(Photo Credit: Center for American Progress Action Fund intern Andrew Rutkowski.)

Yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage held its long-heralded Marriage March and rally to oppose same-sex marriage on the National Mall. A litany of speakers reiterated claims about children’s need for one mother and one father, but the event largely failed to amass a wide coalition.

NOM’s Thomas Peters claimed there were 15,000 attendees, while Brian Brown suggested a crowd of “more than 10,000,” but these seem to be gross overestimates. RightWingWatch’s Peter Montgomery suggested it was no more than “several thousand,” while the Washington Blade only estimated 2,000. What groups there were seemed to come in clumps from very specific origins, such as the 32 buses of conservative Hispanics that New York state Sen. Rubén Díaz (D) brought from the Bronx, French activists inexplicably flying a French flag at the rally, and a group of Chinese Christians from Chicago. Ironically, the rally was held one year to the day since NOM’s memo leaked revealing its intention to “drive a wedge” between the gay community and people of color, particularly by featuring people of color at their rallies and highlighting — i.e. overemphasizing — their visibility. The Marriage March exemplified that these efforts have not subsided in the least.

Perhaps one of the most visible groups at the rally was co-sponsor Tradition, Family & Property (TFP), a conservative Catholic organization identifiable by their red sashes, tall banners, and bagpipe players. As always, TFP was handing out its materials claiming homosexuality is a “changeable behavior” that “offends God” and must be opposed. Blogger Jeremy Hooper confronted some members of TFP at the rally and they confirmed to him that they co-sponsored the event specifically to proliferate such ideas.

Below is a video NOM posted with some highlights from the many speakers, but some of the most interesting quotes are cut. Stay tuned to ThinkProgress throughout the day for more reports of what was actually said there.

Also, here is a graphic from @TalkEquality challenging NOM’s claims about the rally’s attendance:

Many paid anti-gay activists work for an organization connected back to Robert George.

This week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on marriage equality have understandably attracted media attention, but unfortunately the coverage has been peppered with blatant puff pieces that offer a free pedestal for paid operatives working against same-sex marriage. These articles claim to profile individuals who make their living off the anti-equality movement offer little context, instead invite them to share all their talking points without any rebuttal.

For example, last Friday USA Today ran a piece profiling some of the top lobbyists against marriage equality, while the New York Times profiled young conservatives working with many of the same organizations. NPR offered two puff pieces, one similarly profiling various conservatives and another just to highlight Maggie Gallagher’s views on the topic. Almost every individual in each of these stories advocates against equality as a profession. Here’s a list of who they are and how they used their free media pedestal:

• Brian Brown is executive director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).  He told USA Today that “The people are definitely on our side,” even though polling continuesto show the exact opposite.
• Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), told USA Today that “there will be collateral damage to other freedoms” because of marriage equality, but offered examples of people who seek to violate nondiscrimination protections.
• Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America (CWA), told USA Today that marriage equality will “lure” people into homosexuality, just like legalizing marijuana, gambling, prostitution, abortion, “or any vice that is legalized.” The article neglected to mention that CWA is recognized as a hate group along with FRC.
• Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ committee for the “Defense of Marriage,” told USA Today that same-sex couples are inherently inferior, and that the LGBT movement should have a “live and let live” philosophy instead of calling equality opponents bigots.
• Rev. William Owens, head of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, which is funded by groups like NOM and FRC, claimed to USA Today that marriage equality is “another nail in the coffin for black families,” confirming his role in NOM’s race-wedging tactics.

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Díaz walking arm-in-arm with NOM President Brian Brown.

It seems the National Organization for Marriage believes that if it simply redoubles its race-baiting tactics as if they are not problematic and offensive, then the controversy over its now-known intention to do so will somehow be overlooked. New York state Senator Rev. Rubén Díaz (D) has unsurprisingly volunteered to be the anti-equality group’s latest token to help “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and “make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker” for young Latinos:

DÍAZ: Brian Brown and NOM have done something, that no one has been able to do before: they have helped Black and Hispanic people throughout the nation to find our voice when everyone else rejected us and excluded us from the debate.

