Did NOM plant the seeds for the eventual success of marriage equality?

It would seem that - for now - the National Organization for Marriage may have overreached in its push for a 2012 vote for gay marriage in Minnesota. Two things have happened which demonstrates may have unleashed a froth of ill will that not even flyers and commercials can quell.

According to the Minnesota Independent:

Sen. Scott Dibble told Minnesota Public Radio that 100,000 emails sent to legislators by gay marriage supporters were clogging the servers and that the Senate IT department was set to delete them Monday morning. The emails, sent through the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBT rights group, chided Republicans and a handful of DFLers who voted Saturday night to put a constitutional ban on gay marriage on the ballot in 2012. Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman said the emails were being help in a spam filter and that his office was workign to get them back into the system.

“Hundreds of thousands of emails have come in the aftermath, so many so that the Republican caucus is deleting them before their members even get to see them,” Dibble told MPR.

Sen. Warren Limmer, the chief author of the anti-gay marriage amendment, said, “Not true. Not true. We aren’t wiping off comments of our constituents. That’s just simply not true.”

Sen. Dibble answered back, “That absolutely is true, and that’s exactly what the secretary of the Senate has told us.”

Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman tells the Minnesota Independent that the sheer volume of email coming into the system had caused it to crash on Sunday. By early Monday morning 230,000 emails had flooded in, he said, adding that he ordered the IT department to send a large number to a spam filter.

Polls have shown that the majority of people in Minnesota don't want this vote. But NOM pushed it  and the Minnesota legislature boggarted it through anyway via a nightly session in order to deflect attention. I think that some people resent that.

And then came something highly unprecedented. President Obama weighed in on the potential vote:

“The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples or to take such rights away. While he believes this is an issue best addressed by the states, he also believes that committed gay couples should have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.”

According to The Washington Blade:

The statement doesn’t explicitly mention the proposed constitutional amendment in Minnesota, but states that the president “has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts” that would restrict rights for gay couples.

Additionally, the statement reaffirms Obama’s lack of support for same-sex marriage rights by saying the issue is “best addressed by the states.” Obama has said he’s “wrestling” with the marriage issue, but has yet to make an endorsement for marriage equality.

Don't be fooled, folks. We know how things work in Washington in terms of deliberately moving to embrace a position. I trust that this will not be the last time President Obama comments on the subject of marriage equality. My guess is that NOM's behavior will conveniently cause Obama to embrace the cause.

The question seems to be is it safe to assume that by going into a state not wishing to vote on gay marriage and pushing the legislature to make this vote a 2012 reality, has NOM overestimated its own power and set into place a chain of events that will see the end of its own relevance and the arguments against marriage equality?

Time will tell.