Show us what really happened on Brian Brown’s summer vacation: Create a NOM tour mashup video!

By Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign Institute

Eden sent me that Brian Brown fantasy tour summer video last night. I dropped what I was doing to watch it because I needed a break from reality. Thank you Brian, for delivering!

Mr. Brown hides behind obfuscation, camera angles and his barricade of lies built on fear to create a fictional account of the National Organization for Marriage’s “One Man, One Woman” summer tour. Yet this community, right here on P8TT, took apart that video in the space of a couple of hours. Straight Grandmother, Jonathan, Gregory in SLC and so many others wrote from your souls and your memories because you have been to the events, you have watched the entire tour, you have read the trial transcripts, and you have shaped our strategy. Most importantly, you have lived the lives that have been and are damaged by NOM’s angry bus tour.

Eden mentioned that Courage would produce a video that tells the real story of this summer. You already know what that story is: NOM is desperate. The “One Man, One Woman” tour generated little more than one man and one woman at each stop. From its supporters speaking in tongues and calling for the murder of gay people, to police threatening Courage’s Tour Trackers with arrest at NOM’s behest, NOM has been unmasked as a fringe group masquerading as mainstream.

But don’t take my word for it. Brian Brown has also acknowledged the folly of this tour, in an interview with a right-wing publication that characterized Brown as “frustrated” by his shrinking base of supporters and the “slow abandonment” of his cause by the conservative media.

Now, as public opinion continues to shift in support of equality, even Ken Mehlman, the former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair under George Bush II, has come out of the closet and supports Judge Walker’s heroic and historic ruling.

Mr. Brown and his shoeless sister, Maggie Gallagher, are fast realizing that whatever support they once enjoyed is about to be consigned to the dustbin of history as more and more people see the truth behind NOM’s agenda, and the loving families they seek to subjugate.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Lives are still ruined and lost every day because of the prejudice and anti-family vitriol spewed by NOM. After all, look at what happened yesterday in Kansas.

Our collective job remains to show that the debate around the freedom to marry is all about family, about Felix and Kirill, about raising children in a supportive environment. And we have to keep telling those stories for years to come until America finishes its inexorable march toward justice and equality.

So here’s an idea for the P8TT community. Can you answer the Brian Brown summer vacation flick with a video of your own? Whether serious or funny, we would love to see what you can produce! You are very talented. You know the facts. You know this is really about love. Can you create a mashup of Brian Brown’s video that tells the truth about NOM’s tour and maybe provides a few laughs along the way?

Who can forget when NOM launched their unintentionally hilarious “Gathering Storm” video? The response from marriage equality advocates was just as funny, but intentionally so, as any Google search for Gathering Storm mashup videos demonstrates. Here’s one of my favorite mashup spoofs of NOM’s unforgettable video:

Yes, “Gathering Storm Chasers” was funny, but your video can be serious as well. Whatever inspires you to get creative.

Think about the incidents during the NOM tour that most affected you during NOM’s tour. Was it the man with the “noose” sign? Was it a family that really wanted simply to be a family but were being told they are not good enough? Was it the photos of the podium isolated by a sea of black top, surrounded by ten lonely staffers at the “big NOM rally” in Lima, Ohio? How about all of those great stats on the NOM tour that Adam put together?

If you need more material, just scroll back through the NOMTourTracker.com archives for a month’s worth of posts, pics and videos.

Let’s show the real Brian Brown summer vacation video, the one that has no followers, no energy and no future. The one that wants to divide families, attack judges and that does not trust America.

What do you say? You always rise to the occasion. Give it a go!

UPDATE BY EDEN: Not that I need to say so, but feel free to use this as an Open Thread to talk about Rick’s post above or whatever is on your mind…