Dear Brian Brown: When it comes to violence and vilification, NOM is there.

Rob Tisinai

August 16th, 2012

Dear Brian Brown,

After Wednesday’s shooting at the Family Research Council, you quickly leveraged the event into a self-serving denunciation of the Southern Poverty Law Center. I can’t fault you for that. After all, in the wake of Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting, I denounced Sarah Palin for lacking the decency to take down her “target map” with its Giffords crosshairs as the Congresswoman struggled through intensive care. However…

However, you’d be more persuasive if you didn’t exploit this crime to lie about yourself and your organization.

NOMblog reports your statement:

Today’s attack is the clearest sign we’ve seen that labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the Family Research Council a ‘hate group’ for its pro-marriage views, and less than a day ago the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement calling FRC a ‘hate group’—they even specified that FRC hosts events in Washington, DC, where today’s attack took place.

NOM has always condemned all violence and vilification connected to our ongoing national debate about the meaning and definition of marriage.

Please, Brian, this event is too important for casual deception. NOM has long, long history, not just of failing to condemn violence and vilification, but of promoting it.

  • When Reverend Ariel Torres Ortega stood on your stage as your guest at your rally and proclaimed that gays are “worthy to death,” NOM was there. But you didn’t condemn it at the event, on your website, or on your blog.
  • When Bishop Robert Evans announced gay marriage represents “the evil modern day works of Satan,” NOM was there to spread the message.
  • When Kirk Cameron called same-sex marriage a threat to civilization, NOM was there to create a video helping him spread his views and dubbing him a “champion of marriage.”
  • When Fox News asked NOM founder Maggie Gallagher about a pageant contestant who said gays “shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them,” Maggie was there, not to condemn the call for violence, but to praise “her courage in coming forward.”
  • When commenters on your own blog responded to your complaints about incendiary rhetoric by by claiming homosexuality is “a perverted act, just like pedophilia,” and saying they understand why a country like Uganda would want to punish gays with the death penalty? Maggie Gallagher was there — but to defend her own self, not to condemn violence and vilification.

NOM is there. Over and over, when gays are demonized, vilified, and threatened with violence, NOM is there. Whatever history you have of condemning such rhetoric is dwarfed by your history of sponsoring it.

The shooting at FRC was deplorable. Violence has no place in this debate. We can look at this shooting, as well as the people who are killed every year just for being gay, and agree on that. You certainly say you agree. So please, live up your own press release: stop supporting the very thing you claim to condemn.

Sincerely,
Rob Tisinai

Manheart

August 16th, 2012

Beautifully written, but what are the chances the gang (word used advisedly here) at NOM will actually see it? More importantly, this is the kind of statement that the readers of NOM should see.

Soren456

August 16th, 2012

It would be useful to list the qualities of a group that the SPLC evaluates before awarding the hate group status. Mere disagreement is not enough; demonizing and broadcast of known falsehoods win the title.

Try this:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/the-hard-liners

SharonB

August 16th, 2012

FRC blamed SPLC also today. As if. But claiming gays are perverted pedophiles who want at kids , to recruit them, are destroying the military , marriage , our society and the nation – and deserve death according to their interpretation of the Bible? Why that has no influence on young people hanging themselves or being beaten to a pulp and left to die on a fence post in the cold. They are beneath contempt.

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