Tuesday, August 02, 2011

NOM whining that Al Franken 'ambushed' Tom Minnery

Over two weeks after an incident in which a Focus on the Family spokesperson was busted during a Congressional hearing for distorting a study, the National Organization for Marriage is trying to sneak in a defense of that spokesperson.

On July 20 during a Congressional hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken called out FOF's Tom Minnery for misrepresenting a study on families to make the case that children do better in a heterosexual household as opposed to a same-sex household.

It was a two minute exchange which was played constantly over the blogsphere. And while some members of the religious right tried weakly to defend Minnery, the gist that Franken had caught him lying was unshakeable.

Now, NOM has something to say about that. Or rather the organization linked to a piece written by a woman named Carrie Daklin of Minnesota Public Radio.

The entire point of Daklin's piece was not focused on whether or not Minnery had tried to deceive, but rather the ridiculous point that Franken was mean to Minnery:

I have testified in a trial. It is not fun, it is not exciting. It is stressful. You are out of your element. Your adversary is salivating to get you to say something he can spin, some little something he can magnify out of proportion and use to his advantage. As an experienced paralegal I knew this when I testified, and I was in hyper-vigilant mode because I knew it. Imagine what it is like for someone who has no knowledge of the courtroom.

I have no knowledge of congressional hearings. I have never been to one. I can only hope that if I did have to testify before the Senate, whoever was questioning me would be kind, would recognize that this was his sandbox, not mine, and that, as a representative of our country, he would not embarrass me for his own purposes.

Sadly, when Tom Minnery testified, that was not the kind of treatment he received from Al Franken.

Where is my violin?

This was a serious hearing about a subject which affects millions of Americans. Minnery was offering testimony which was supposed to accurate. But his testimony was not accurate and Franken called him out on it.

If Daklin is truly concerned with how Minnery was treated, I suggest that she contact him expressing the wish that he get his ducks in the proper row should there be a next time he is called to testify in front of Congress.

As for NOM, is anyone really surprised that the organization weighed in on the issue when it thought people had forgotten about it and that it gave a weak defense of Minnery designed to craftily change the subject.

Apparently those leaving comments on this blog post are also in on the act. One commentator, in an attempt to prove Franken wrong, actually cited a Politico article on the matter. Of course she omitted the portion of the article in which the original author of the study said that Franken was actually correct.

Equality Matters puts the entire thing in the correct perspective:

It makes sense that NOM would focus on Franken’s style and not the substance of his argument; the group is no stranger to manipulating and misrepresenting studies in order to claim that gays and lesbians aren’t capable of being effective parents. In fact, NOM chairwoman Maggie Gallagher did just that, under oath, during Congress’ last hearing concerning the Defense of Marriage Act. 

This is a trend with groups like NOM and others in the anti-gay movement. As Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality at New York University wrote in 2004:
According to the child protection discourse that Professor Wardle, Maggie Gallagher, and others deploy, social science research demonstrates that legalizing same-sex marriage poses dangers to children and families… In particular, claims that research establishes the superiority of the married heterosexual-couple family and that children need a mother and a father conflate and confuse research findings on four distinct variables - the sexual orientation, gender, number, and the marital status of parents… Unfortunately, opponents of same-sex marriage, like Maggie Gallagher and Professor Wardle, and even some advocates, draw selectively, indiscriminately, and inappropriately from research findings about all four variables to address questions the studies were not designed to, and are not able, to illuminate. [University School of Quinnipiac Law Review, via Lexis, 2004, emphasis added]

UPDATE - Now the American Family Association - via its phony news service One News Now - is continuing to push the false narrative that Franken "was mean" to Minnery.  It's interesting that both this phony news article and Daklin's piece emphasizes the fact that Franken is a former comedian while de-emphasizing the simple fact that Franken was correct about Minnery's fraudulent testimony.

 Related post: Tom Minnery's lies are commonplace in religious right data


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SC newspaper prints interracial gay wedding announcement and other Tuesday midday news briefs

South Carolina Paper Prints Interracial Gay Wedding Announcement - Oh this ought to be good.

Related - announcement in question from The State newspaper


Porno Pete Updates Tax Status - Part 2 of the "Porno Pete's group loses tax exempt status" controversy. Apparently until yesterday, his site was still saying that donations were tax-deductible. Shame, shame, shame.

AFA rips, reuploads, reinterprets video as if it's their own; feign surprise if you wish - American Family Association breaks commandment number seven to beat up on the gay community again.

Rep. West Angry Over Being Dropped From Speaking Gig, Calls Planned LGBT Boycott ‘Intolerable’ - Translation: How dare the gay community call me out for picking on them! Who do they think they are? Human beings?
  
American Conservative Union bars GOProud from co-sponsoring 2012 CPAC - Well so many people are telling GoProud "we told you so," so I won't.



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NOM's Proposition 8 hypocrisy will not be forgotten

The National Organization for Marriage has a link on its site talking about how the California Supreme Court will be hearing Prop 8 arguments on Sept. 6:

Breaking News:
California’s Supreme Court announced on Thursday that a new hearing date, Sept. 6, had been added to the calendar in the ongoing legal challenge to the state’s voter-approved marriage amendment.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals— where the Prop 8 case is on appeal — asked the state’s high court to determine, whether under California law, marriage amendment proponents “have the authority to assert the State’s interest,” since California’s governor and attorney general refuse to do so.

“The coalition of national organizations like Focus on the Family, and state organizations like all of the family policy councils, will not be deterred on the issue of marriage,” [Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com's executive committee] added, “because it involves God’s heart, society’s future and a child’s protection.” --CitizenLink

You will notice that the link is from Focus on the Family and NOM doesn't even offer commentary on what this will mean for the state of marriage equality in California.

It's an ironic thing seeing that (according to NOM Exposed), the organization spent over 1.8 million in the effort to pass Prop 8.

But then again maybe it's not ironic, seeing that after spending that money to pass the law, NOM was nowhere to be seen when it came to defending it in court.

Sure, when the trial was over and Prop 8 was overturned, Maggie Gallagher, NOM's chairperson, appeared on news programs and wrote columns about how the case was biased against "traditional marriage."

Gallagher blamed the judge, she blamed the lawyers opposing Prop 8 - Ted Olson and David Boies, and of course she blamed the gay community.

But the one thing she never mentioned is just why didn't NOM testify in the case.  The defense of Prop 8 only had two witnesses and one of these witness, David Blankenhorn, not only didn't have the scholarly credentials but his testimony also ended up hurting the defense's case.

Some folks speculate that Gallagher didn't want to be cross-examined in regards to NOM's finances and the claims the organization made in regards to children being harmed by marriage equality.

And some folks have even speculated that Gallagher didn't want NOM to be exposed for its use of false claims about gays using marriage to harm children, which most likely would have happened had Olson or Boies were allowed to cross-examine her.

Now just who would speculate such a thing?

Most likely anyone who has any decent common sense.


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