NOM Spokesman: ESPN's Chris Broussard More Courageous Than Jason Collins

NOM's Jennifer Roback-Morse told Lutheran Public Radio on Tuesday that it took much more courage for ESPN's Chris Broussard to condemn Jason Collins for coming out than it did for Collins to tell the world that he's gay.

Said Morse:

I think he required more courage than the basketball player did. I mean, it requires no courage at all today to say “I’m gay.” It’s my understanding [Collins] got a phone call from the president congratulating him on his courage. Well how much courage can it take if the president’s going to pick up the phone and give you a personal phone call, you know? But in the meantime, this fellow who says, you know, ‘I’m a Christian, and I believe that sex belongs in marriage and it belongs in man-woman marriage,’ to say that, now that will bring the whole wrath of society down upon your head. So that’s the guy that really required the courage and I give him a lot of credit for it.

Listen, AFTER THE JUMP...

Morse added: "I was actually quite touched by his comments because – I hate to say this because the gay lobby will certainly pick up on this – but I want you to know I did not coach this man at all whatsoever, but he sounds like a spokesman for the Ruth Institute because he’s there saying all of these sins are sexual sins."

NOM's Sinking Ship

(image via fred karger)

After marriage bills advanced in France, Rhode Island, and Delaware, Santa Fe voted to support marriage equality, and Nevada voted to repeal its ban on same-sex marriage, NOM's Brian Brown called it a "tough week" in a letter to supporters.

Brown then went on to honor a "heroic marriage champion" lawmaker in Rhode Island, Senator Harold M. Metts, D-Providence/Slater, whose speech Jeremy Hooper kindly summarized:

In his twelve minute floor speech (/sermon), Rhode Island senator Harold Metts (D-Providence/Slater) viciously condemned gay people as having "vile affections," called "acts of sodomy" an "abomination to God," warned that ancient civilizations were destroyed for going against God and intimated that our LGBT-accepting society is going the same way, claimed "Satan and gunmen have come in" to our schools (with inclusive school books as his followup example), and intimated that people can just up and change their "sexual preferences" at whim.

Brian and Maggie better find a piece of plywood to cling on to fast if these are the people they're holding up as role models.

NOM Launching an International Organization for Marriage with Deep Ties to France

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) seems set to launch an international organization, and Jeremy Hooper at NOM Exposed has dug up clues that point to France as the first step in a sweeping global plan.

Writes Hooper:

We know NOM has moved forward with all of the other plans in those strategy documents (including the "drive a wedge" one); this is just a continuation of the international plan, with France being the first chess move in a larger, planetary onslaught on behalf of inequality. Because it's NOM's Earth, apparently—we just get discriminated within it.

Meanwhile, French 'traditional marriage' opponents are amping up the violent rhetoric, promising blood will be spilled over equality:

French comic Frigide Barjot, leader of the Manif pour tous (Demo for all), France's mainstream anti-gay marriage movement, reacted angrily on Friday after the French government announced it would bring forward to next Wednesday the National Assembly's final hearing on a bill which would legalize gay marriage in France.

The government's move came after the French Senate approved the gay marriage bill earlier in the day.

The decision to bring the Assembly's second hearing  forward to Wednesday has however rendered pointless the mass protest against gay marriage, which had been scheduled for May 26th.

"This is a disgrace. The French people don't want this law, and what do they do? They speed up its passage. Hollande wants blood, and he will get it," Barjot was quoted as saying by France's TF1, adding "We live in a dictatorship. The President of the Republic has guillotined us."

Centre-right UMP deputy Christian Jacob joined the fray, saying in a statement that by accelerating the bill's now almost certain passage into law, "the President of the Republic is risking a violent confrontation with the French people."

Meanwhile, who is silent on the violence that has already happened because of their efforts to "protect marriage"?

NOM President Brian Brown Compares His Hateful March Against Same-Sex Marriage to the Civil Rights Movement

NOM's Brian Brown sees himself as the leader of a movement equivalent to MLK Jr's, Right Wing Watch reports.

Said Brown to Religious Right broadcaster Janet Mefferd:

We were hoping for 5,000 people and we ended up with over 10,000. We filled the whole area in front of the court when we marched. It was a diverse coalition, we had African American leaders, Hispanic leaders, State Sen. Ruben Diaz brought 30 buses from the Bronx; it was just amazing. What I was most happy about, we talked about this before the rally, the way everyone conducted themselves. We were chanting, we were united but when folks tried to get in our way, there were some gay marriage protesters who tried to get in front of the march and stop us even though we had a permit, everyone just knelt down and started praying. I was not alive during the Civil Rights Movement but this is what it must have felt like, people were just so ecstatic to stand up and they did it in a loving, respectful way but they weren’t going to be silenced.

Audio at RWW.

NOM Popped Together a Montage of Their Hate Rally: VIDEO

IF you missed NOM's hate rally in D.C. yesterday, you can catch it in bite-size form here.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

David Badash notes that of the eleven people in the video, at least eight are directly paid by NOM.

Maggie Gallagher: Pro-Gay Ruling from SCOTUS Would 'Take Away Something Very Precious' from Americans - VIDEO

NOM's Maggie Gallagher, who was also seen wandering through the pro-equality rally today, appeared on FOX News today to give her take on the Supreme Court and Proposition 8, facing off against former Clinton aide Richard Socarides, Equality Matters reports.

Said Gallagher:

"For the Supreme Court to brand this view as irrational bigotry akin to racial discrimination would not end the culture wars, it would entrench them, and it would take away something very precious, which is the right of seven million Californians to use the democratic process to make our case to the American people. And so, I certainly think trying that to persuade the American people that the Constitution drafted by our Founding Fathers in 1789 has always required gay marriage is a long stretch and I’m hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold Prop 8."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...