NOM's Racially Motivated Involvement in Anti-Gay Bronx Rally

Former NOM operative Louis Marinelli who had an epiphany and switched to a pro-gay marriage position continues to be a torn in the wide asses of Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown as he writes about NOM cynically joining anti-gay Bronx Democrat State Senator Ruben Diaz for an anti-gay, anti-marriage equality march extending over 40 blocks. Marinelli pin points the efforts of the lily white NOM organization to manipulate black Americans into carrying NOM's water and disguising the fact that NOM in reality does give a rat's ass about black citizens. It's the same pattern that one sees in Virginia all the time as black pastors are co-opted into doing the work of the former segregationists crowd at The Family Foundation. Marinelli's blog post on this topic is most revealing. Here are some highlights:
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Brian Brown lives in a quiet town in Connecticut – a far cry from the Bronx. Aside from the obvious reason as to why the President of the National Organization for Marriage would make his way into the city to take part in this rally, the truth of the matter is that it presents NOM with an underlying opportunity.
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NOM is in the business of promoting non-white Americans that oppose marriage equality. It’s good for their image if they can present an illusion of broad interracial opposition to same-sex marriage. Of course this isn’t something at they do openly but it is certainly a strategy well-known to those within their circle. I was one of them and I have e-mail correspondence from the summer bus tour that demonstrates their fixation on exploiting blacks who showed up at the rallies as part of NOM’s public relations strategy. Look for them to do this with the Hispanics in the Bronx on the 15th.
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Maggie Gallagher wanted us to arrange interviews with any of the [black] Bishops that came to the rallies in Harrisburg, PA and Washington, D.C., the last two stops of the summer bus tour. That e-mail included quoted text from an e-mail between Maggie and Matt Haas which wrote: I believe these are COGIC bishops, black bishops. That’s why I’m saying make sure we feature and focus on thjem. [sic] Get interviews. Any Catholics [sic] bishops that show up interview them too! Maggie
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NOM wanted to play the race card and quickly the work became sifting through the hundreds of photos we had to choose which ones were the best. Now, determining which ones are the best is subjective to opinion but in this case it was clear that the best photos were the ones that showed as many black people as possible.
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For example, in an e-mail written by Joe Giganti of Opus Fidelis to just about everyone on the tour team, Mr. Giganti selected a handful of photos that he considered the best and called them “2-TO-1 BLACK/STRONG SHOTS”. He listed the eight photos and gave a short comment for each of them.
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Specifically, one of those select eight images was Image 2933. Mr. Giganti singled this photo out, according to his own comments, because it was of a “black woman signing a petition”. Although we had photos of white people signing our petition, NOM didn’t choose any of them because the black woman was of greater political value.
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But the image that really caught Mr. Giganti’s eye was Image 2930. His comments wrote: This is a great contrast shot of our people all happy and smiling (majority black, only one non-black in the picture) versus the angry counter-protesters. (Josh, this would be a good post. Luke / Colton: We may not a spot right now but keep this one close for future use – maybe a dynamic picture that rotates between positive, happy shots of our people versus our angry foes?) [sic]
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I feel it is necessary to get this message out now that I’ve heard of NOM’s plan to take part in the anti-marriage equality rally/walk in the Bronx later this month. I don’t think the people who show up that day, even though they are opponents of marriage equality, should be used as political pawns by anyone, especially by an organization which I’ve just demonstrated is fixated on doing so.
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If I were an advisor to Senator Diaz, I’d recommend rescinding the invitation to NOM for Brian Brown to take part in the event. Unless, that is, he wants to allow a New Jersey-based organization take advantage of his constituents living in the Bronx.