Thursday, March 10, 2011

Religious right whining about 'threats' in Maryland

Regardless of how the marriage equality vote in Maryland will turn out, one thing is certain. The National Organization for Marriage and those against gay marriage in Maryland seem to be operating on fumes right now.

How else can one explain a recent article coming from the American Family Association's One News Now. The article pushes a phony assertion that the lgbt community and its allies engaged in "threats" to get the votes. The main snippet says the following:

Derek McCoy of the Association of Maryland Families says unscrupulous practices are being used to pressure lawmakers opposed to homosexual marriage to vote differently than their conscience. "We know those practices to be everything from threatening people's chairmanship, to one young man who was a delegate that changed his vote and then went back and changed it again because he already had had people starting to call his donors and asking for refunds from his campaign money."

McCoy is referring to the recent brouhaha regarding delegate Sam Arora who campaigned on the fact that he would support gay marriage in Maryland. Arora knocked on doors, sat down with same-sex families, and accepted donations while expressly saying that he supported marriage equality.

Then after the election, he announced that he changed his mind and would not support gay marriage.

Naturally the members of the lgbt community who supported him, who introduced him to their families, who told him their life stories and why this piece of legislation is important were furious.

And some in fact did ask  for their donations back. This led Arora to change his mind again and support the bill.

But I fail to see how this situation reaches the level of  "unscrupulous practices" that were alluded to in the article. Don't citizens have a right to contact their lawmakers and voice their support or displeasure?

Also, McCoy - and the article - conveniently forgot to mention NOM's recent pledge to spend $1 million defending Democratic senators voting against the gay marriage bill and opposing Republican senators who vote for the bill.


Seems to me that if McCoy thinks citizens contacting their lawmakers resembles "unscrupulous activities," then an organization - an out-of-town organization - using the power of the purse to sway legislators should really rank up there on the "threat chart."


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2 comments:

Rowen said...

I just found this blog, and I love it! I'm definitely coming back!

Anyway, this suspiciously sounds like something I was going through last year. I was subletting an apartment, and the person I was subletting from was trying to set things up that WILDLY violated her own housing contract with the building. I finally got fed up and went to her landlord and she went into a rage and started calling me shady and that I had no right to do what I did. In reality, she was scared to lose her apartment, and instead of being an adult, blamed me.

That's how I view this. These people are scared and are trying to lash out at anyone they feel is the enemy. I just hope we can survive while they throw their temper tantrums.

Mykelb said...

The only threat to OUR CONSTITUTION is the theofascists, NOM, bankrolling the theofascist Republican legislators in Maryland. That's the ONLY THREAT. We need to watch to see who actually takes money from NOM and target them like nobody has been targeted in politics before.