and closer to plain old anti-gay animus and playground meanness.

Now Jeremy at Good_As_You has (along with blogger Matt Algren) identified an affiliation between NOM and their new strategist, anti-gay activist Louis J. Marinelli III. The language and claims of Mr. Marinelli bring NOM into a whole new category. Here are a few of the tweets that Marinelli has recently made on NOM’s behalf.

Those who wish to promote homosexual behaviour are encouraging people to shorten their life spans. Homosexuality is not a healthy lifestyle.

(We debunked the “shorten lives” claim)

#nevertrust activists of the homosexual agenda – they are deceitful people who care only about themselves and not what’s best for society!

It is clear that Maggie and Brian have decided to link their organization to the most radical and extreme segments of the anti-gay movement. They are now taking on the tone of spiteful slurs and villification of the gay community.

But really, is it all that surprising?

When someone dedicates their life to fighting against your rights, freedom, liberty and equality, it isn’t out of love. It just isn’t