Brian Brown gets it right (but does he know it?)

Cross-posted at Waking Up Now.

by Rob Tisinai

I wish NOM president Brian Brown had just a smidge more self-awareness. Because then he’d realize that, in his most recent newsletter, he accidentally presents NOM as a hateful and bigoted organization.

Brian writes this of the Iowa hearings on marriage:

Even I, who’ve heard pretty much everything at this point, was a little shocked to hear one gay marriage supporter say:

“It would be less harmful to me if you would just beat me up in a dark alley. It would be less hurtful to me if you would just spray paint the word f—-t on my garage door. Nothing you could do to me physically would be more hurtful to me than the action you are proposing to take with this resolution.”

If you and I disagree with him about marriage, we are hurting him as much as–more than–if we insulted and beat him?

I know too many of our fellow citizens and neighbors who support gay marriage have reached a similar boiling point of emotion-driven unreasonableness. And I want to, on the one hand, give them a big hug or something to make them feel better.

Emotion-driven unreasonableness?  Really?  Let’s check this out. 

First, I’d like Brian to acknowledge the problem is not that you disagree with us.  Disagree!  Go ahead!  Feel free!  No, the problem is you’re going beyond disagreement and trying to strip gay Iowans of the marriage rights they currently have.

So let me ask Brian:  Which would hurt you more — getting beaten up in an alley or having your marriage declared invalid?  Having a nasty word spray-painted on your garage door, or never being allowed to marry the one you love?

And, Brian, before you answer, you might want to review what happened to Kelly Glossip and Dennis Engelhard.  To Mark Goldberg and Ron Hanby.  To Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado (along with Maggie Gallagher’s callous shrug of a response).

See, Brian, the words that so shocked you feel less like emotion-driven unreasonableness and more like a plain and sensible statement of fact.

But you know what really struck me, Brian?  You listened to this man’s words — his perfectly reasonable words — and heard in them an accusation of hatred and bigotry.  But the man said no such thing.  You did.  You made that connection all by yourself.

So perhaps now you understand why some of us view you this way.

Recently Maggie Gallagher, your former boss, wrote this on your website:

For those of you reading this I would ask of you only one thing: whether you support gay marriage or not, can you at least acknowledge what you are asking of those of us who disagree, who believe our historic marriage tradition is good? … Gay marriage will make it virtually impossible to renew marriage’s central public role, which is not to celebrate private romantic love—hardly any business of government—but to protect children by increasing the likelihood that they will be born to and raised by their own mother and father. Gay marriage makes it impossible to articulate this as a goal of marriage, much less to realise it in real children’s lives.

Brian and Maggie, I understand what I’m asking of you.  I don’t agree, but I understand.  Can we now ask the same of you?  Can you understand what you’re asking of us? Can you see it’s  why hard not to view your life’s lucrative work as hateful and bigoted?  Can you read our stories, look at our lives, and see that?

In the meantime, you can keep your hugs to yourself.  I doubt they would give Shirley Tan or Mark Goldberg much comfort.