NOM, Your Roots Are(n't) Showing
The National Organization for Marriage presents itself as grassroots, but who are the people really behind it?By Emily Rutherford
June 9, 2009
Carrie Prejean is working with the National Organization for Marriage to "protect traditional marriages." (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, File)Remember "The Gathering Storm"? The infamous ad was produced by the National Organization for Marriage, a 501(c)(4) non-profit that was one of the largest single donors in support of California's Proposition 8. NOM is now working to oppose same-sex marriage in other states. The ad has been the subject of so many parodies that a search for its title only brings up spoofs. Featuring ominous Weather Channel-inspired special effects, the ad presents a racially diverse, well-dressed group of people—from a "member of a New Jersey church group" to a "California doctor" to a "Massachusetts parent"—who appear on the screen to explain how same-sex marriage will negatively affect their lives.
The ad’s diverse cast and invocation of Jesse Jackson's "rainbow coalition" phraseology shows that NOM wants to present its movement as a grassroots one, equal in scope and energy to the marriage equality movement. But a closer look at NOM reveals that its driving forces are very different from those behind the grassroots waves of protest in opposition to the Prop. 8 decision.
The members of NOM’s coalition are not ordinary people; they're actors hired for the purpose, whose audition tapes the Human Rights Campaign discovered and posted online (the videos are no longer available, because NOM made a copyright claim that resulted in their removal from YouTube). The people running NOM—its president and its board of directors—are even less members of any grassroots movement or "rainbow coalition." They're rooted firmly in the conservative establishment, and any suggestion that NOM is on par with other, truly grassroots campaigns is dubious at best.
NOM's president is Maggie Gallagher, arguably one of the country's most prominent social-conservative voices. She has written five books in support of conservative "family values" ideology. In addition to heading up NOM, she is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a socially conservative think tank, and she has been a nationally-syndicated columnist for the past 14 years. She also had close ties to the Bush administration: In 2005, the Washington Post reported that Gallagher "had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote" an initiative that would encourage "marriage as a way of strengthening families." She then, the Post notes, did not disclose this connection when writing a column that praised the Bush administration's proposal.
Gallagher co-founded NOM in 2007 with Robert George, a professor in the Princeton University politics department who is now the chair of the NOM's Board of Directors (their national headquarters are also located in the town of Princeton, NJ). A prominent figure in his field of constitutional law, George has written a long list of books and articles on morality and the law. At Princeton, he founded the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, under whose aegis conservative speakers and scholars are brought to campus to lecture and hold seminars; the program also sponsors fellowships, prizes, and postdoctoral positions. Max Blumenthal noted in The Nation in 2006 that the Madison Program receives funding from sources as diverse as former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes and groups backed by the Catholic organization Opus Dei.
In addition, George is on the editorial boards of the religious conservative magazines Touchstone and First Things and is on the boards of other conservative organizations such as the Institute for American Values and the American Enterprise Institute. Like Gallagher, George has spent his entire career with the movers and shakers of religious social conservatism. His position as an Ivy League academic and his high level of involvement in a number of established organizations and publications afford him, like Gallagher, access to the base of the religious right that simply would not exist if NOM were a true grassroots organization.
Other members of NOM's board come from similar backgrounds: Chuck Stetson is chairman of the board at the Bible Literacy Project; Ken Von Kohorn fills the same role at the Family Institute of Connecticut; Luis Tellez is president of the Witherspoon Institute, a Princeton-based conservative think tank (where George is also a fellow), and is a member of the Advisory Council of George's Madison Program. The newest addition to NOM's board is science-fiction novelist and devout Mormon Orson Scott Card, who is not the head of a think tank—probably the closest NOM gets to the grassroots. But Card’s activism takes the form of publications such as a 2008 op-ed in the Mormon Times in which he said, "Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage."
The true grassroots are on the other side of the marriage debate—they include organizations like Join the Impact, which was, its website states, founded by "two friends emailing back and forth about the California passage of Proposition 8." It used Facebook, Twitter, and its own website to organize more than 300 protests against Prop. 8 last year. More have taken place since then to support marriage equality in other states.
