All day long MSNBC has had on one pundit after another using the election in NY-23 as their springboard to make the case that the Dems are weak. There hasn't been a Democrat elected in that seat for more years than I've been alive, but that doesn't seem to enter into the equation.

The real story, though, is the fighting going on within the GOP. Rudy Giuliani was on with Chuck Todd and saying that the GOP will never win national elections if they never win in NY and California and so there needs to be a more inclusive Republican party. NY-23 didn't pan out that way for Rudy and he had to figure a way to lighten the blow. He said that Scozzafava was really a liberal and implied that he told Newt not to back her. He said the GOP needs moderates in the party, but they have to be 80% with them on issues and 20% against.

Of course Chuck Todd either couldn't be bothered to check Scozzafava's voting record and history on issues or decided to give Rudy the floor with no opposition because Scozzafava is not 80% liberal and 20% conservative, as Giuliani claimed.

The reality is this: When people say “don’t judge a book by its cover”, you should take their advice. The “cover” on Scozzafava was that she was this progressive Republican because she was backed by the WFP, supported a woman’s right to choose and has been a supporter of marriage equality. But the “book” tells the whole story (as it usually does). Scozzafava has a few positions that are more liberal (on abortion and marriage equality) but most of her positions are, at best, moderate-to-conservative. More often than not, however, she is a conservative.

This race is interesting to watch just to see the Villagers scurry around and try to make it a national story, but at least they could take the time and get their facts straight.

Duncan writes:

Tip Of The Spear

I'm not sure if the teabaggers will have much success in purifying their party, but it'll be interesting to see how the Villagers will react. My guess is they'll portray them as just folks exercising their patriotic duties, unlike those dirty fucking hippie traitors who ran a primary against the greatest man in America, Joe Lieberman.

The cable shows are covering these races as if the outcome will determine if Obama should step down as the president.

And very predictably, as the results come in, Doug Hoffman is claiming that ACORN is stealing the election.

At a short press availability in his campaign office here, NY-23 Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman said that a GOTV volunteer’s tires had been slashed, and all but blamed Democrats for the dirty trick. “There are reports that they’re bringing in the troops and they’re bringing in ACORN,” said Hoffman. “I think the Democrats are doing anything they possibly can to steal this election away from the 23rd district.”
--
Update: Anton Troianovski of the Wall Street Journal followed up with the Plattsburgh police on this, and was told that the volunteer actually damaged his tire on a broken bottle. I asked Hoffman campaign manager Dan Tripp about this–he said he had no comment because the campaign had not heard this yet.

They will blame ACORN for everything. Digby sees this through the prism of her brilliance.

I just hope that all the major networks and newspapers assign a special reporter to look into these accusations by the teabaggers' darling. Certainly Fox will be running with them and everyone knows that the mainstream press has been remiss by failing to follow up on such important Fox investigations.

It's actually a smart move. Since Fox has intimidated the pants off of the other news organizations, they will bend over backwards to be "fair and balanced" thus lending credence to the ACORN meme.

I just hope they don't end up accidentally arresting Hoffman's African American staffer in their zeal to reveal the ACORNs in the woodpile.

Even with cognitive dissonance this striking, they still think they've got a right to withhold civil rights from a whole segment of the population:

Maggie Gallagher's disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we're guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University's “Day of Dialogue," and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.

We do appreciate the debate over whether our "intolerance" for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That's Gallagher's position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we're being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.

But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. [..]

But here's the soundbite we're holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: "[Your marriage] may be better, but it's not a marriage. … It's probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn't talk about my marriage in such glowing terms."

It's so sad that someone who cannot speak well of their own marriage feels it's their right to fight to keep others from having that legal union.

On a related note, it's not a serious move so much as a political statement, but here in California, someone has decided to fight a real threat to the sanctity of marriage: the ability to divorce:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."[..]:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

While I obviously don't want my rights taken away (not that I'm planning on divorcing my husband, mind you. He's stuck with me.), I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. My gay uncle's marriage does not harm my marriage, threatens no one else's relationship and it's a ludicrous argument to claim it does. However, the ease in which we may end marriages (one-third of all first marriages end within 10 years, according to the CDC) certainly does. If these wingnuts want to hold up marriage as the foundation of society, then put up or shut up.

