Brian Brown, the president of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is calling on supporters to
raise $30 million in the coming year to defeat gay marriage
initiatives.
In remarks to Reuters, Brown said his
group would use four so-called traditional marriage losses at the
ballot box as a rallying cry to outraise supporters of marriage
equality.
“Frankly, Americans never really
thought that they would have to defend something so obvious as the
reality that it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage, and only
recently has the threat become clear,” Brown
said. “We're committed to not letting that happen again, to
being outspent in that way. And I think a lot of our donors will
step up to the plate, in a way that you haven't seen before, in any
future state fights.”
Those battlegrounds are likely to
include Rhode Island and Delaware, two states which currently
recognize gay and lesbian couples with civil unions and are expected
to consider legalizing marriage equality in the upcoming legislative
session.
Another critical state is Minnesota,
where voters on November 6 rejected an effort to ban such unions and
handed over the reigns of both legislative chambers to Democrats.
Brown said gay marriage foes now find
themselves on the defensive.
“All of the cultural power is being
exerted on the side of redefining marriage,” he said. “Therefore,
in colleges, students are constantly hearing about how it's
discriminatory or bigoted to stand up for traditional marriage.”
“We are the rebels now,” he added.