You should know that NOM has not divided us, it has brought us unity; NOM has given a voice to the voiceless on the marriage issue, and shown us respect for our core, and sacred values on marriage—a respect the mainstream media has consistently denied us.

No New York Times editorial, nor anyone else will be able to sow seeds of dissension between us and NOM in this great effort to protect marriage.

The New York Times had condemned NOM for its “poisonous political approach,” an approach Díaz is all too happy to help bring to fruition. His polarizing language suggests that all people of color believe together as one block and attempts to paint NOM as an ally to their communities. But as the Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out, NOM is simply using these groups for its own insidious purposes, and surely the group hopes that Díaz’s comments will provide another opportunity to take false umbrage when his offensive views are called out.

Díaz’s anti-gay antagonism is about as harmful as a state senator’s can be. In the lead-up to the passage of marriage equality in New York last year, he held a rally that featured religious leaders who said gay people are “worthy of death.” He lied about the religious exemptions in the bill to make his case for opposing it, and his own lesbian granddaughter even rebuked his “love” for her. Following the bill’s massage, Díaz declared “Today we start the battle! Today we start the war!” For him to claim his own anti-gay hatred as representative of people of color is affront to the diversity of those communities, including the many people who experience oppression both for their sexual orientation and the color of their skin.

NOM is free to highlight as many black and Latino spokespeople as it would like, but every time it does with such obvious malicious intent, it proves how little it actually cares about any group but itself.

NOM's Brian Brown

The National Organization for Marriage’s confidential 2009 memos released last night have created quite a stir for the blatant way they sought to divide racial communities over the issue of same-sex marriage. Now, NOM President Brian Brown has responded to the controversy by invoking the exact same race-wedging strategy outlined in the documents:

BROWN: The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was formed in 2007 and has worked extensively with supporters of traditional marriage from every color, creed and background. We have worked with prominent African-American and Hispanic leaders, including Dr. Alveda C. King, Bishop George McKinney of the COGIC Church, Bishop Harry Jackson and the New York State Senator Reverend Rubén Díaz Sr., all of whom share our concern about protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Gay marriage advocates have attempted to portray same-sex marriage as a civil right, but the voices of these and many other leaders have provided powerful witness that this claim is patently false. Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine. We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage.

Everything in this statement confirms the strategy of using people of color as spokespeople and using the language of “civil rights” as a catalyst for division. The freedom to marry is a civil right, crucial to same-sex families’ ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness just as all families do. The mere fact that NOM brags about its affiliation with vitriolic equality opponents like Harry Jackson and Rubén Díaz proves just how low the organization will sink to plant the seeds of anti-gay animosity throughout communities of color.

This is not an apology. This is not damage control. This is an acknowledgment — NOM taking complete ownership of its insidious tactics.

Sen. Rubén Díaz was proud to be the only Democrat who voted against marriage equality in New York last month. In the lead-up to the vote, he welcomed religious leaders to his anti-equality rally who said gay people “are worthy of death,” lied about the religious protections in the original bill, and scapegoated his lesbian granddaughter to excuse his intolerance. Now, he’s reaching out to thank the people who have supported him for wearing his anti-equality “badge of honor.” Most of the support he’s gotten is anonymous, but two notable names on the list include Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R):

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan: “I have read your July 7 piece. Bravo! Consider me a grateful ally who admires you deeply. In Christ, +Timothy M. Dolan”

Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern: “Sen. Diaz, you are in my prayers. Three years ago I was the target of the homosexuals because of statements I made regarding the dangers of the homosexual agenda. So I know what you are going through. Continue to stand strong on God’s Word. What the homosexuals mean for evil toward you, God will use for His glory, your good, and the benefit of others. God bless you and your family.”

