General impression: NOM is in serious trouble - derision hurts, but irrelevance is fatal.
Random notes:
Interesting framing from Richard Piatt of LDS-owned KSL: "Given the past power of the ultra-right on this issue ..."
Huntsman: "If it equates to equal rights for all of our citizens, it's a conversation we need to have."
Lisa Riley Roche (Deseret News): "Do you support that [NOM] campaign that seems to be suggesting there's an increasing threat to the American way of life by people seeking equal rights?"
Huntsman: "I haven't given that [campaign] a second's thought."
Ouch.
Irrelevance.
More below the fold.
But then Huntsman pivots with a nod to (what he seems to agree/suggest are) supposedly more pressing concerns (food, shelter, clothing and the like). A false choice? Sure. Am I bothered? Not so much. If/when Huntsman decides to run, Steve Schmidt will be on staff. This Steve.
Moving on ...
Huntsman: "The Republican Party needs to let a thousand flowers bloom ... [allow] preeminence [to] stand taller than partisanship ... and see where that takes us ..."
Amen to that, Guv. ;Amen.
P.S. Speaking of Steve Schmidt, this recent NOM press release exemplifies, for me, all that's wrong with Maggie's and Brian's and the ultra-right's approach:
PRINCETON, NJ, April 17 Christian Newswire -- Today, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) responded to Steve Schmidt on CNN:So, if you happen to work for a media outlet that might benefit from an in-person display of NOM's increasingly ugly and shrill appeals to fear, I guess you now know the numbers to call and the folks to email. Enjoy. But, your professional predicament aside, on a personal level, just talking among ourselves, before you decide to make that call or send that email to Liz or Mary at CRC, please know that I would enjoy reading your admission (even if merely posted anonymously in comments here) that you, too, also realize just how sad and pathetic NOM's schtick has become. I mean, at this point, who among us still believes that NOM have any useful advice left to give regarding how to win elections? I mean, at this point, even our colleagues in the Utah press have gathered that they don't."Steve Schmidt's first national TV address this week is part of a coordinated campaign to manufacture a message point: Americans are ready to give up on the marriage issue. I'm not worried about this press spin, because the people who believe it are going to wake up to find the political landscape is very different than they imagine," said Brian Brown, executive director of NOM. "People are responding very powerfully to our ads and other messaging because they don't want politicianicians imposing gay marriage on them or their children or their grandchildren."
"Steven Schmidt? Isn't this the guy who ran a failed presidential campaign, who advised a failed governor (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who insiders say was recently fired by Meg Whitman?" Brown continued, "Sure, we can understand why Steve would be looking for a way to make some new friends -- but why would anyone take his advice on how to win elections at this point?"
"Imagine what America -- or the GOP -- will be like when anyone who believes marriage is the union of husband and wife can be excluded from high office, or public influence, in the way we now exclude bigots and racists. What does that do to the electoral map?" Brown asked.
"There is no conservative case for gay marriage. Gay marriage represents the overthrow of the core idea of marriage in our tradition and every faith tradition. And it will put government on the side of excluding traditional faith communities from the public square," said Maggie Gallagher, President of NOM.
To schedule an interview with Maggie Gallagher, President, or Brian Brown, Executive Director of NOM, contact Elizabeth Ray (x 130, eray@crcpublicrelations.com) or Mary Beth Hutchins (x.105, mhutchins@crcpublicrelations.com) by calling 703-683-5004.
Why? Because since their Pyrrhic victory in California, NOM have done nothing but lose.
Why? Because, at this point, NOM have become ringleaders of the sort of media circus that any right-minded conservative abhors and any serious Republican recognizes as the central challenge facing the party: how to best usher their clowns offstage to the benefit of both the GOP and the country.
Final thought: Last time I checked, Steve was not a member of the press, Brian. But you insinuate otherwise.
Why? Because you're a clown, Mr. Brown.
At the equal marriage bill public hearing in Augusta the other day, the atmosphere was remarkably civilized. But occasionally the testimonies weren't QUITE what one would expect!
First, this testimony from one of the opposition's star attendees: Bishop Richard Malone of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.
Here is an excerpt:
Among those testifying was Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Malone, who said the church has long supported domestic partner laws. But he said the church opposes same-sex marriage, which he characterized as one of several challenges facing traditional marriage.
"We speak in opposition to same-sex marriage because we are deeply concerned about the institution of marriage itself - in this state, and in this nation," he said.
