NOM pressures Pawlenty to sign its marriage pledge
Friday, August 05, 2011 at 9:04 am
- 9 Comments
Tim Pawlenty is taking heat from the National Organization for Marriage for not signing the group’s pledge to oppose efforts to legalize same-sex marriage. On Thursday, the group announced that Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum had all signed the pledge. But while Pawlenty has hesitated to take the pledge, he gave the Miami Herald a piece of his mind on gay marriage on Thursday.
“What happened with Governor Pawlenty?” asked NOM head Brian Brown in an email to supporters on Thursday. “I have to be honest with you: I do not know.”
Brown’s sidekick, Maggie Gallagher, said she’d talked to Pawlenty’s campaign.
“Pawlenty’s communications director, Ann Marie Hauser, personally informed me on Tuesday that Tim Pawlenty would not sign NOM’s marriage pledge,” she said. “Like many people, we are scratching our heads wondering why Gov. Pawlenty, who has been a champion for marriage in Minnesota, would not commit to doing so for America.”
She added, “At this point, the people of Iowa need to know that Michelle Bachmann and Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are the only candidates willing to step forward and pledge to protect marriage in this campaign. We hope Gov. Pawlenty will reconsider.”
Brown urged NOM’s members to call Pawlenty’s campaign.
“I know you will be polite and civil. But he needs to hear from you that marriage is not just one of many issues; it’s a key issue as you consider voting for the presidency in the first of the nation’s caucuses, in Iowa.”
He added, “This is mission critical!”
The NOM pledge asks candidates to work for a federal constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, appoint judges and an attorney general “who will respect the original meaning of the Constitution,” create a commission to investigate harassment of “traditional marriage supporters,” and end same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia.
Pawlenty addressed some of those issues in an interview with the Miami Herald on Thursday, where reporter Marc Caputo pressed Pawlenty on the perceived contradiction of state’s rights versus a federal ban on same-sex marriage:
Q: How about gay marriage?
Pawlenty: “When I was in the Minnesota Legislature, I was a co-author of the Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I support a state and federal amendment to the constitutions defining amendments as such.”
Q: How do you support being a small-government conservative, yet favor this government limitation on private individuals?
Pawlenty: “The Constitution and our statutes and laws more broadly grant or prohibit all kinds of behaviors or rights. So I don’t think it’s out of bounds in that regard… We have courts who have demonstrated they think they know better than the people on our statutes. And they feel that they should insert their personal or political views into these matters. And the only way to limit court excesses in that regard is to put it in our statutes and our Constitution.”
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Comment posted August 5, 2011 @ 9:44 am
NOM’s ideology flies counter to credible science community, all 477,000 who say that homosexuality is normal and natural occurence in a minority in human sexuality.
(CNN) — The American Psychological Association is calling on state and federal officials to stop anti-gay legal measures and to legalize same-sex marriage.
The scientific and professional organization’s guiding body voted unanimously at its annual meeting this week in Washington to declare its support for “full marriage equality for same-sex couples.”
The resolution “clarifies the Association’s support for same-sex marriage” in light of new research, the group said. A similar resolution in 2004 opposed discrimination against same-sex relationships, but refrained from a more formal policy recommendation.
Dr. Clinton Anderson, APA associate executive director, said that the timing of the resolution is an indirect result of several states’ legalization of marriage.
“We knew that marriage benefits heterosexual people in very significant ways, but we didn’t know if that would be true for same-sex couples,” said Anderson, who is also director of the APA’s Office on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.
Now that six U.S. states permit same-sex marriage, researchers have been able to conduct studies with those couples.
The research, Anderson said, indicates that marriage “does confer the same sense of security, support, and validation” to same-sex couples as to heterosexual ones.
The resolution also points to evidence that ongoing political debate about marriage creates stress for gay men and lesbians and perpetuates stigmas and prejudice about their communities. This stress can make people physically and psychologically sick, the APA says, calling the link between stress and illness “well established.”
Comment posted August 5, 2011 @ 9:51 am
Every time I read articles regarding these hate policies and bigotry I can’t help but think of Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter stories.
Comment posted August 5, 2011 @ 9:53 am
I think he should sign it. It is the kiss of death for anyone who does. the more nuts who sign these silly “pledges” the less viable candidates the Republicans will have.
Comment posted August 5, 2011 @ 12:27 pm
and should Romney become president of a nation which favors gay marriage, what then? Violate the public trust? Violate the “pledge”? Man, you Republicans are really stupid…..learn to keep your options OPEN and keep your Jesus out of our Constitution!!!
Pingback posted August 5, 2011 @ 3:05 pm
[...] said that he would not be signing the National Organization for Marriage’s candidates pledge, at which point NOM launched a campaign to pressure him to change his mind: Tim Pawlenty is taking heat from the National Organization for Marriage for not signing the [...]
Comment posted August 5, 2011 @ 7:54 pm
” I pledge allegiance to the National Organization for Marriage and to the Bigotry for which it stands….”
Comment posted August 6, 2011 @ 12:30 am
The pledge is anti-gay hate speech. Even isolating the anti-gay hate speech out from other particulars of the document, the document is something no self-respecting presidential candidate should sign. It says that the candidate will uphold the original meaning of the constitution (which allowed for slavery). It says the candidate will nominate Supreme Court judges who “won’t invent a special right to same sex marriage” (as if Supreme Court judges ever invented rights; their function is to consider challenges to laws in light of the constitution). A Supreme Court nominee who at confirmation hearings said “I will not invent a special right to same sex marriage” would get laughed out of the hearing, even by those at root opposed to marriage equality.
Comment posted August 6, 2011 @ 12:36 am
And, it’s surely a ghastly joke that NOM”s Maggie Gallagher has the pledge commit to forming a presidential commission to investigate harassment of gay bashers. Gallagher and NOM have an announced intention of having gay married couples’ marriages legally invalidated. How is that not harassment of those married couples? What comparable “harassment” are those couples inflicting on Maggie Gallagher? They just want to live their lives, in love with each other. If Gallagher and NOM would stop trying to get their marriages annulled, what “harassment” would Gallagher and NOM ever face from anybody? If they’re so bothered about this alleged harassment they face, why don’t they re-organize their group to helping homeless Americans? NOM has this vicious organization with malicious aims of doing an egregious injury to people who are doing nothing bad to them, and NOM wants to complain about harassment? From its victims? Give me a break. And as if a presidential commission on that would be the best use of scarce public resources?
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