NOM defection

The National Organization for Marriage conducted a multi-state bus tour last summer, holding rallies across the country to rev up opposition to same-sex marriage. NOW was also the group behind the successful recall vote of the Iowa Supreme Court judges, in retaliation for their having struck down Iowa's laws against gay marriage. Maggie Gallagher is one of NOW's organizers and leaders. Maggie's column used to run in the AJC, and I thought then that she was a silly, ignorant woman. She still is, from her brief TV appearance I saw last summer.

On this national tour of the NOW caravan, their events were matched by counter rallies organized by gay activists. And the gay activists often had the larger crowds. By accounts I have read, the NOW tour was largely a bust -- drawing poorly in crowd numbers and generating little enthusiasm. Their turn-outs near the end were described as "dismal."

Now there has been a major defection from their ranks. Louis Marinelli, a key strategist for the summer tour and organizer of their online movement, traveled with the tour. Now -- a few months later -- he has undergone what he calls a "transition" to becoming a supporter of civil marriage equality.

What happened? Here it is in his own words:

"Ironically, one of the last tour stops added to the itinerary was Atlanta and I bring this site up because it was in Atlanta that I can remember that I questioned what I was doing for the first time. The NOM showing in the heart of the Bible-belt was dismal and the hundreds of counter-protesters who showed up were nothing short of inspiring.

"Even though I had been confronted by the counter-protesters throughout the marriage tour, the lesbian and gay people whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almost instantly. For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing."

This doubt was the first transition step for Marinelli. But he continued writing his blog from a conservative point of view about "the homosexual agenda." Then RJ, a blogger, responded to an article with one of his own addressed specifically to Marinelli, which further opened his eyes to the fact

"that gays and lesbians were just real people who wanted to live real lives and be treated equally as opposed to, for example, wanting to destroy American culture. No, they didn’t want to destroy American culture, they wanted to openly participate in it. I was well on my way to becoming a supporter of civil marriage equality."

The final step came when he looked at the anti-gay responses he had been getting to his blog and realized that

"I was surrounded by hateful people."

Marinelli still supports the rights of religious groups to define religious marriage for themselves and to withhold their own religious rites from same-sex couples.

So do I. But civil marriage -- regulated and performed by the state -- is another matter. Our law and government is secular, not religion-based; and access should be equal. Both Marinelli and I support civil marriage equality.

I wonder what silly Maggie has to say about her former colleague?

Ralph