(on loan from the Courage Campaign in Maine)

The Yes on 1 campaign just issued a "red alert" last night, raising their ad buy by $25,000 today.

I'm here in the No on 1 campaign boiler room (nerve center) and our coffers are dry after having invested in a field campaign to protect marriage equality second to none. We need to raise $50k on ActBlue today to counter their ad buy and expand our online ad buy to match their expansion. Jesse Connolly the No on 1 campaign manager just sent out an email to their list about it:

I wasn't going to come to you to ask for money again. We've asked so much, and you've dug deep and really come through.

Honestly, I wouldn't take my time away from managing our Get Out The Vote operation to send this email if it wasn't really important.

[snip]

With the money we have now, we simply can't counter their arguments on TV.

You and I have both invested a lot in this campaign. I won't-- I can't-- let them win this because we couldn't come up with the last $25,000 $50,000 in the final 36 hours.

We can't let Yes on 1 win the airtime war with their misleading, and factually inaccurate ads.

We can't let Yes on 1 lie to Maine voters about schools and teachers and children and same-sex couples in Maine.

We need to stand up and match every one of their lies with an ad of our own, that explains that marriage equality won't do anything to families but protect all of them.

And I need you to help. Can you come through one last time and give what you can to help us finish this campaign with a win?

Not much more I can add to that. We wouldn't be asking if we didn't really need it. I would be writing a "please help us make calls" blog post and we would be sending GOTV emails, not asking you for money.

I know the Blue America community has dug deep, but can you do it once again? We are 0-30 on marriage equality races. We can win this one, but we need your help.

Philly2Philly: This post is from June, but we thought the White House needed a reminder that Fox News won the right to LIE TO THE PUBLIC in a 2003 appellate court decision.

Gin and Tacos: Wall Street is Too Clever by Half.

Race Wire: “Progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.

If you haven't heard Philip Spooner's wonderful speech on marriage equality yet, don't miss it.

Tom Dispatch: We can win in Afghanistan with 10 years of $5 billion a month. No, really.

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David Shuster reporting that David Vitter is refusing to comment on the justice who refused to marry an interracial couple in Louisiana. Shuster wonders if the Senator is worried about losing support from his base.

From Think Progress- Vitter dodges question about interracial marriage in Louisiana.:

Although both Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) have publicly condemned Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell for refusing to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples, Sen. David Vitter (R) has stayed noticeably silent. (ThinkProgress contacted his office, but we did not receive a response.) Blogger-activist Mike Stark caught up with Vitter and asked him about his position. “Have you commented? What did you have to say about it?” asked Stark. Vitter simply smiled, stepped into the elevator, and allowed the doors to close.

Update: Greg Sargent finally received a response from Vitter's spokesman, but the senator still refuses to condemn Bardwell's actions: "First, Sen. Vitter thinks that all judges should follow the law as written and not make it up as they go along. Second, it would be amazing for anyone to do a story based on this fringe, left-wing political hack’s blog — he’s been handcuffed and detained in the past over his guerrilla tactics."

Shuster said MSNBC called Vitter's office three times asking if the Senator supported the statements by the justice and that they would still not comment.

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Nope, no racism to see here. Nothing to see...move along now. Unbelievable. What year does this guy think he's living in? Now that the couple is married the good judge doesn't think he's done any harm.

From CBS News:

The Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to marry an interracial couple said on "The Early Show" he doesn't see what the problem is with what he did now, because the couple is already married.

"I'm sorry, you know, that I offended the couple, but I did help them and tell them who to go to and to get married," he said. "And they went and got married, and they should be happily married, and I don't see what the problem is now."

Keith Bardwell, a white justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish in southeastern Louisiana, wouldn't issue a license to or preside over the nuptials for Beth Humphrey, who is white, and Terence McKay, of Hammond, La., who is black.

The two were later married by another area justice of the peace.

Bardwell, who's held his post more than 30 years, said he refused to perform the ceremony because of his concern for the future of the couple's children.

Bardwell told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith, "I've had countless numbers of people that was born in that situation, and that they claim that the blacks or the whites didn't accept the children. And I didn't want to put the children in that position."

Bardwell also said he does not issue marriage licenses, he just performs the ceremonies.

"I recused myself of performing the ceremony. A judge is legally -- can recuse himself of hearing a case or marrying people," he said.

