The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) on Monday pledged support for Minnesota's proposed gay marriage
ban amendment.
The nation's most vociferous opponent
of allowing gay and and lesbian couples to marry applauded lawmakers
for sending
a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a heterosexual union
to voters for their approval in 2012.
Brian Brown, president of NOM, hailed
the move as evidence that gay marriage in not inevitable.
“The vote Saturday night represents
another in a string of stinging defeats for the gay-marriage group
Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and their state allies, and is further
concrete evidence that the widely-reported claim that same-sex
marriage is inevitable is a lie. No state in this nation has
embraced same-sex marriage since 2009, and many explicitly rejected
it,” Brown
said, referring to failed attempts to legalize gay marriage in
New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Rhode Island and the
voter-approved repeal of a gay marriage law in Maine – fights NOM
led.
“We hope that the media will start to
pay attention at what the American people are doing through their
actions – they are rejecting same-sex marriage in droves,” he
said.
Brown's comments belie those of Jim
Daly, CEO and president of the Christian conservative group Focus on
the Family, who
said in an interview this week that gay marriage opponents have
“probably lost.”
Brown went on to suggest that the group
is planning to play a significant role in getting the amendment
approved at the ballot box.
“NOM looks forward to supporting the
campaign and lending our expertise and resources to those of allies
in the state. We will have a thorough, respectful, discussion with
the voters of Minnesota on all the reasons why the definition of
marriage should be preserved as the union of a man and a woman, and
to explain the risks to Minnesotans if they allow an activist judge
or liberal legislators to redefine marriage in the future without
public approval.”