Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune on the National Organization for Marriage’s recent rally in Madison, Wisconsin:
So why would NOM hold a rally where it is sure of being badly outnumbered by motivated and well-organized critics? Maybe because that’s what it wanted. The Summer for Marriage Tour could have been called the Come Shout Us Down Tour. The endeavor has managed to make opponents of gay marriage look like a brave, embattled minority, even though they constitute 53 percent of the public and have gotten their way in all but a few states. At today’s rally, NOM supporters just number two or three dozen.
NOM’s Web site (www.nationformarriage.org) focuses not on any outpouring of support for its cause, but on the protesters who have appeared at its rallies, including some it accuses of disruptive and intimidating tactics. “Watch the shocking video here!” it proclaims, linking to a clip from a somewhat raucous event that, in truth, falls short of shocking. The organization specializes in a form of political jujitsu, leveraging its foes’ weight against them. As chairman Maggie Gallagher tells me, “The counterprotests are holding down our physical numbers, but they’re expanding our online activist community.”
So… you attack people, malign them, strip them of their rights, and when the people you’re attacking and persecuting get upset with you… you’re the victim of intolerance.
See how that works?
(Yes, we can see how that works—so let’s stop playing into NOM’s hands by showing up at their pathetic little rallies, people.)
The Westboro Baptist Church has this down to high art and yet in town after town we rise to the bait. Are we really that dumb? I guess I answered my own question.
OF COURSE bigots take to the internet instead of the streets. They became bigots by never leaving the fucking house.
Though, despite never pulling a “counter” rally myself, I think, if organized, smart & good humored, it has it’s civic place. My guess (as someone who got it easy by landing the straight card) is that it comes as some relief to a gay teenager to see supporters outnumbering bigots outside schools, etc.
Maybe counter protests that are simple silent candle light vigils? No shouting or signs for them to exploit.