However, according to Humphrey, Bardwell wouldn't issue them a marriage license. Humphrey says she initially spoke to Bardwell's wife, who said her husband would not issue the license because they are an interracial couple.

Humphrey said, "I was just completely shocked. I had no words."

McKay added, "He's not going to marry us because your black, and I'm white. ... It's 2009."

Bardwell denied on "The Early Show" that he broke any laws.

"The law says that I cannot deny mixed race marriages," he said. "And that means prevent them from getting married. And I did not prevent them getting married."

But would Bardwell refuse anyone else a marriage ceremony?

Initially, he said he would not refuse a couple on any other grounds, but then corrected himself, saying, for example, he would refuse to marry a couple if one -- or both of them -- was intoxicated.

"I can recuse myself and tell them to come back when they're sober," he said. "That's legal."

What decade are these people living in, anyway?

A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

Neither Bardwell nor the couple immediately returned phone calls from The Associated Press. But Bardwell told the Daily Star of Hammond that he was not a racist.

"I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children."

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."

If he does an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.

"I try to treat everyone equally," he said.

Yeah, he's a regular humanitarian. Not sure if this guy is up on his history or legal precedents but Loving v. Virginia made this kind of government interference illegal in 1967.

He might think he's not racist, but he sure as hell is being bigoted and needs to step down. As you might expect, the ACLU has picked up this case and will pursue it for the couple.

In 19 days we will know whether we beat back NOM and the Catholic Dioceses and protected marriage equality for Mainers, or took yet another step backwards at the ballot box for equality. 30 states have had votes on marriage equality since 1998 and the right-win has won in all 30 of them. We are going to stop that streak in Maine, but we can't do it without the resources to fuel a massive get-out-the-vote operation.

Today at midnight is the last major financial reporting deadline and it also marks the first day of early voting. If you were planning on giving to No on 1 and haven't yet, or have the resources to give again, today is the day to do it. Luckily, we at Blue America have a little sweetener, courtesy of Howie:

Meanwhile we have something nice to offer to donors today. The first 9 people who kick in at least $30 at the Blue America '10 page each wins a special DVD of Barbra Streisand's spectacular 1966 television special Color Me Barbra (which includes a rare poster). And if that wasn't fabulous enough, we also have something pretty mind-blowing for the person who donates the most by 6AM (PT) tomorrow. The picture is above. It's a gorgeous Joan Osborne RIAA custom double platinum award for both Relish and "One of Us." It's rare, collectible, unique and... well, what a gift it would make for anyone who you happen to know who went bonkers over the song below! And, more important, what an opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Maine!

There is new polling out that shows us up 51.8% to 42.9%, but Bill in Portland Maine over at the great orange satan reminds us of why poll numbers are crap:

I take you back to 1997 when, after nine attempts spanning 20 years, the Maine legislature finally passed a basic civil rights bill preventing discrimination in employment, housing, credit and public accommodation on the basis of sexual orientation. Governor Angus King signed it. The law was put on hold while the religious conservatives---trying to marginalize our very existence by denying us any official state recognition---launched a war to repeal it by a citizens veto referendum, very similar to the kind they're waging now. They got the signatures they needed and the fight to take away our newly-won civil rights was on.

The polls had our side up by several points. The result? The 1998 referendum passed. The fundies won. The final vote: 51.9% to 48.1%. It's one thing to feel disappointment when your favorite candidate loses. It's quite another when you are the one being voted on by your neighbors, and a majority of them agree that, yes, it should be legal for a Maine business owner to pull you aside and say, "I don’t want no faggots workin' here. You're fired." It took another seven years to finally make that against the law. To this day I still get a knot in my gut when I think about what happened 11 years ago.

The only way we stop this from happening again is to make sure that we can get our voters out to the polls. The No on 1 campaign needs your help to make sure they have the resources to execute their field plan. So give today and maybe take home a platinum Joan Osborne album, or a rare Barbara Streisand poster and DVD.

The Courage Campaign is sending me back to Maine in a week or so. Expect more reports from on the ground there on how your generous donations are being spent. I was there a couple weeks ago and can assure you, the campaign is a tightly run ship, simultaneously on the offense and firing back at the lies spewed from the other side. No on 1 is IDing and turning out their voters, relying on thousands of in state volunteers and assisted by out of state phone bankers from around the country. They know how to win in Maine "and can do it with your help.

