Maggie Gallagher, the chair of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), has reiterated her claim
that gay marriage supporters are haters.
NOM is the nation's most
vociferous opponent of gay marriage. The group led winning efforts
to repeal gay marriage laws in California and Maine.
Speaking last week in Salt Lake City at
an event organized by the socially conservative group Sutherland
Institute, Gallagher railed against supporters of the institution,
the
Deseret News reported.
Gallagher told the crowd that
supporters of gay marriage are attempting to silence opponents by
labeling them bigots.
“What they've done now is that
they've stopped trying to persuade people that gay marriage is a good
idea,” she said. “What they are doing is raising the cost of
speaking out … by directing a relentless torrent of accusations and
hatred against anyone who speaks, no matter how civilly, for
marriage.”
Gallagher began flipping the script on
gay rights supporters last year during the group's Summer for
Marriage Tour 2010, a nationwide bus tour to rally opposition to gay
marriage, in which she told crowds that “hate is not a family
value” and that her supporters were being denied their civil right
to vote on the definition of marriage.
Gay rights advocates are certain to
disagree with Gallagher's assertion that her group speaks civilly
against gay marriage. Brian Brown, the group's president, has
refused to denounce speakers on his tour who have described gay
people as “perverted,” “diseased” and likely pedophiles.
“What I believe is that pastors and
religious leaders need to be able to speak up for traditional,
Christian sexual morality,” Brown
told a gay marriage supporter documenting the tour. “And they
have the right to do that. They have the obligation to do that.”