Maggie Gallagher, front woman for the front group National Organization for Marriage (NOM, a coalition of Churches) came to Capitol Hill on Friday to testify in support of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which bars the Federal Government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in five states and Washington, DC.
And for her tireless work, spreading bigotry from the sandy shores of California to the rocky coast of Maine, GetEQUAL presented Ms. Gallagher with the First Annual “Anita Bryant Unparalleled Bigotry” Award.
Along with the title came a promise of pie.
News on Maggie's work defending bigotry and exclusion after the fold.
The GOP-controlled House took a brief break from
creating jobs infringing on women's healthcare choices to hold hearings on DOMA on Friday.
Think Progress compiled some clips above, in their post,
"‘Defending Marriage’ Hearing Attacks Obama While Reinforcing Stigma And Parenting Falsehoods." Republicans spent a lot of time accusing the Obama administration for supposedly throwing LGBT cases on DOMA and DADT, by "pretending" to defend them when they are actually "working to undermine them."
Mrs. Srivastav Ms. Gallagher for her part continued to insist, as she long has, that the only reason for marriage was raising children. (Upsetting news for my single, post-menopausal mother.)
"If, in fact, marriage, as a public and legal institution…is oriented towards protecting children by increasing the likelihood they have a mother and father, then same-sex couples do not fit, and conversely, if same-sex couples fit the definition of marriage, then marriage really is no longer about responsible procreation in the sense."
Like a good conservative, she's kinda all about the babies, at least before they arrive on the Earth, once they're here she couldn't care less. She'd deny the children of LGBT Americans the opportunity to be raised in
the superior environment of a martial home.
She's got nothing against gays, she just thinks being gay is a "disability." In 2000, she wrote:
It is a sexual disability preventing certain individuals from participating in the normal reproductive patterns of the human species.
I wonder how she'd feel about gays seeking redress from discrimination through the
Americans with Disabilities Act?
Mrs. Srivastav Ms. Gallagher's old friend and defected NOM strategist Louis Marinelli, asked the tireless defender of the "sanctity of marriage" a very good question on Twitter:
Ms. Gallagher squared off with a fierce advocate of LGBT rights, Representative Jerry Nadler of New York who just the day before introduced the Uniting American Families Act into the US House. The bill would allow LGBT Americans to petition for immigration status for their partners. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont introduced a companion Senate bill. Ms. Gallagher would like to see the Federal Government continue its present policy of deporting the legally wedded spouses of LGBT citizens.
Rep. Nadler introducing Uniting American Families Act on Thursday. Concurrently, a letter, signed by
48 House members and 12 Senators, was sent calling on the DHS and the DOJ to stop separating LGBT
binational families. Rep. Nadler said of the current policy: “This is cruel. It’s humanly cruel.
It’s a gratuitous cruelty by American law against the couple for no reason whatsoever.”
In the video above, a testy exchange occurs between Gallagher and Nadler at 3:00, when she tries to argue that a
policy of exclusion does not send a
message of exclusion:
MG: "I don't think you need to have a message of stigmatization and exclusion to protect an ideal which is important to the whole society.
JN: That's the whole point of DOMA to stigmatize and to exclude.
MG: Well, that is your opinion, with all due respect, it is not my opinion, nor what I think was express---
[They talk over each other. Nadler seems irate, he cuts Gallagher off.]
JN:Excuse me, I have the time. How does excluding these people from marriage help protect marriage?
MG: The way that I think the majority of Americans who disagree with you understand it is these are not marriages--
JN: I didn't ask that question, I asked you how does excluding these people from marriage help protect heterosexual marriage?
MG: Because including same-sex unions as marriages denies at a public level that marriage is about in an important way, bringing together mothers and fathers for children.
[Emphasis reflects Gallagher's verbal emphasis.]
Also on Capitol Hill were Representatives of GetEQUAL, who confront
Mrs. Srivastav Ms. Gallagher on her way into the hearings.
They presented Maggie with the First Annual “Anita Bryant Unparalleled Bigotry” Award.
