Thomas Saenz speaking at 2010's Creating Change, The National Conference on LGBT Equality.

A coalition of 21 Hispanic organizations announced yesterday that they are launching a public-education campaign called Familia es Familia aimed at building support for LGBT equality within the Latino community. According to the press release announcing the campaign’s launch:

Familia es Familia will be a bilingual campaign providing resources and information that are culturally appropriate to empower voices within and from Latino families and communities. In addition, the campaign will provide training, technical assistance, and support to the 21 Hispanic organizations and will spearhead a national effort to educate the public through a range of viral components including: an interactive bilingual website rich with videos, resources, and publications; social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; promoting stories and voices in the media; and an organizing campaign to engage the community through their mobile devices.

Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF), described the impetus for the effort:

SAENZ: The polling shows that many in the Latino community already understand that there is one struggle for equality, a struggle that benefits from appreciating common mission. Familia es Familia is a campaign that will help to deepen the understanding that a discriminatory deprivation of rights on any basis is a cause of concern for all. Together, we can overcome all of the irrational biases that adversely affect any member of the Latino community.

An NCLR poll in April found that 54 percent of Latinos support marriage equality, and a Pew survey in May found that 59 percent of Latinos believe homosexuality should be accepted by society. Among the groups supporting the initiative are the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), both of which recently passed resolutions supporting marriage equality.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embassies in many Central American countries have been joining in Pride celebrations, further emphasizing the intersections between the LGBT and Latino communities.

On Friday, the Washington Blade reported that the National Council of La Raza, the country’s largest Latino civil rights organization, has unanimously endorsed marriage equality. The resolution is not yet public, as the organization plans to announce it at its convention next week, but NCLR has confirmed that the vote took place June 9, less than a month after the NAACP made a similar endorsement. Danny Ortega, former NCLR Board Chair whose term ended just after the vote, said that though some people had some questions during the discussion, the decision was ultimately quite easy:

ORTEGA: We had a discussion about this and clearly some people had more questions than others, but at the end of the discussion it was unanimous. We thought it was not only the right thing to do, but consistent with our values as an organization.

NCLR joins The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund as well as the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, both of which have also endorsed marriage equality recently.

These groups’ statements effectively debunk the National Organization for Marriage’s proposed tactic of race-baiting Latino voters to oppose marriage equality. According to confidential memos released earlier this year, NOM wanted to convince young Latinos that to support the freedom to marry was to somehow acculturate to white values, where as staying opposed could represent a “badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of ‘Anglo’ culture.” NCLR condemned NOM’s “diabolical plan” for its intolerant “cravenness.”

The National Organization for Marriage continues to face fall-out over the confidential strategic memos released last week that reveal its intent to “fan hostilities” between marriage equality activists and African-American and Latino communities. Adding to a chorus of groups condemning NOM, the National Council of La Raza’a Vice President Eric Rodriguez said on Friday that the group’s tactics are “stunningly cynical” and rival those of the anti-immigration movement:

The cravenness on display from NOM is reminiscent of another bastion of intolerance, the anti-immigrant movement. They too have enough political savvy to realize that first, Latinos are an important demographic and voting block and second, that movements built on bigotry and intolerance are most successful when their shameful agenda stays hidden from the public. [...]

If NOM had stopped its indefatigable scheming for just a moment to learn something about our community, this diabolical plan would never have been hatched. First, not all Latinos are immigrants. Second, Latino immigrants welcome integration into American society. Third, Latinos are not foolish enough to believe that NOM has our best interests at heart. And, fourth, despite what NOM may think, the Latino community overwhelmingly supports LGBT equality. The Movement Advancement Project released research recently that showed that 74 percent of Latinos “support marriage or marriage-like legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples.”

Following up on rebukes by the Julian Bond and Ben Jealous, leaders of the California conference of the NAACP defended the association’s support of marriage equality:

Some have been incensed that the NAACP support for same-sex marriage is equating the gay movement to our struggle for civil rights and racial equality. We disagree. The African-American struggle will forever stand as one of the greatest civil rights movements in modern history. After 400 hundred years of slavery, the achievements of some basic civil rights, 100 years of marching, protesting, court battles and violence that led to our freedoms and many gains in society is a wonderful legacy. As we continue the struggle for total equality in America, we must also fight for the total equality for others, whether it is another race or another group. Thus, the NAACP is the best organization to join the fight for equal protection for LGBT couples to help them overcome the same irrational arguments that were once used to justify slavery and the law of “separate but equal.”

While the memos were rife with evidence of NOM’s insidious agenda, its blatant manipulation of racial politics continues to stand out as the pinnacle of an agenda built not around “protecting marriage” but promoting anti-gay intolerance.