Dolan has constantly attacked the LGBT community during the New York marriage debate over the past few months, comparing same-sex marriage to incest, polygamy, and a community dictatorship, calling it “detrimental to the common good,” and suggesting that it will lead to changing the rules of America’s pastime. And among the many offensive things Kern has said and promoted, none stands out quite like her 2008 declaration that “the homosexual agenda is just destroying this nation” and that homosexuality poses a bigger threat to the U.S. than terrorism.

It seems Díaz is in good company.

Opponents of LGBT equality have claimed for years that they are the victims in the debate, suggesting that extending rights to gays and lesbians would infringe upon their “religious freedom” to discriminate against them. They also take umbrage at being called “haters” and “bigots.” Today, an AP article attempting to tell this story serves only to reinforce the absurd notion that there is any legitimacy to this self-victimizing rhetoric.

Rather than recognize the historic and systemic oppression and violence against the LGBT community, AP reporter David Crary instead gives multiple anti-LGBT groups (including several hate groups) a pedestal for propagating their lies. Here are the individuals Crary invited to whine that their bigotry is not well-received:

JIM CAMPBELL (Alliance Defense Fund): The ADF regularly spreads negative stereotypes about the LGBT community as part of their legal “defense” of Christian hegemony.

RICHARD BARNES (New York State Catholic Conference): The Catholic Conference has defended the vitriolic rhetoric of Sen. Rubén Díaz (D) and been a primary opponent of marriage equality in New York.

CHUCK COLSON (The Manhattan Declaration): In addition to signing the odious Manhattan Declaration (a willful commitment to ignore any laws that protect same-sex couples’ equality), Colson, a convicted felon from the Watergate Scandal, regularly condemns LGBT people.

ALAN CHAMBERS (Exodus International): Exodus International is perhaps the most dangerous anti-gay propaganda machine, reinforcing the harmful junk science that same-sex orientations are disordered and can be changed.

ROBERT GEORGE (National Organization for Marriage): Crary neglects to even mention George’s connection to NOM, let alone that he is, in fact, its chairman and cofounder. NOM regularly reinforces the victim meme by distorting supposed “consequences” of LGBT equality. It’s no surprise George helped draft the Manhattan Declaration.

The LGBT activists included in the piece — Evan Wolfson (Freedom to Marry), Fred Sainz (Human Rights Campaign), Evan Hurst (Truth Wins Out) and James Esseks (ACLU’s gay rights project) — all have to play defense against the claim that it’s the gay rights who are bullies.

But is it the opponents of marriage equality who are fighting for legal protections against discrimination? Is it the conservative Christians who have an annual day of remembrance to mourn those who’ve been lost to violence? Is it heterosexuals who are disproportionately impacted by bullying related to sexual orientation?

No. If Crary wanted to tell the true story about how “some gay-rights foes claim they are now bullied,” he would have done better to point out that the claim is a farce.

Erica Díaz with partner Naomi Torres and sons Jared and Jeremiah. (Photo credit: Angel Chevrestt)

Following a vitriolic interview vocal homophobe Sen. Rev. Rubén Díaz (D) gave last week comparing homosexuality to drug addiction, his lesbian granddaughter Erica Díaz has publicly rebuked him for his religious condemnations and also for using her to defend his bigotry. In a letter in today’s New York Post, Díaz describes how her grandfather outed her in a television interview before she had even come out to him:

I never told my grandfather.

Three years later I was watching grandpa do a TV interview. “I’m not homophobic. I have gay family members. I have a gay granddaughter.”

I was stunned that he outed me on the air, since I never spoke to him about it directly. So I marched myself to his church and sat him down in his office and told him that I was a lesbian.

Then, at his May 15 anti-equality rally (where at least one speaker proclaimed that gays and lesbians deserved death), Sen. Díaz invited Erica to join him after she had been counterprotesting across the street. She describes the day:

I was so nervous that morning that I threw up. I spoke against him across the street, directly within his view.

But then I approached a police officer who escorted me to the podium where he spoke. My grandfather introduced me to the crowd and kissed me on the forehead. “This is my granddaughter,” he said. “She chose her way of life, but I chose God’s way, but I love her.” [...]

