At an anti-gay marriage rally Saturday
in Lima, Ohio, Maggie Gallagher called gay marriage supporters haters.
Gallagher returned to lead the National
Organization for Marriage's (NOM) anti-gay marriage Summer for
Marriage Tour 2010 bus tour at a Friday stop in Columbus.
Gallagher stepped down as NOM's
president to serve on the group's board in April and Brian Brown took
over the helm. Brown has been noticeably absent from the last two
rallies.
The group's eighth stop on the tour –
held in the parking lot of a shuttered grocery store – was sparsely
attended. One head count put NOM supporters at less than 20 and
counter protesters at about the same number.
In an increasingly flagrant attempt to
flip the script on marriage equality advocates, Gallagher called gay
marriage supporters haters.
“We live in an upside down world,”
Gallagher said. “We live in a world where people tell us good is
bad and bad is good … [But] truth and love will triumph over lies
and hatred.”
At Friday's Columbus rally, Gallagher
expressed a similar sentiment: “I have a message for our good
friends who don't agree with us – a few of them are gathered out
there on the other side – hate is not a family value.”
Other speakers on the tour have sought
to shore up the argument that marriage is not a civil right for gay
couples.
Damon Owens, who is African-American
and the founder of the New Jersey Natural Family Planning
Association, said in Columbus: “Martin Luther King said that every
argument for a legitimate civil right must find support in the civil
law or the natural law. Same sex marriage has found support in
neither.”
The tour was joined in Annapolis,
Maryland by D.C.'s number one gay marriage foe, Bishop Harry Jackson.
Jackson, who is African-American, and his followers are pushing for
a referendum on gay marriage in the District.
“The major civil right, for those of
us who went through the civil rights movement, is the right to vote,”
he said.
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan ditched
plans to attend the Lima rally, opting instead to forward a
statement: “Make no mistake, marriage is what it always has been –
a sacred, lifelong commitment between a man and a woman. … Family
is the foundation of society, and marriage is the cornerstone.”
NOM is the group behind measures in
Maine and California that have repealed gay marriage at the ballot
box.
The bus tour, which includes stops in
23 cities, is expected to end with a Washington D.C. rally on August
15.
The bus rolls into Indianapolis,
Indiana on Monday.