Brian Brown, the president of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), blames a lack of funding
for Election Night losses.
On November 6, NOM, the nation's most
vociferous opponent of marriage equality, suffered setbacks in five
campaigns which it had backed. In three states – Maine, Maryland,
and Washington state – voters legalized the institution, while
Minnesotans rejected an effort to ban it. In Iowa, NOM lost a
campaign to oust state Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins, who was
targeted by conservatives angry over the high court's unanimous 2009
ruling which brought gay marriage to the Midwest.
(Related: Effort
to oust Iowa Judge David Wiggins over gay marriage fails.)
When asked by the Baptist
Press what is necessary to win in deep blue states, Brown
answered money.
“We need to match them in money,”
Brown said. “Everyone says, 'What does money do?' We have to have
a way to get our message out to voters in the middle, and the way you
can do that is through television and radio. That's the way we were
able to win in North Carolina and other states – we got our message
out. We were unable to do that [this fall] and the other side
already has an advantage because they get all their arguments out for
free through most of the mainstream press.”
Brown did not discuss the possibility
that his group's message was failing with voters.
Before Election Day, NOM had dismissed
the financial disparity between campaigns, saying most people were on
their side already.