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| Maggie Gallagher |
Former chairwoman of the National Organization for Marriage, Maggie Gallagher, recently let the cat out of the bag so to speak when she chose to praise the Family Research Council during the "Values Voter" Summit:
GALLAGHER: I want to pause and say I know all of the organizations involved in this fight, and I treasure fighting with each and every one of the people on this panel, the organ – the Family Research Council, and others.
Equality Matters breaks down why this admittance is significant:
Gallagher’s decision to single out the Family Research Council (FRC) – the organization that hosted the Values Voter Summit at which Gallagher was speaking – is worth noting. The group has been labeled an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for promoting smears about the LGBT community. Indeed, SPLC urged public figures attending the Values Voter summit to stop associating with anti-gay groups like FRC, which work to “create a climate of hate and violence against the LGBT community.” A recently released SPLC report documents FRC’s history of promoting anti-LGBT smears and propaganda, including depicting gay men as mentally ill child molesters
. . . If Gallagher truly “treasure[s]” her relationship with FRC, it’s safe to assume that she doesn’t see this kind of hate speech as particularly problematic. In fact, NOM has criticized the SPLC for labeling FRC as a hate group. Both Gallagher and NOM president Brian Brown signed a statement last year condemning the SPLC for its “hateful rhetoric” and “character assassination” efforts against FRC.
In other words, Gallagher's admittance puts a huge hole in her schtick. Those who have heard Gallagher espouse her views against marriage equality are familiar with her con game. She can't complete one sentence without implying that how folks like her are "unfairly labeled a bigots because they simply believe that traditional marriage is the joining of the two halves of humanity."
Gallagher has managed to ride that tired old argument into a bit of success against the gay community and some national face time. And the talking point is also useful in the fact that its basic dishonest drives some gays to distraction while Gallagher nonchalantly wraps herself up in the cloak of false victimhood like an aggressor hitting someone with a large rock and then assuming an innocent pose when investigated.
But it's a nasty lie which Gallagher has now exposed thanks to her eagerness to kiss up to FRC. Gallagher has revealed that NOM is a fraud. It's not about values or morality. The organization is nothing more than the same old rotten homophobia encased in new wrapping paper and given a neat bow.
Of course a lot of us in the community - not to mention our allies - knew this already but it doesn't hurt that Gallagher chose to admit this fact so freely and openly.
Let's be clear about something. NOM is not about the myth that "Americans are standing up to defend marriage."
NOM's piety is phony and at her heart, Gallagher is a coward. We've seen proof of this via the fact that for all of the praise heaped on her about being a "defender of marriage" she will not testify at crucial junctures (i.e. the Prop 8 trial and the DOMA trial) where she would be thoroughly cross-examined on her claims.
And in other situations where she has been questioned about her tactics (such as the Congressional hearing on DOMA earlier this year), Gallagher acts like she is the gay community's best pal while her organization works to encase us into titanium closets with impossible-to-open cement doors.
With Gallagher and with NOM and FRC in general, we are not talking about Christian people who have banded together to keep society from going over the brink. We are talking about people who exploit Christianity as a pathway to riches, notoriety, and - at worst - religious supremacy.
We are talking about people and organizations earning lots of money (and in Gallagher's and NOM's case, fighting tooth and nail against laws which demand that they reveal the source of this money) and gaining lots of influence peddling inaccuracies about the gay community.
There is nothing Christian about what they do and we need to stop giving ground to them when it comes to that.
When they talk about "defending values," remind folks that Gallagher and NOM sends out brochures falsely claiming that gays want to use marriage equality to "steal the innocence" of children.
When the FRC whine about how gays are "intolerant" to Christians, we need to be very vocal in asking since when is distorting legitimate science a Christian value?
When they talk about the Bible speaking against homosexuality, we need to remind them that the Bible also speaks against bearing false witness, such as FRC was caught doing to GLSEN.
Instead of waiting and hoping for lightning to strike Gallagher (figuratively of course) when she has the audacity to say that she believes in truth and civility (like she did at the "Values Voters" summit) while at the same time crafting more lies to harm same-sex families, we need to be the lightning.
In the long run, it's not about Gallagher's religious beliefs nor is it about FRC's religious beliefs. Nor is it about the beliefs of the many who glibly follow them.
It has always been about their tactics. It's how about how they are willing subvert portions of the Bible which talk about truth and honesty to spotlight the ones which supposedly speak against homosexuality.
Lies in the name of God are still lies.
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