Joseph Backholm, a leader in the fight
to repeal a gay marriage law in Washington state, believes people
support such unions to prove they do not hate gay people.
Backholm made his comments during a
panel discussion on marriage at Values Voter Summit, which is
sponsored by the Christian conservative Family Research Council
(FRC).
“People support same-sex marriage not
because they think it's a good idea but as a way to prove they don't
hate gay people,” Backholm told attendees. “Those ideas as
obviously not logically connected. Culturally we've done a very poor
job of thinking about this issue.”
“The only reason it's getting support
is because, again, people are trying to demonstrate the fact that
they don't hate gay people.”
“Since the Olympics the other side
has been running television ads talking about how nice gay people
are, why can't we be the same and we really are nice descent people
and we live in your neighborhood and all that kind of stuff, which
really from our perspective isn't relevant to the issue. But we must
be able to penetrate that narrative. And if we have the ability to
penetrate that, remind people that we already do treat same-sex
couples fairly, that there is no inequality, we will win this thing
because in people's guts they know that marriage is between men and
women, that mothers and fathers matter, and that over the next 100
years that family structure matters far more than anything else.”
Also appearing on the panel were John
Helmberger, CEO of Minnesota Family Council, Carroll Conley,
executive director of Maine Family Policy Council, and Derek McCoy,
executive director of Maryland Marriage Alliance.
(Related: Mitt
Romney says he'll defend marriage in Values Voter Summit message.)
All four men appeared to concede that
gay marriage foes were increasingly playing defense on the issue.
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