Dozens of same-sex marriage opponents flocked to the east lawn of the U.S. Capitol Sunday to witness the final stop in the National Organization for Marriage’s whirlwind "Summer for Marriage" national bus tour. But when NOM President Brian Brown took to the podium to address the crowd in front of him, he first acknowledged the folks hanging out behind his back.

Continue reading

"I guess some people like the view back here better," Brown said, indicating the protesters sitting behind him with signs reading "Marriage is a right. Discrimination isn’t!" and "God Hates Bags."

"You have a cute ass, Brian," one of the protesters called out.

"Well," Brown replied knowingly.

Relations between same-sex marriage opponents and LGBT advocates along NOM’s 22-stop tour have rarely been so cordial. "Over the course of the 'Summer for Marriage' tour, NOM’s supporters have consistently been bullied and harassed by organized gay marriage groups," Brown levied in a July 30 statement. "There is extensive video documentation showing nursing mothers being harassed, children being taunted, priests being taunted, demonstrators loudly booing a prominent Bishop as he led the assembly in the Lord’s prayer, and even a threat to kidnap a child."

LGBT advocacy group Human Rights Campaign countered those allegations by calling the "One Man, One Woman" bus tour an "elaborate and cynical stunt" designed to fuel "made-up stories of harassment" in order to discredit LGBT advocates.

True to form, the District rally focused on the conflict. Before launching into his seasoned defense of heterosexual matrimony — "our children are taught in the schools that it’s the same thing for Jimmy to grow up and marry Johnny that it is to marry Mary!" — Brown took a moment to characterize NOM’s detractors. "In stop after stop, the National Organization for Marriage has had protesters — sometimes protesters attempting to shout us down, storming our stage, attacking our first amendment right of assembly," Brown announced immediately following the butt comment. "Let us meet any form of hatred here today with love."

But Bishop Harry Jackson, a Beltsville, Md. preacher and an outspoken opponent of the District marriage equality law enacted earlier this year, followed Brown with a less conciliatory message. "I’m here to tell you that all they’re doing is acting like the bullies that I grew up with in the ghetto," Jackson told supporters. "You know what I’m talking about. Bully comes, he shoves you, he pushes you, he tells you you might as well give up now, you give up your money, I gotcha I gotcha! No, you don’t have me! I’m going to stand for what’s right!"