Who IS NOM!!??

It's no coincidence that the nasty rhetoric and tactics are heating up as we get closer to Election Day in this country.  It's by design.  "Divide and conquer" is a strategy that works.  It's almost as effective as "Unite and Win".  After all, it is proven time and again that the "Power in Numbers" theory is very powerful, indeed.

Back to this "Values Bus Tour".  It's very much worth noting that one of the driving forces behind this enlightening tour is NOM, National Organization for Marriage.  Weren't they the driving force behind the attack on Ellen DeGeneres a little while back?  As with all of these far-right-wing extremist groups, they are very narrow-minded, un-Godly-like mean-spirited, and bulldog-stubborn in their determination to bully the rest of the country and, to be sure, world into adhering to their beliefs.  Or else!

To wit, this was brought to my attention today and, trust me on this, it's a must-read for every single reader of this blog post.  These diabolical "Christians" have a road map already laid out as to how to achieve their goal of, basically, sweeping every LGBT person deep into the closet.  And, then, locking that closet door so that we never escape again.  It's THAT serious. 

Here's one excerpt from their confidential manifesto:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

Well, that's happening now.  I've encountered, several times already, arguments from the Black community opposing my views that this is The New Civil Rights Movement, with them wanting to distance the black community from this fight.  However, as an older black man, myself, I assured them from my own personal experiences that this is, indeed, exactly the same battle that was fought back in the 60s and against the same establishment.  Their argument is moot.

Ever ask yourself why it's so important to them that same-sex marriage doesn't exist?  What exactly is the "sanctity of marriage"?  Is it the reality that heterosexual marriages have a divorce rate of over 50%?  Is that sanctimonious?  Is it one of our Republican presidential candidates openly admitting that he believes in "open" marriages and expecting his bedridden wife to be accepting of him going elsewhere for sex while she's unable to provide it for him?  Is that sanctimonious?  Or, is it Kim Kardasian's farce of a 72-hour "marriage".  THAT'S sanctimonious, for sure!!  Why, exactly, is it so important for them that they're willing to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into a movement to eradicate same-sex marriages? More importantly, how is it that our political leaders are involved with such a movement!?  Whatever happened to "...with liberty and justice for ALL"?  I think that the comment posted to the facebook blog page yesterday was so on-point, it bears printing here again:

...look at your country's history. "Enough of thinkin' everything that you've done is good", just saying (in Rufus Wainwright's words). Here in Germany, a politician who makes homophobic remarks would have to step down the next day. We have a gay Foreign Minister and Berlin has a gay mayor. In the US, homophobes can become governors and run for president.

To understand the true impact of this level of hatred and intolerance, one only has to realize that these teens who do the bullying, especially against their LGBT peers, real or perceived, are learning from adults like these that it's not only ok, it's expected.  Then, when you look at the level of LGBT teen suicides that are caused from the bullying, it should be easy to understand that we have a very real, deadly serious problem on our hands.  The way to address it, the way to win this hard-fought battle, is to continue to increase our numbers of people who are ready and willing to stand up, make their voices heard, and make sure these evil-minded people understand that their hatred and intolerance is not acceptable.  Period.