Yesterday, the No on 1 campaign released this great new ad, featuring a Catholic mom who wants nothing more than for her gay son to have the same rights as everybody else.

It seems to have touched a nerve with the other side. A Catholic group is demanding that the ad be taken down, because:

“Everybody knows the Catholic Church is opposed to counterfeit marriages. The Church believes marriage is a natural institution, vindicated by common reason that serves both men and women, and the needs of children. The Church defends marriage as a civic institution believing marriage and family to be the fundamental unit of society,” explained Burch.

“For homosexual groups to suggest that the Catholic Church believes otherwise is disingenuous, dishonest, and an insult to the intelligence of Catholic voters in Maine,” said Burch.

We are on offense here in Maine, pushing back at the Catholic Church which has raised over $214k for Stand for Marriage Maine last quarter.

But the campaign needs your help to win this election, to be the first to protect marriage rights at the ballot box, to keep the momentum up that we have gained since Prop 8. And they need the resources to do it.

We are launching a "moneybomb" for Maine, with a big push to get as much cash in the door for No on 1 by Oct 15th, the last major financial filing deadline and the first day of early voting.

After that date money in the door just isn't as useful for the campaign. They need to figure out their budget for the last few weeks of the campaign.

Give now if you can on Blue America's ActBlue page. Maine is a cheap state. Here's a breakdown of what your donation will "buy".

$1,000 we can blanket the state with radio ads for 1 day

$800 pays for one field organizer for a week

$720 would fund 20 canvasses in key counties around the state on a Saturday

$550 pays for one channel of cable for a day

$420 pays for one much needed field organizer for a week

$330 is 2 radio commercials to beat back their lies

$210 pays for 70 $3/day cell phones to talk to targeted voters

$186 about the cost of 1 radio commercial

$137 will buy supplies for 4 door-to-door canvasses

$108 buys about 100 yard signs for visibility

$72 will pay for signage for visibility for one weekend on a targeted campus

$66 pays for about 20 $3/day cell phones to talk to targeted voters

$54 buys 50 yard signs for visibility

$36 will fund supplies for one door-to-door canvass

$24 buys 20 yard signs for visibility

Greetings from Maine! I arrived on a red-eye yesterday to help out Maine's "No on 1" campaign to protect marriage equality. Everyone around here is pumped up, but they just crunched the numbers for their quarterly fundraising goals. As of a few minutes ago they are $112,000 short of the goal.

The reporting deadline is Wednesday at midnight and they need to get to $803,208 on ActBlue. Contribute on the Blue America ActBlue page.

If you need more reason to give, than me just saying they really need the cash (and they do), check out this quote from the other side via the Baptist Press:

"Until this point, our opponents have presented a rose-colored glasses view of homosexual marriage," Stand for Marriage Maine campaign director Marc Mutty said in a statement. "Starting today, Mainers across the state will hear about the real cost to society should traditional marriage be replaced by genderless contracts whose sole focus is the adults involved in the relationship."

Rose-colored glasses? What the heck is he talking about? (Note the use of homosexual marriage, not same-sex or gay) It's simply an attempt to sow doubt about marriage equality "scary unforeseen consequences" boooo!

Repeat after me: marriage is a civil contract. It is a legal binding agreement between two adults. Letting gays get married changes nothing about this.

Mutty is seems to be insinuating that some how kids from straight couples will be effected when the forms people fill out when they get married no longer read "male" and "female" and instead are some version of "party 1" and "party 2". That of course is patently absurd.

The other side is counting on prayer to help them. In honor of Yom Kippur, I ask for you to atone for your sins and promise to make next year even better with a win in Maine. ">Do that by contributing to the No on 1 campaign.

Although funding certainly is critical, Joey Marshall, a local Southern Baptist pastor, says the pro-Question 1 side must not forget the importance of prayer. It's vital to "inform the people in the state of Maine of the dangers of same-sex marriage," he said, but it's more important to pray.

I'm fasting and working. I'm sure you guys can multi-task as well.

