Louis Marinelli, the former Internet
strategist for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is
becoming a gay marriage advocate.
Marinelli's
defection from the group last week was met with skepticism from
the group's president.
While acknowledging that Marinelli was
paid to help “expand our Internet reach,” Brian Brown denied
Marinelli's claim that he was the mastermind behind the group's
Summer for Marriage Tour 2010, a nationwide bus tour to rally
opposition to gay marriage.
“Louis Marinelli worked in a
volunteer capacity as a bus driver during our summer marriage tour,”
Brown said.
But the mastermind-volunteer did
control NOM's official Facebook page, which he shuttered, throwing
off the lights on more than 219,000 fans.
In a even more surprising move,
Marinelli is using his social media experience against NOM.
At
his new Facebook page, Marinelli on Sunday posted a poll asking
people how he can “best serve the cause of marriage equality.”
Over 40 percent of respondents say he
should “Expose NOM's agenda.”
In
an interview with gay blog Towleroad.com, Marinelli added that
he's prepared to make himself “available to whatever organization
needs my help in any way that they need it to do what I can to a)
reverse some of the things I've done in the past and to b) help
progress to help ensure that there is the freedom to marry in the
future.”