First of all there is the outright lie they have repeated over and over, that schools will have to teach gay marriage, as they do in Massachusetts. Politifact has investigated that claim in the past and found it to be a lie:
Bottom line: The National Organization for Marriage mailing says that Massachusetts public schools teach kindergartners about gay marriage. The wording, including the present tense verb, gives the impression this is happening now, in many schools.
But the group's only evidence is two incidents five years ago. It's possible that somewhere, in one of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, other kindergartners have been taught about same-sex marriage. But NOM couldn't cite any other examples. We find its statement False.
That NOM lies is not news. Renegade ex-NOM strategist turned marriage equality supporter Louis Marinelli has peeled the curtain back on their operations many times since splitting with them. He wrote about their deception tactics on his blog last month:NOM wants to paint LGBT 'crazy' (I can prove it)
NOM is about deceiving the public about who gays and lesbians are because the longer the public fears them, the longer they will oppose their equality. I fell into that trap and then I came to see gays and lesbians for the people they really are - which by the way, is the exact reason I changed my mind to support marriage equality.
Their tactic of consistently juxtaposing this issue against children is tailored to exploit two common, ignorant and hurtful misconceptions about gays and lesbians.
One is the idea that gays are contagious. And unless LGBT people are kept marginalized and oppressed, they may be open and notorious about their "sexuality" and give your children the gay. Rational people cannot believe this to be so in their minds, but they manage to scare sufficient numbers of voters and legislators into thinking and behaving irrationally to have claimed their victories so far.
But even more troubling than their attempts to portray gays as mentally unstable or contagious is their gleeful exploitation of existing long-held prejudice that gay people are dangerous predators of children. This is a viewpoint unsupported by any scientific evidence and supported only by animus of anti-gay, mostly religious right, activists.
By turning this conversation back to "think of the children!" what they are really doing is is dog-whistle politics, playing on the long history of portraying gays as child molesters.
Dr. Herek Gregory of University of California Davis explains:
Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members. For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Black men in the United States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping White women.
In a similar fashion, gay people have often been portrayed as a threat to children. Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Dade County (FL) ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization "Save Our Children," and warned that "a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children."
Indeed, anti-gay activist Richard Cohen was instrumental in getting Uganda fired up to draft their infamous "Kill the Gays" bill. He cited these stereotypes about gays molesting children in his book Coming Out Straight, and the false "research" was used by Ugandan politician David Bahati to push the bill. Rachel Maddow confronted Cohen to his face on that issue, and it was a thing of great beauty.
While NOM is not overtly saying "The gays will molest your kids!" they are participating in the same sort of dog-whistle politics that we saw in the Harold Ford "Call me!" ad that ran during his Tennessee Senate race in 2006. Place the seed in the mind of the viewer and let the time-honored, very scary stereotypes take over.
National Organization for Marriage would like absolve themselves of their responsibility for the hatred and prejudice that causes our young teens to be bullied to death. This is bullshit. They are whipping it up with great delight and cynical apathy to the damage it leaves in its wake to fine LGBT families and teens. They should be deeply ashamed of themselves for their despicable tactics and inability to defend their own political position without resorting to lies and slander that hurt good people.
The very frightening married couple Josh Vandiver and Henry Velandia.
Hopefully in the coming weeks, we can count on the New York legislature to see through the National Organization for Marriage's lies and slander, and give Maggie, Brian and their cabal of anonymous out-of-state donors the public repudiation they so richly deserve. A repudiation that thus far only the judicial branch has had the courage to deliver. |