This is the brand new ad from the Yes on 1 campaign in Maine:

And, this is a Prop 8 ad from last fall in California:

The same consultants behind Prop 8 were hired for exactly this, drive up fear about marriage equality using lies about kids and churches. It goes without saying that Maine does not force school to talk about marriage equality, in fact they don't have to talk about marriage at all. Dirigo Blue got a comment from the Maine Department of Education Comunications Director David Connerty-Marin:

I cannot comment on Massachusetts education law or decisions made by local school districts in Massachusetts. Here in Maine, our Learning Results standards and education regulations make no reference to the teaching of marriage in any way. So a change in Maine's laws or definition of marriage places no requirements on local districts regarding whether or how they teach about marriage. Such curriculum decisions are strictly local. Before or after passage of the gay marriage law a district could choose to teach about marriage or not, and to teach about it in any way it deemed appropriate. It simply is not governed by state education law.

But Schubert/Flint seems to be phoning it in a bit. They don't seem to realize what a far right wacko they picked to be in their ad.

Charla Bansley is a high school teacher at a private Christian school, not an elementary public school teacher as they are implying in the ad. And the leader of the Maine Chapter of Concerned Women of America, which is a hard-right nut-job org (anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-religion in schools, anti-porn, and anti-UN, yes they hate the United Nations). And she is a teabagger. And tried to get a student expelled for writing a pro-marriage equality letter to the editor as part of a class project.

And she thinks gays are psychotic and deviants. From a speech she gave at a Stand for Marriage Maine rally recently. Louise has much more over at the Blend.

Public display of psychosis and we have dealt with it by redefining decency down so as to explain away and make normal what a more civilized, and ordered, and healthy society would label deviant and the result has been a stunning failure.

This woman is a walking opportunity for opposition research and should be fodder for a while. Her values are not Maine values.

Fight back against this nasty. Fight back against fundie lies. Fight for love and marriage.

Give till it hurts, because if they win, there will be pain for Maine LGBT families.

P.S. The Courage Campaign is deploying me out to Maine next week. So expect a few posts from on the ground.

Dkos released yesterday the first public polling numbers on Ballot Question 1 in Maine, which asks voters if they want to repeal the marriage equality law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

We are up by the narrowest of margins: 46 YES, 48 NO. That is essentially were we were at this point in the Prop 8 campaign, prior to the Yes side's devastating ad campaign.

The other side is excited about these results. From a Yes on 1 press release:

We are encouraged by the results of a poll released today by Daily Kos which shows that Mainers support protecting marriage between a man and a woman over legalizing homosexual marriage by a 48-to-46 margin.

Our lead is particularly significant given that the poll was conducted after our opponents had the television airwaves to themselves for two-and-a-half weeks and our ad had aired for just two days. It is clear that their message of fairness and equality do not compel voters to support homosexual marriage, particularly against the backdrop of the serious, real consequences to individuals, small businesses and religious organizations that we raise.

They are right. We are yet to see the effects of their messaging on the polling and that makes me really freaking nervous. We have never won a marriage fight at the ballot box. Losing in Maine would really set back the marriage equality movement, particularly after all of the momentum post-Prop 8.

But we all have the power influence the outcome of the race.

Maine is small. (For us out in California, it is really freaking small.) They are only expecting about 500k voters and have a budget of $3 million. They are as they like to say, "a cheap date".

That means we, the netroots can have a huge impact on this race.

I'm proud to announce that Blue America's 2010 ActBlue page is now live and No on 1 Maine is the first campaign to be list. They need your help to make sure unlike the Prop 8 campaign can stay up strongly on the air and continue to build their robust field program.

Give whatever you can. Early money is much more useful than late money, especially when so much of the vote will come in through the mail.

If you have some airline miles to spare, you can donate them here to fund volunteers traveling to Maine for a week, as part of their volunteer vacation program.

I'm headed to Maine myself in a week, on loan from the Courage Campaign. I can't wait to work beside the wonderful volunteers featured in this video:

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

The California Supreme Court announced today its deeply disappointing decision to uphold Proposition 8.

It's wonderful that the court recognized the legal marriages of the 18,000 same-sex couples married in 2008, but this is a very sad day for California.

But we don't have time to mourn the failure of the state court to restore marriage equality to California.

It's time to go on offense. To be fearless in our fight for equality by building a grassroots army 1 million strong. Starting right now.

In response to the court's decision, the Courage Campaign will hit the California airwaves in the next 72 hours with a 60-second TV ad version of "Fidelity"—the heartbreaking online video viewed by more than 1.2 million people, making it the most-watched video ever in the history of California politics.