You cannot tell someone that you love them and stay silent when people call for their death. “Love” is empty when you say someone’s life isn’t natural.

An overwhelming number of New Yorkers agree with Erica (58 percent), but Díaz’s message (trumpeted by the Catholic Church) seems to be resonating with key swing votes in the Senate. For example, Sen. Greg Ball (R) has said he will not vote for a bill that does not exempt religious organizations (like, say, Catholic Charities — which he explicitly references) from the requirement to recognize same-sex marriages.

If marriage equality is to pass in New York this month, advocates will have to resist the pressure by religious groups eager to maintain a special privilege to discriminate. Bullies like Díaz and apologists like Ball deserve to be called out, and Erica should be applauded for taking that step with her grandfather.

NOM's Brian Brown at a Rally last summer in New Hampshire.

Coming to a public school near you? That’s how Brian Brown’s latest letter opens, as he is eager as ever to scare National Organization for Marriage supporters about what their kids will learn. But that’s just the president of the organization’s introduction to NOM’s other favorite theme: self-victimizing. Here’s a quick tour through Brown’s latest distortions: “Live and let live? SSM Architects Seek to Silence Christians.”

CLAIM: Teaching kids about gender variation is somehow a bad thing: “‘People can be girls, feel like girls, they can feel like boys, they can feel like both, and they can even feel, like I said, kinda like neither,’ he teaches them. This is a movement that know what it is doing.”

FACT: Alvin McEwen has a whole post dedicated to a lie from the first published draft of this letter, in which Brown suggested the lesson was for Kindergartners, not fourth-graders as was actually the case. Aside from sounding scary about it, Brown doesn’t actually indicate what he thinks is wrong with the gender lesson. Factually, there is nothing wrong.

CLAIM: The United States is a Christian nation: “Could Christianity, which gave birth to America, become an illegitimate stepchild in our own nation?”

FACT: The United States is not a Christian nation, at least not according to President Obama, history professors, or the Founding Fathers themselves.

CLAIM: Marriage equality will make “some people more equal than others” because people who support traditional marriage will be “demoted to second-class citizens.”

FACT: Considering just about every bill that opens marriage rights to same-sex couples explicitly offers protections for religious institutions and leaders, the opposite is true: supporters of traditional marriage are promoted with the privilege to discriminate.

CLAIM: Under Illinois’s new civil union bill, Rockford Catholic Charities had to end its adoption and foster care program because “the threat of litigation made continuing to help these children too risky.”

FACT: Rockford Catholic Charities voluntarily ended their services because they no longer had the right to discriminate against same-sex couples. They prioritized willful discrimination over the needs of children. Christians are not the “victims” of marriage equality advocates’ “intolerance,” as Brown suggests; children are the victims of Catholic Charities’ intolerance towards same-sex couples.

CLAIM: Equality advocates, including GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), oppose religious protections in Rhode Island’s civil unions bill.

FACT: Brown takes GLAD attorney Karen Loewy’s quote out of context, citing only the last sentence of what she actually said. Her full quote:

This unprecedented exemption means a civil union spouse could be denied the ability to make medical decisions for her spouse in a hospital; it means that a math teacher at a religiously-based school could not get the same health insurance for his legally recognized partner that all other teachers receive. This exemption actually diminishes nondiscrimination protections in public accommodations and employment that Rhode Island employers and institutions have successfully lived with since 1995. It just inflicts gratuitous harm on Rhode Island’s gay and lesbian families.

But Brown, of course, insists that the “gratuitous harm” is done to the religious people and institutions who are forced to not discriminate in opposition to their beliefs.

CLAIM: Opposing ex-gay “reparative” therapy is an attack on people who just want to help, as evidenced by a Great Britain counselor who was found guilty of “professional malpractice.”

FACT: The psychological community is in complete agreement that efforts to change sexual orientation are harmful and do not work. The appropriate therapeutic response for individuals struggling with their sexual orientation is affirmation; there are no points awarded for “being willing to help” when the “help” is dangerous and ineffective.

