At a sparsely attended stop Friday in
Columbus, Ohio, Maggie Gallagher returned to helm NOM's anti-gay
marriage Summer for Marriage Tour 2010 bus tour.
The campaign is sponsored by the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the group behind measures
in Maine and California that have repealed gay marriage at the ballot
box, and is expected to end with a Washington D.C. rally on August
15.
Gay activists once again outnumbered
rally attendees in the Ohio capital. One head count put NOM
supporters at 20 and counter protesters at 70. Gay activists
chanted, “2, 4, 6, 8 time for you to leave the state,” as they
attempted to shout down NOM's speakers.
The event marked the return of Maggie
Gallagher, who stepped aside as the group's president in April. She
now serves on the group's board and Brian Brown took over the helm.
Brown, who's spoken at every previous event, was noticeably absent.
Gallagher remained lock-step with the
group's newest maneuver of flipping the script on gay marriage
supporters.
“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,” she told
the crowd.
Damon Owens, who is African-American
and the founder of the New Jersey Natural Family Planning
Association, added: “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.
A visible police presence in Columbus
kept counter protesters at bay.
The bus rolls into Lima, Ohio on
Saturday.