The accolades are just icing on the cake for America's favorite anti-gay grifter, who pockets 42% of National Organization for Marriage's donations for herself. That turned out to be a nice $125,000 salary for her in 2007. Nice work if you get it in this economy, jet-setting around the country, stoking division and dining on someone else's dime.
From GetEQUAL's press release:
Competition for the prize was fierce, with Ms. Gallagher out-bigoting such notable figures as Senator John McCain, Michelle Bachmann, Pastor Rick Warren, and Sarah Palin.
“In presenting this award to Ms. Gallagher, we are recognizing the bigotry that she has pioneered over the past few years – malice that has put her ahead of the pack in the world of professional bigots who draw a paycheck each day from the hatred they stir up among the 'radical right' wing of the American public,” said Robin McGehee, director of GetEQUAL. “At a time when Americans overwhelmingly support marriage equality it takes a very special person like Ms. Gallagher to stand up and fight for discrimination and bigotry. It's gratifying to be able to draw attention to the unrelenting hatred that Ms. Gallagher and others at the National Organization for Marriage have been contributing to American life.”
Along with the award came the promise of pie.
The group will, at a later date, present Ms. Gallagher with a complimentary cream pie. They say:
GetEQUAL will deliver the pie prize during a future public appearance by Ms. Gallagher, to ensure that she is able to celebrate the award publicly, in front of an audience. The exact moment of delivery is unknown at this time.
Now I was unaware of this but apparently the delivery of pie as an act of political defiance long pre-dates the 1977 Anita Bryant presentation depicted in the video above. From environmental activists Earth First comes this lesson in what they call Pieing 101:
The first recorded pieing happened in the 17th Century, when the Spanish politician, Gaspar de Guzman Conde de Olivares, took one in the face from a Portugese nationalist screaming, “Give Portugal back to the people!”
Other
notable personalities who have been celebrated with pie include Michigan Senator Carl Levin, economist Milton Friedman, Fred Phelps, Bill Gates, G. Gordon Liddy, Ralph Nader, Ann Coulter, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and the Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien.
In 2005, Newsweek columnist Gersh Kuntzman wrote that the presenting of pie "deserves to be one of the most celebrated traditions in our so-called culture." Kuntzman's article explores both the art and science of the presentation of pie and its appropriation from slapstick to political theater.
"It’s the essence of slapstick—the guy who needs to have his dignity deflated gets hit with a pie," said Tom Raymond, also known as "Rainbow," a clown from Central Wisconsin.
Kuntzman interviews Aron Kay aka as
The Pieman, notorious presenter of pies from 1976-80. The notches on Kay's rolling pin include Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ex-CIA chief William Colby, Phyllis Schlafly, Gov. Jerry Brown, and many, many others.
"My mother was a painter and I believed in using the face as a palette," said Kay. [...] "Pieing is an essential tool for deflating the pomposity of these politicians and commentators. I considered myself a defender of justice. But believe me, [in 2005] I still have a list of people who need to be pied."
Kuntzman shares two points of caution, however:
- "Remember, it’s splat, don’t slam," he said. "If you push too hard, you’ll break someone’s nose." And that’s when you go from political expression to assault and battery.
- But once the pie hits, suddenly, there’s this swelling of support for the speaker. The pie breaks the tension." (even [author David] Horowitz admitted that "after the pie, I probably did have some of the crowd’s sympathy.")
Kuntzman's article is hilarious and well worth reading in its entirety.
PLEASE NOTE: I implore the reader not to jump to any conclusions. GetEQUAL did not specify the delivery method they will be employing to present Ms. Gallagher with her celebratory pie. Perhaps it will be sent by messenger in a neat little, white box, with a pretty pink bow.
That said, what do you think?
Full disclosure: While it's no secret this author participated in a GetEQUAL organized event in the past, I am not at all, in any way, involved. I am not privy to any plans the group has made or may have pending. I have not discussed this with anyone affiliated with GetEQUAL and knew nothing about this before finding the press release in my email box.