We are launching this provocative new TV ad in the spirit of Harvey Milk's call to "come out, come out wherever you are" and proudly tell the stories of the people most affected by the passage of Prop 8—in moving images set to the beat of Regina Spektor's beautiful song.

More than 700,000 Courage Campaign members are ready to restore marriage equality to California. Will you help us get to "1 Million for Marriage Equality"? Watch our powerful new 60-second "Fidelity" TV ad and sign the pledge.

If you like TV ad, please contribute to put it on the air in Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.

The Late Nite Music Club is proud to welcome folk/country legend Nanci Griffith this coming Thursday, May 21st at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern for a live chat. She'll be taking questions about her 30+ year career and her new album The Loving Kind, which comes out June 9th on Rounder Records.

The album, Griffith's most politically outspoken record in years, if not ever, is named for Richard and Mildred Loving, the plaintiffs in Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 civil rights case which finally ended the ban on interracial marriages once and for all. Mrs. Loving issued a statement before her death last year expressing her hope that soon, same-sex couples would follow in her and her late husband's footsteps to victory in their battle for marriage equality.

Music Club O.G. Howie Klein will be moderating the chat. He put together this clip for 'Across America' from The Loving Kind.

For more on Nanci Griffith go here.

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Dear Maggie Gallagher, President and Brian Brown, Exec. Director, NOM:

I admit, this is something that I normally would not do, seeing as I find that your values are completely abhorrent to me.

That's right, I am a long-time married heterosexual with children, and I find your stance akin to those bigots who protested for miscegenation during the Loving v. Virginia battle that finally decreed that in this country, we had no right to deny marriage rights to people because they were not of the same race. You, Ms. Gallagher and Mr. Brown, are the bigots that fight to hold on to notions that should have been put away long ago to deny human beings equal rights because of their sexuality.

You see, my sexuality is quite secure and I feel no threat to it by homosexuality. I hold no fear for the strength of my marriage by allowing gays and lesbians to marry. My ability to procreate has not been adversely affected even with my fellow San Francisco residents having the right to marry. My job is not--nor my spouse's job, nor my children's education--in danger from us being around committed homosexuals. I'm curious if you could even outline how any of that could be threatened, because I've taken a good look through your website and I can't find one single way that you've been able to show a threat...unless of course, your marriage is simply not as strong as mine and having others commit would suddenly inspire you or your spouse to up and leave. Personally, I find the ease that divorces are available far more destructive to the institution of marriage. You know, if you looked at the number of marriages of all the GOP presidential candidates in 2008, you would have more divorces than candidates...add Newt Gingrich in there, and whaddya know? You'd have divorces in the double digits. From the "Party of Family Values?" Now, that's a threat.

But I digress. I just have a few pointers to you if you want to be taken credibly, instead of laughed off the national stage, as Rachel Maddow has done so well above.

1) Admit this is a violation of your faith. Be honest. I have yet to meet one opponent of marriage equality that when you scratch the surface, doesn't boil down to an issue of faith. In fact, your own website admits as such:

NOM seeks to (a) educate the public about the consequences of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, especially for children and people of faith, and (b) organize a political response to the Tim Gill coalition, supporting pro-marriage legislators and exposing key proponents of same-sex marriage.

Because here's the thing: if it's a matter of your faith, you lose. Your faith cannot dictate civil rights, any more than it could when the southern states invoked Scripture to justify slavery during the Civil War. So please, be honest and let's just be done with this hate and bigotry.

2) If you're going to put out an ad to frighten citizens about the ooga-booga scary notion that marriage equality will somehow bring down civilization as we know it, it might actually have more credibility if you could find an actual doctor to claim her job is somehow threatened, rather than using a really, really bad actor. Better hope they haven't heard of Norway, Denmark or The Netherlands, where marriage equality has not resulted in dogs and cats living together nor mass hysteria.

And for crying out loud, don't let your audition tapes get out. You may have pulled them for copyright infringement from YouTube, but we still know they're out there and we know that it proves how fraudulent your fearmongering is when you have to resort to Z-list actors to "act" it out. Were Chuck Norris and Scott Eckern not available?

3) And really, this is just silly. If you're going to launch a new campaign called "Two Million For Marriage" (2M4M) you might want to check who owns that domain first, you boneheads.

Yours in complete and utter scorn,

Nicole Belle