Maggiegate, Continued

Thomas Roberts interviewed - very lightly, I must say - the Queen of Mean yesterday on MSNBC.  (You fellas recall that a couple of days ago, she was a no-show for an earlier interview; MSNBC claims they made a scheduling error.)  Maggie, of course, did her fat-cat purr, all pretty in pink, and dodged and oozed all around the questions like snake oil, denying any hateful conspiracy, untoward action, or unkind motive towards anyone at all.  Why, as Scarlett said of India Wilkes, butter just wouldn't melt in her mouth!

Which strongly reminds your Head Trucker of the famous statement:  "I am not a crook."

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By way of contrast, listen to civil rights leader Julian Bond's reaction to what he calls "one of the most cynical things I've ever heard of":

Maggiegate

I reckon you fellas already know about the smoking-gun document that reveals NOM's secret agenda - agenda! - to manipulate blacks and Latinos into hating on the gays. Which, even though I'm old enough to have long since figured out how the world really works, still sorta takes my breath away: my mind just doesn't work in such callous, contemptuous, thoroughly manipulative ways.  Not something I would have ever thought of doing.

But just for the record, if you want the low down on the dirty tricks Maggie and Co. have been trying to pull, you can read a quick summary or the document in full over at the HRC's website.

Lots of bloggers have written trenchant commentaries about NOM's plot to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" - a direct quote from NOM's own report - but here I'll just quote what Evan Wolfson had to say about this revelation at Freedom to Marry, which reflects my own thoughts pretty well:

In its anti-gay crusade to block the freedom to marry, NOM has spent years working to drive wedges within communities across the nation, all the while claiming it does not ’hate’ anyone, gay or non-gay. Now exposure of NOM’s own strategy memos confirms that NOM will stop at nothing to push its agenda, pitting American against American, minority against minority, family members against family members.

NOM’s wedge-strategy memos detail its campaign to funnel money to a handful of African-American clergy in order to attack gay couples and, appallingly, discredit the strong and clear voice of those African-American civil rights champions, such as John Lewis, Julian Bond, and Coretta Scott King, who have stood up for the freedom to marry and the equal civil rights of all people, including gay people of color. These smoking-gun documents show how NOM has sought, in the most cynical ways imaginable, to bait the gay community in hopes of provoking a hurt response that would further divide, all in furtherance of the ugly and cruel anti-gay agenda.

NOM’s secret memos describe its intention to ‘interrupt [Latinos’] process of assimilation’ by ‘making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity’ and ‘seek to identify glamorous young Latino and Latina leaders’ to reject equal protection for their own family members who are gay. And all of this to be done, fueled by NOM’s shadowy secret funders, in the name of religion -- in flagrant contempt of the Golden Rule of treating others as you would want to be treated. Despicable.

Wolfson concludes his post by showing that NOM is totally out of touch with reality:

Notwithstanding NOM’s efforts, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted Feb. 29 through March 3, confirmed growth in support for the freedom to marry since October 2009 across nearly every slice of the electorate, with strong growth in support among African-Americans by 56% (from 32% to 50%) and Hispanic voters now supporting the freedom to marry by nearly 2 to 1 (55% to 30%).

You might also want to read Rob Tisinai's answer to the question, Does Maggie Gallagher have blood on her hands?

"Marriage Is a Conservative Value"

Last night, Rachel interviewed Ted Olson who, along with David Boies, is lead counsel for plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case.

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Over on the PBS Newshour, David Boies took the stuffings out of one of NOM's lawyers:




Finally, some of you guys may find Salon's in-depth investigation of Maggie Gallagher's sexual and marital history very, very interesting. An excerpt:

With Gallagher, it is not that the personal is political but that the personal gave birth to the political. They were umbilically linked, and they are related, but they are separate. Two anima live within her; when you are talking with her, sometimes the personal answers back, sometimes the political. The personal is uncauterized emotion; the political is pure thought, almost autistically so. The personal facts do not always impinge on the political conclusion. Gallagher’s family life is a cobbled-together, junk-strewn, happy, loving mess: absent baby-daddy, later husband (of a different religion), separation then reunion, two sons by two fathers, and an annoyed biological grandmother on Facebook. But Gallagher’s political philosophy brooks no uncertainty.

“I have no doubts who will win in the end,” Gallagher says. “One hundred years from now the globe will not be full of societies that endorse same-sex unions as marriages. What happens between now and then is going to be less certain and full of struggle. In the long struggle, I’ll bet on human nature to overwhelm ideology. The thing about same-sex marriage is it’s based on a fundamental untruth: same-sex unions are not the same as opposite sex unions. They are not marriages.” . . .

Same-sex marriage is just a big lie, she believes, like Communism. It is weak at its foundations, like the Iron Curtain. It may get built, she seems to concede — in 10 years, or 20, there may be more states that recognize same-sex marriage, more shiny, happy couples raising rosy-cheeked, well-adjusted children, children who play with dogs and go to school and fall from jungle gyms and break their arms, children often adopted after being abandoned by the heterosexuals who did not want them or could not care for them — but in time (big time, geological time, God time) the curtain will be pulled back, or it will fall. Because it has to. It cannot be otherwise. Because a son, as Maggie Gallagher will tell you, needs a dad.

Gays in the Conservative Movement: The Debate

The full debate at the Cato Institute on gay conservatism is now available on Sullivan's blog.  Can't find a way to embed it here, but it's well worth watching.  And Maggie Gallagher's cavalier answer to the gay man from the audience - married to a man, raising a daughter - will make your blood boil.  She sure raised Sullivan's temperature in a hurry.

The debate occurred on Ash Wednesday, and Sullivan obviously must have gone to Mass before the debate, and is still wearing ashes.  Not something I think I would have done; but I do understand the symbolism, especially when confronting the likes of Gallagher, another Catholic.

Also worth noting:  Gallagher claims in her speech that "openly gay" people work for her NOM outfit, which is fighting hard in every state they can to prevent or overturn equal marriage laws.  Yeah, that's right:  openly gay people working to strip other gay people of their civil rights, so the lady said.  She coyly refused to identify them, of course.

Hmm.  I suppose it's possible there were some few Jews who voted for Hitler too.

And then of course, there are people like this:



It's not a joke.  His website is here.