To be sure, there are establishment advocacy groups working for marriage equality, such as the Human Rights Campaign or the American Civil Liberties Union, but their leaders are certainly less involved in every piece of the progressive pie than are Gallagher, George, and their colleagues in the conservative one. At the very least, it can be said with absolute certainty that none of these groups have presidents who received funding from the Bush administration.
Just because groups like NOM invest millions of dollars in flashy ads like "Gathering Storm," and have high-profile leaders like Gallagher and George does not mean they must have a huge groundswell of support. But their high-profile leaders pop up again and again in different roles; it's really the same few people running the show. The situation is similar to April's so-called Tax Day "tea parties," which were widely regarded as "astroturfing:" claiming to be grassroots, but sponsored and publicized by organizations such as FreedomWorks (led by Richard Armey), establishment Republican figures such as Newt Gingrich, and conservative media outlets such as Fox News. Similarly, the National Organization for Marriage and its ilk in the anti-same-sex marriage camp do not represent ordinary Americans. Instead, they represent a painfully out-of-touch brand of social conservatism that is increasingly sidelined in a nation embracing progressive change.
Emily Rutherford is a staff writer and editorial intern at Campus Progress. She is a sophomore at Princeton University.
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Comments
I have no problem with homosexual people. They should be accorded every courtesy – period.
The fact that a homosexual lobby wishes to REDEFINE the term “marriage” so their relationships might be included in this term is THE difference between “traditionalists” and those who wish to be accepted as “married” people.
The lack of intellectual honesty on the part of homosexual activists is glaring. If “love” is the basis for demanding inclusion in this definition, then the “love” a polygamist feels for all spouses SHOULD be recognized also. And if “love” is felt between blood relatives of any sex, why not allow these people to “marry”?
The emotional and intellectual dishonesty reaches new heights when homosexuals compare themselves to racial minorities who were incorrectly forbidden to wed. Legalizing marriage between different races can be supported on the basis of “X” and “Y” chromosomes. Sorry, but two “X’s” or two “Y’s” do not qualify for this legal justification.
I am completely supportive of common courtesy for all people – I am NOT in favor or re-writing the social contract so certain people can feel societal affirmation.
— mighty aphrodite - Jun 11, 03:21 PM - #mighty aphrodite – you make absolutely no sense. What do you mean by “x” and “y”? I do not know of any part in our cnstitution or other law that requires the presense of 3 X and 1 Y chromosomes in a marriage. Please refer me to this. Thats your crazy opinion and nothing in law. And even if such laws exist to restrict marriage to 1 man and 1 woman, we have changed incorrect laws countless times in the past. In fact, what you’re saying about different races marrying took a change in law. So the question is, why could you accept changing the law then but not now? Lots of people do things I like, but we have fredom in this country and the constitution, which means if it doesn’t hurt anyone, its not our business.
As for people throwing around the idea that allowing gay marriage automatically means other kinds such as incest or polygamy, thats just nonsense. The law draws the line. As for whether those people should also be allowed to marry, again, I go back to the idea that if it doesn’t hurt anyone, people should be free to do as they please. I believe polygamy is most often not truly chosen, as it is usually a sexist practice with the girl being taught that is her only purpose in life, and very often they are married off at a young age by their families. So I am against it in the idea that it is not usually consensual. I do support polyamorous marriages though, as those are consentual and don’t hurt anyone. With incest, my only problem is them having children. But that can (and does) happen with or without marriage.
The truth is, people usually want a state recognized marriage for the benefits. We need to stop offering these incentives for people to be legally married. Why should you possibly pay less in taxes?! Its simply a religious right tactic to force people to live in their twisted “traditional” world. People should just pay their own taxes and be allowed to designate whoever they want as their “next of kin” for inheritence and power of attorney issues and then people won’t feel forced to try to fit into this plan.
