The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) on Wednesday launched a campaign decrying the tactics of gay
marriage group FCKH8.
The nascent group, helmed by
producer-activist Luke Montgomery, sells t-shirts, stickers and
calendars to support gay rights groups.
The group's first video Prop
8 is H8: Straight Talk on Gay Marriage has been viewed
more than 2 million times. But its frequent – some would say
excessive – use of the word fuck has divided gay rights advocates.
Now FCKH8's in-your-face message is
coming under attack from gay marriage foe NOM, which is urging gay
rights groups to disassociate themselves from the group.
“The American Foundation for Equal
Rights, Equality California, Courage Campaign and Lambda Legal have
certainly reached a low point displaying a poor lack of judgment for
refusing to disassociate themselves from this video of real children
shouting angry profanities as props to raise money for their cause,”
Brian Brown, president of NOM, said in a statement.
NOM has launched a petition drive
asking gay rights groups to repudiate FCKH8.com's tactics.
In a two-minute-twenty-four-second
video to promote the campaign, a female announcer asks, “Are these
the kind of values gay marriage advocates are determined to preach in
our society? Is this how they want to indoctrinate our kids?”
“And please, don't forget to pray for
the innocent children who are being used to promote hatred through
this video,” she adds near the end of the ad. (The video is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Speaking
to gay glossy The Advocate, the man behind the video,
Montgomery, wasn't offering any apologies.
“We're always having to censor
ourselves and ask politely for people to like us and care about us,”
he said. “No! We're f-bombing hate. And we're having fun doing
it.”
“This is how I feel and this is how
millions of other people feel,” he added. “It's honest. There
are all sorts of honest messages out there. But we edit ourselves.
We get pushed around.”
“We really are trying to use a bad
word for a good cause.”
Earlier
this month, singer Adam Lambert tweeted support for the group,
and Glee alum Jane Lynch has also shown interest.