National same-sex marriage opponent and the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) poster child Maggie Gallagher sounded a defeatist note in her latest blog entry entitled, “Cooper, Mozilla, Firefox,” reports Carolyn Lochhead, the Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. She writes, “Maggie Gallagher, a founder and former president of the National Organization for Marriage, a group dedicated to opposing marriage by gays and lesbians, conceded in a post on her blog that those resisting same-sex marriages “are in shock, they are awed by the powers now shutting down the debate and by our ineffectualness at responding to these developments.”
Currently 17 states and the District of Columbia allow for legal recognition of same-sex marriage and federal appeals courts serving three of the most conservative states – Oklahoma, Utah and Texas – have all struck down those states’ bans – based on last year’s historic Supreme Court ruling that a) struck down Prop. 8 here in California and b) ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional. The bans in those states and one district were the result of a combination of popular vote, legislative action or court decree.
In her post, Gallagher writes, “What I am advocating doing is three very big, and very hard things: a) accepting where we are and b) learning from what we did not succeed in so that we can get to c) how do we build anew? Right now most people who believe in the classic understanding of marriage are in shock, they are awed by the powers now shutting down the debate and by our ineffectualness at responding to these developments. The temptation to shout and yell and stamp our feet in ineffectual ridiculousness is understandable, but it is to be resisted.”
As her blog post indicates, she cites three prime examples of how the contours on the national debate on same-sex marriage have swung in the opposite direction for her and her band of foes. The first, she cites, is that Charles Cooper, the lead attorney for the defendants in the Prop. 8 case, will be officiating the same-sex marriage of his stepdaughter and her fiancé in Massachusetts. “Thank you for your hard work, and your service. I had no idea you were working this hard, for so little benefit to yourself and your career, while simultaneously managing a family crisis like this. Thank you for being faithful to the end to your client and our cause. And I wish God’s blessings on you and your family.”
She then cites the firing of Brendan Eich as acting CEO for Mozilla, a man who not only opposes same-sex marriage but made a $1000 contribution to support his beliefs. “Here we face the fist within the velvet glove—one of the few public instances of what is happening all over America. People are afraid to say this: “marriage is the union of husband and wife, because kids need a mother and a father.” They are afraid and they are falling silent. Brendan Eich is a brilliant and rich man and he will personally be okay, no matter what happens. But if he, the Mozart of Mozilla, cannot survive opposing gay marriage, who can?”
Finally, Gallagher cites Gov. Jan Brewer’s decision to publicly come out against a measure that allow businesses in Arizona to discriminate about members of the LGBT community based on their religious beliefs and faith. ” Gay rights advocates decided to prove they could stop legislation like this deep in the heart of the reddest of all red states. And they won. First they defined the bill as an antigay pro-discrimination measure. Then they got credible GOP leaders to validate this framing—John McCain and Mitt Romney. They did this in a matter of hours. I doubt either McCain or Romney got a thoughtful analysis of the legislation and its meaning. They got they did not want to be “antigay” and they got props for being on the right side of history. And it was enough.”
What Maggie Gallagher’s game plan now is anyone’s guess but with an increasing number of states turning into same-sex marriage allies and a Supreme Court increasingly likely to issue a federal ban on all anti same-sex marriage litigation, her role has diminished and she is looking more and more like a footnote in the LGBT equality movement.
