NOM president Brian Brown admits to using race as a "wedge" against marriage equality

 

Responding to the growing controversy about the National Organization for Marriage's plans to pit African Americans against gays to create tensions in order to achieve their goal of denying equal rights to gays, NOM president Brian Brown today acknowledged and admitted to using marriage equality as a "wedge" between the two communities:

Gay marriage advocates have attempted to portray same-sex marriage as a civil right, but the voices of these and many other leaders have provided powerful witness that this claim is patently false. Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine. We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage.

Everything in this statement confirms the strategy of using people of color as spokespeople and using the language of “civil rights” as a catalyst for division.

Brown's statement was issued in response to the revelation that NOM has based stategies against the LGBT community for years by attempting to "drive a wedge" between gays and the black community. From their own documents recently made available:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

The freedom to marry is a civil right, crucial to same-sex families’ ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness just as all families do.

Read more on the growing controversy at the New York Times.