Thursday, May 14, 2009
Princeton students protest NOM's "Gathering Storm"
Princeton students donned black and white cardboard masks of Princeton politics professor Robert George on Wednesday evening to protest his organization's recent ad campaign.
In light of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Iowa and Vermont, the Princeton-based National Organization for Marriage (NOM) launched a $1.5 million advertising campaign, which has garnered much attention in the media since it first aired in several states last month. NOM was co-founded in 2007 by Maggie Gallagher and professor George. George now serves as the chair of NOM's board of directors.
The centerpiece of the organization’s “Religious Liberty Ad Campaign” is a 60-second television spot, titled “A Gathering Storm,” which brings viewers “face to face with the growing religious liberty threat posed by same-sex marriage,” according to the organization’s website.
Co-organizers Emily Sung '11 and Emily Rutherford '12 asked protest participants to wear either business attire or rain gear to satirize the advertisement. The protest was held across the street from the Nassau Street office, which serves as its national headquarters.
Last month, in an interview with the Daily Princetonian, Gallagher said that she was "personally very proud" of NOM's role as the largest monetary supporter of Proposition 8, whose passage on Nov. 4 eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California.
Gallagher added that George was not active on the "operational side" but that they were both strong advocates of heterosexual marriage.
“Both of us have been longstanding critics of policies and practices that we believe have weakened the institution of marriage and the marriage culture," Gallagher said.
--Tasnim Shamma '11
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7 comments:
Oddly enough, feminists profess ignorance about how gay marriage can possibly be detrimental to marriage as practiced today. "How," they ask, "will letting more people get married weaken marriage?" The answer, of course, is that it will weaken marriage by removing the particulars that make marriage marriage.
If I were to insist that Rush Limbaugh's (or Randall Terry's) ideas were to be labelled "feminist" or that Jesse Helms be placed in the camp of the "anti-racists," the leftists would have a field day. Obviously in that case they can see why increasing their nominal number weakens, and not strengthens, them. But in the end they do not care about marriage, or see it as a mere legal contract no different than, say a business partnership, so the idea that the same principle applies is completely foreign to them. In the extreme case of feminists, many see the traditional monogamous union as a sinister arm of a pervasive patriarchal social system that seeks to subjugate women. They would be delighted to see traditional marriage fall by the wayside.
why are gays intent on getting married? The answer is, they are not. In places where gay marriage has been available for years, Gays don't get married. Toronto has had gay marriage for years, and through 2008 only one gay couple has been married. Last year, only 107 gay marriages have been performed.
Gays, in fact do not want to get married. Very few of them actually do, in places where gay marriage has been legal for some time. Gays are notoriously promiscuous, and promiscuity is incompatible with the traditional notions of marriage. Rather, as Stanley Kurtz has argued in National Review Online, Gays wish to use cultural arguments (mostly through television and movies) and legal ones to collapse traditional culture and specifically, the nuclear family. Which is viewed quite naturally as the enemy of gay culture (it is).
Classical Greece honored, or even revered, homosexual love above that between men and women, yet it had absolutely no inclination to establish same sex marrage. Indeed Plato discussed this issue at some length, making the observation that marriage was a sacred bond that was intended to preserve the culture. It can hardly be said of the Greeks that they eschewed same sex marriage out of some prejudice against homosexuals. So what was their reasoning?
Marriage is about child raising... and passing on values and capacities to new "human starts" (as R.B. Fuller called them). The notion of same-sex marriage would have simply seemed silly to the Greeks. What would be the point?
There you go again, AC, talking about gay promiscuity. You seem to have a fixation on gay sex. Either that, or you just have a ready-made answer that you copy and paste every time. For your sake I hope it's the latter.
AC's comment may be one of the worst examples of arrogance and ignorance I've seen in a while. I do like to hear the other side of debates, and I do see some point in some conservation of a traditional marriage. However, after thinking about it, as a student who hopefully can criticize the institutional structures I see and who can objectively look at both sides of an argument, I cannot agree with your point whatsoever. Is there such a sanctity in traditional marriage that should be saved? What I cannot stand about the notion of traditional marriage is yes, the idea that it is oppressive, that it clearly benefits what some believe as morally right, a man-woman relationship. We are all human on this earth; why are we discriminating against a whole part of humankind who may not want to marry, according to you, but would at least like the opportunity to? It is not about people wanting or not to be married, it is about every person's dignity and ability to get married, and you, AC, have clearly left a whole part of society out with your typical stereotypes of the gay/lesbian person. And yes, according to your argument, people like myself may be ones who would let traditional marriage fall by the wayside. But what's wrong with opening up an institution that's inherently oppressive, something between a man and a woman now?
I don't ever want to attack anyone, but I just wish you would see that point. Also, one could consider your idea of marriage a narrow one as well: "Marriage is about child raising... and passing on values and capacities to new "human starts"." Is it also morally right of you to subject that opinion on mankind, to suggest to people that we should continually bear and raise children in a world that some people argue is densely overpopulated? I understand that people want the freedom to express their moral judgments on things, but by lawfully discriminating against a whole part of America, you are placing YOUR moral judgments on all of mankind, and while I am not at liberty to judge your thinking, I do know that it is generally wrong for some person or peoples to openly discriminate based on personal belief. This government should not be doing that; as a democracy, or a so-called one to the very, very least, the government should be trying to represent the people, not have a few or a majority's opinion hide the views of others or oppress others in any fashion.
Where to start with AC's comments? No matter where you start - so many lies in that post. But that's good. They are so obvious, it can't but help the cause of same-sex marriage. Most of all, I love the claim that where same-sex marriage was allowed there have been no same-sex marriages. I guess AC missed how there were 18,000 marriages between people of the same sex conducted in California before Prop 8 passed.
Annie
Your argument in favor of gay relationships for the benefit of population control are idiotic. I am not anti gay and whatever your theory about homosexuality is (ie the argument over nature vs nurture/choice) you sound dumb when you say things like that. We are, like any animal, made to reproduce.
Equality includes ALL people. Nuff said.
@ AC
1. You seem to have encountered issues procuring factual "facts". In fact, in the first 3 months of Toronto's legalizing same-sex marriage, there were slightly over 750 ceremonies performed. (in the first month, at least, roughly 13% of all marriages there were same-sex). By now, the number is certainly in the thousands... I think your estimate of "1" was a bit off. (p.s. fabricating statistics only weakens your argument)
2. You put opinions, mindsets, and goals into the mouths of "gays" and "leftists" who apparently "do not care about marriage", etc. Did you know that there are, by even the most conservative estimates, millions of LGBT people in the US? (the 2000 US census counted 1.2 million people in same-sex households, and millions more live in other situations). I don't speak for these millions, and neither do you. The multitudes of attitudes of millions of people cannot be represented by any one community member, and certainly not by one side-line commentator.
3. You try to prove your point by noting that the Greeks did not have same-sex marriage. True. But, the ancient Greeks also practiced slavery, stoned disobedient children, disallowed women from owning property, and had relationships often between men in their 30's and girls in their teens. When it comes to issues of civil rights, family, and relationships, the Greeks are not actually our best role models.
And to get back to the point: Everybody, get out your multicolored IKEA umbrellas... this is going to be one helluva storm!
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