The National Organization for Marriage is, at its very foundations, a group built on lies fighting a losing battle. They have shown time and time again that there is no fact they are unwilling to manipulate, no group of people they’re unwilling to exploit, to further their campaign of marginalizing LGBT people. They ran this image on their Facebook page the other day:
This sort of nonsense works with their supporters, who are, by definition, low information voters. This post is based on video from two people I’m not familiar with, one a professor and one a journalist, giving their opinions on marriage equality and gay parenting. In the first video, NYU professor Judith Stacey is giving scholarly opinions about things like marriage equality and polygamy. It’s important to note that she, herself, says that she is not actually advocating for things like polygamy, but simply presenting the research as it is. This is what academics do. Wingnuts like those who support NOM don’t understand that, because they are not an academic cohort in any way:
In the second video, we have lesbian journalist Masha Gessen, who, again, I’ve never heard of, saying some things that are quite frankly way outside the mainstream of LGBT politics. NOM claims that Gessen is espousing a “viewpoint more common than most people think among those who purport to favor same-sex marriage.” They assert this based on nothing except for the fact that, while they know it’s not true, they feel that it will help them smear LGBT people fighting for true equality. Gessen is telling a unique story about her own personal circumstances, and she makes the claim that the institution of marriage should not exist. What’s interesting, though, is that her viewpoints are closer to those of Libertarians (who tend to support marriage equality in theory, but at the same time, think we should get rid of it entirely, because Big Gubmint).
As I said, Gessen’s story is interesting and reflects a unique set of circumstances, but it’s not a situation that’s unique to LGBT people! Moreover, the mainstream of the LGBT movement is fighting for marriage equality because
WE WANT MARRIAGE EQUALITY!
Period. End of statement. NOM can lie all they want, telling their followers that there is some sort of secret conspiracy where we’re trying to win equality just so we can destroy it, and I’m sure it works for their followers, who are nothing if not perpetual professional victims. But nobody on the side of fairness and equality is buying it.