CLAIM: Equality advocates regularly offer “open, ugly hatred” against opponents, as evidenced by death threats to New York Sen. Rubén Díaz.

FACT: Anonymous threats are not “open.” And while all threats need to be prosecuted, it’s actually members of the LGBT community who regular face bullying and attacks just for being who they are.

Nobody in the LGBT movement approves of death threats, but more importantly, any “open” death threat should be prosecuted. Díaz claims to not preach hate, yet he regularly lies and openly attacks people who are gay and lesbian.

CLAIM: (Via a column by NOM’s other public face, Maggie Gallagher) Because young minds are changing on the issue of abortion, so too can “traditional marriage” rally again in the future.

FACT: Maggie’s claim is wrong on two fronts. First, unlike the polling for marriage equality that has steadily increased, polling for abortion has remained consistently even over time. Secondly, in 2011, more people are again pro-choice than pro-life (49–45 percent).

NOM wants to paint opponents of equality as victims, but it’s hard to have sympathy for people who lie and complain when they lose the right to discriminate against and harm other people.

As New Yorkers continue to push for marriage equality, state Sen. Rev. Rubén Díaz (D) continues to vitriolically smear gays and lesbians with lies and stereotypes while proclaiming himself righteous in his opposition to equality. Tony Varona has translated and analyzed a recent interview Díaz gave that was rife with lies and attacks. Here are some excerpts with debunks:

CLAIM: ”And the bill as written… the bill does not exclude… as it is written specifically… does not exclude either churches or ministers specifically. It does not say it in the bill. [...] They would come to my church so that I would refuse to marry them, and so that they could sue me, and mount a discrimination case.”

FACT: This is certifiably false. The bill that has been proposed for the Assembly (A07600) is less than two pages long, and includes this provision at the bottom:

PROVIDED THAT NO CLERGYMAN, MINISTER OR SOCIETY  FOR  ETHICAL  CULTURE LEADER SHALL BE REQUIRED TO SOLEMNIZE ANY MARRIAGE WHEN ACTING IN HIS OR HER CAPACITY UNDER THIS SUBDIVISION.

Any argument made about marriage equality infringing on religious liberty is thus a lie.

CLAIM: “For me, no, I would vote no because [...]it is against nature… and it just should not exist.”

FACT: Contrary to Díaz’s subjective assessment, the American Psychological Association describes sexual orientation in the following way:

Most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age. There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person’s sexuality.

Any argument distorting sexual orientation as a choice or “unnatural” is thus a lie.

CLAIM: “My [lesbian] granddaughter arrived (to the May 15th anti-marriage equality protest march he organized) and I hugged her… this is not about hate. [...] We are the ones who are being persecuted, and that Christians are persecuted. And that the Christian religion is persecuted when we cannot do the things that we want to do.”

FACT: While it’s true Erica Díaz was in attendance at the rally, she was there leading the counterprotest. She was quoted that day as saying, “I started crying a little bit because they don’t believe we’re people.”

CLAIM: “No, I’m just comparing for you how one can one day change his mind, because I one day was, and you keep wanting to find the twists and turns, and tomorrow the blogs will be saying, look at what he said, look at how he compared… but what I am saying is that I was homosex… look, now you have me all [mixed up]. I was a drug addict and left the military with a drug addiction. And one day, my mind changed and I no longer was a drug addict. But I was not born a drug addict. I was not born a drug addict.”

FACT: Wow. Not only does Díaz inaccurately portray sexuality as a choice, he has the gall to compare a person’s capacity to love to an unhealthy addiction. Sexual orientation cannot be changed — in fact, it’s harmful to try to change it — and all major scientists agree that the appropriate response is affirmation.

Díaz’s distortions and smears are the epitome of homophobia. The clear animus in his statements should indicate that he has no real concern for religious liberty. His goal is the continued oppression of the LGBT community, motivated by stigma and bigotry.