As in California and Maine, Iowans who support marriage equality should not be complacent. The ouster of three good, qualified supreme court justices is proof of this. Make no mistake: had they had the ability to actually put marriage equality to a vote here in Iowa, NOM would have been funneling money to that vote instead.
Evan Wolfson of Freedom To Marry agrees, as the following letter shows. Please consider what steps YOU will take to live by Iowa's state motto: "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." Our marriage equality is NOT irreversible and will need to be both prized and maintained!
Whether by supporting our own OneIowa.org or a national organization like Freedom to Marry, please do not merely sit back and watch as our liberties and rights are attacked by those who would rather we hide forever in a closet.
Arthur,
I hadn't planned on writing you again so soon, but then this arrived in my inbox:
"We've stopped the gay marriage movement in its tracks and now we are poised to start taking back territory where it was wrongly enacted in places like New Hampshire and Iowa. That will be the next battleground."
That war cry came from Brian Brown, president of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, in a press release touting NOM's interference in elections across the country.
Despite being routed on Tuesday, it's clear that NOM's agenda hasn't faltered. And now they've exposed their strategy to try and stop us -- they're going to throw seemingly limitless amounts of money at key states in an attempt to derail our freedom to marry. And we need to match them dollar for dollar, door by door and leaflet by leaflet.
And to do that we need your help. Please donate $10 to help us fight back now:
http://freedomtomarry.org/BeatNOM
NOM funneled millions of dollars to defeat judges who ruled in favor of marriage in Iowa, to try to unseat pro-marriage candidates in key states such as Minnesota and California, and to try to elect anti-gay legislators in the District of Columbia and New Hampshire -- all while flouting and subverting campaign finance disclosure laws in states across the country.
I have news for NOM: the only thing "stopped in its tracks" is the NOM mindset that would railroad our country back into the worst chapters of its past -- a worldview that says that it's okay for the government to discriminate against any group of Americans, that wants to use the government as a weapon to impose archaic sex roles on women and men, that wants to drive gay people back into a closet of shame, that wants to erode the proper boundaries between church and state, and that wants to tell young people it's okay to look down on people who are different.
NOM is a shell-group that exists to channel money and troops into waves of attacks, no matter the damage done to real people and the pillars of democracy, including our Constitution and our courts. But a growing majority of Americans favor the freedom to marry and together we will defeat NOM's assault on gay and lesbian families and American institutions and values of fair play and equal justice.
Help Freedom to Marry build a campaign strong enough to defeat NOM. Please donate:
http://freedomtomarry.org/BeatNOM
In states like Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island pro-marriage governors were elected giving us strong chances of winning in 2011. Far from "stopped in our tracks," we see the pathway forward, and together we will get America where it needs to be.
Can you donate $10 to Freedom to Marry to help us defeat NOM and win marriage in 2011?
http://freedomtomarry.org/BeatNOM
Thanks for all you do,
Evan Wolfson
Executive Director, Freedom to Marry
