Mayors Antonio Villaraigosa of Los
Angeles and Vincent Gray of the District of Columbia have weighed in
on the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) race-baiting
strategy.
The strategy was revealed earlier this
week when gay rights advocate the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) posted
four of NOM's confidential strategic memos from 2009, which were
unsealed in the course of NOM's ongoing legal challenge to Maine's
campaign reporting laws.
The memos have caused an uproar for
stating that the strategic goal of its Not a Civil Right
project “is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key
Democratic constituencies.” The group also said it wanted to
establish opposition to marriage equality as “a key badge of Latino
identity – a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.”
Villaraigosa, a Mexican-American and
chair of the group Mayors
for the Freedom to Marry, expressed outrage in an email to
supporters.
“We need to come together as a
country if we are going to tackle our biggest challenges,” he said.
“NOM's divisive effort to pit one group of Americans against
another is offensive and takes us in exactly the wrong direction. If
we believe in family values, we must value all families; and I
believe that every adult – regardless of race, religion, gender or
ethnic heritage – should have the freedom to marry the person they
love.”
Gray, who is African-American, called
the group's efforts “hateful.”
“Across our nation, gay and lesbian
couples seek equal marriage rights because they believe in the same
values we all do – commitment, stability, responsibility and
family,” Gray said. “That's why it's especially confounding that
an organization that claims to support family values would seek to
pit groups against each other in a hateful and cynical effort to deny
equal rights to some families.”