Here's another from Village Soup:
Richard Malone, bishop of the Diocese of Portland, said he was speaking for 200,000 Roman Catholics in Maine in opposing the gay marriage bill."We support civil rights for all. But we are deeply concerned about the institution of marriage itself," said Malone. "We are concerned about the high rate of divorce and the increasing rate of single parents. Marriage is not merely a social compact. It is to ensure that the next generation grows up in a secure, balanced environment."
Let's go the tape and listen to the Bishop's testimony in its entireity- again, use headphones!
Well, it seems an earlier bulletin to parishioners issued on Palm Sunday, April 5th of this year, from Bishop Malone (page 2) really "put a bee in the bonnet" of one of his flock.
So much so, that this woman, a Catholic from Farmington, made the trip down to Augusta on Wednesday to say a few things.
Her testimony (in 2 parts) below the fold...
Part 1:
And her conclusion:
Well done!
Um, Bishop Malone? Better make that 200,000 199,999...
This past couple of weeks here in Greeley, Colorado, folks on "our side" here have had to come up with a verbal shortcut of explaining why the trans panic (also called gay panic) strategy for defending a client, and why in states such as Colorado with transgender status (or gender identity or expression) included in the hate crime statute definitions, this strategy is so heinous.
As most here already know, a trans panic defense is one where a man argues that, after a sexually intimate encounter with a trans woman, he commits violent behavior against a preoperative or nonoperative trans woman because he was shocked he was intimate with a man. The man -- the defendant -- in question states he was so surprised to find out that the woman MAN(!!!) has male genitalia, that the man flies off in a rage and does violence to the trans woman in question, often killing her. At trial the defendant, through his defense attorney(s), argues that it's at least partially the victim's fault for not disclosing they were really male before the two were intimate.
Why this is a particularly heinous defense in states with transgender inclusive hate crime language is this: The defendant is using a protected status delineated in law to say that a crime he committed isn't a hate crime.
In other words, it isn't the defendants hate of trans people that caused him to kill a trans woman, but a heat of passion against a trans woman another man who was deceptive about her his true sex and gender. So in other words, it wasn't a hate of transgender people that motivated him to brutally hurt or kill a trans woman, but the surprise that a trans woman he thought was a female since birth deceived him in presenting as female -- it's using someone's status as a member of a protected class to defend against why a person wasn't killed as a member of that same protected class.
So, we're back to figuring out how to describe this in a simple parallel to define to people why this kind of hair splitting of motive is so heinous. I know I talked to GLAAD's Adam Bass about this, and believe he was the one who actually came up simplest parallel to describe this, although I know many people here in Greeley what a simple p arallel might be.
So, the simple parallel that was worked out for discussion with the media was the strategy I now refer to as the "Jew Panic" strategy.
Here would be the elements of a "Jew Panic" strategy: A white supremacist man goes out with a woman on a Friday afternoon that he doesn't know is Jewish, and after sharing a kiss, the woman says "I need to go home now, as I'm going to the synagogue with my parents tomorrow." The man flies off in a rage because she didn't disclose before kissing that she was Jewish, and he's so repulsed by the idea of kissing a Jewish woman that he beats her to death. Then as a defendant, that white supremacist, has his attorney in court argue that it's not because he has a hate for Jews that led him to commit this crime, but instead because he felt deceived that she didn't disclose that she was Jewish before becoming sexually intimate that lead to his "crime of passion."
In other words, the white supremacist wost would be defending himself against a hate crime by using the dead, Jewish woman's status as a member of the protected classes of ethnicity and religious creed with a defense that depended on her membership in those protected classes.
Does this "Jew Panic" strategy sound credible? So if ethnicity, religious creed, sexual orientation, and in Colorado's case "transgender status" are all protected classes in the same hate crime law, why is it that a gay or trans panic strategy given credibility when a Jew panic strategy wouldn't be given credibility?
Anyway, I credit Adam Bass for boiling this down into shorthand that can be quickly and easily explained to media and media consumers. If he didn't think of this parallel, he definitely was key in developing this into a usable shorthand.
I leave tomorrow for home in sunny San Diego.
In an impressive show of support, more than 500 business leaders gathered in Portland today to support Basic Rights Oregon Education Fund and the Safe Schools Campaign.
Thanks to their generous contributions we are now just $2,500 short of the $35,000 we need to complete the work of this critical campaign.
Too many LGBT kids suffer at the hands of a bully, leaving deep scars that take a lifetime to heal.
Help us make the dream of safe schools a reality for today's students. Watch this inspiring video and contribute to the campaign to end bullying in Oregon schools today!
Your tax deductible contribution will go directly to our campaign to make Oregon schools safe for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.
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