The only problem I have with this article is that it says the commercial has people “to explain how same-sex marriage will negatively affect their lives”. It doesn’t in fact do this. I kept waiting to hear 1 single answer and all it was was people repeating that it was affecting them and their freedoms were at stake. The “how” gay marriage could possibly do that was never addressed.
— Erin - Jun 11, 03:59 PM - #Erin, I have two problems with your statement.
First, you state that, “the law draws the line” and in so doing assert that allowing persons of the same sex to marry will not open the legal door for any other combination of persons to marry.
This claim is flat wrong. The law works according to precedents, which are the legal principles which generate the legal decision, and the central principle upon which the argument for same-sex marriage turns is that of “consent.” The argument of the enemy goes something like this, “as long as sex and love are consensual, who am I to interfere?”
The principle of “consent” is the principle upon which your argument turns, and according this principle any combination of individuals ought to able to marry as long as they “consent.” You Erin give no qualifying terms to the principle of “consent” and so you’re leaving marriage open to any and all definitions, and if a term can mean anything, it can mean nothing in particular, in short, you are defining the term marriage out of existence.
Thankfully, “consent” is not the essence of marriage. It is one aspect of it, but not that which makes it what it is.
Marriage is a natural institution and by natural I mean rational, and by rational I mean that there is an intelligible reason grounded in reality (never illusion) for why marriage is specifically what it is.
The essence or “form” of marriage is the coming together of the two halves of reality, the active and the passive, to create a single whole. By way of marriage, men and women actualize their potential “to be.”
In short, humanity can be divided into two parts, that of “Form” and “Matter” (the father truly does play “form” and the mother “matter.”) The form is the active element, which amounts to the definition or intelligible aspect of a thing. Form however cannot exist apart from the passive aspect of being, matter, which the form gives meaning to and depends upon for its subsistence in being. Thus, the nature of man (his Form -humanity) cannot exist apart from the nature of his physical body and accomplish “being” in any real or intellectual sense, just as a man cannot exist apart from a woman and accomplish “being” in the “physical” sense, with the generation of a new being, a baby, an outward expression of an inward reality that runs through the whole universe.
At least in our corner of the galaxy, all things are dependent upon active and passive elements, everything. Just think, logic involves a major premise, which consists of a universal active principle and a minor premise, a particular situation and then the logician moves discursively to a conclusion, and generated new knowledge. Human generation consists of a male and female. Using your computer consists of you, the active element, informing the computer, the passive element. Building a new house involves a builder (active) and matter (passive). Teaching involves active and passive participants etc.
Anyway, I hope that you now see that the only definition of marriage, which can be rational and intelligible, or in other words, that is grounded in reality, is that definition which involves potential moving toward actuality, which involves the two very different, active and passive, elements of the human species coming together, to create a single substance, humanity, through marriage in an act of metaphysical being, and thus generating a new physical being, a baby.
To be or not to be, it’s still the same old question.
To be, it’s the everlasting answer.
— Ryan Sorba - Jun 12, 01:12 PM - #If the purpose of marriage is to have the ‘end result of a new physical being, a baby’, then why allow people who do not want to have children to marry? Why should they be given the benefits of paying less taxes etc.? Should there be a signed legal document that one will have a child in order to marry? If there are no children, then the marriage is null and void.
— Joy McClellan - Jun 13, 09:02 PM - #And why should we allow divorce when there are children?
Marriage is on the way to being re-defined, no matter that the religious right opposes it. Those folks are a small minority with big mouths and the rest of us could and should out-shout them.
Ryan, your answer sounds like some weird mutation of Yin and Yang. I have already solved this stupid gay marriage problem, and it’s really simple- get the state out of marriage. Gay people don’t want a church to be forced to marry them- they just want a marriage license and the rights afforded to married couples. This doesn’t seem like a big request, more like getting a little equality- and I think most people are ok with this. However, it’s the use of the term “marriage” that gets people all bent out of shape. So I propose that everyone- straight or gay- will get a civil union from the state. No more “marriages” in a court- only civil unions. Let marriage be strictly for religions, and let the state make civil unions. There, problem solved.
— Roy Stoez - Jul 11, 01:04 PM - #