Maggie Gallagher has officially stepped down from her position as Board Chair of the National Organization for Marriage. As she explains in her statement, she has a lot of important projects to work on in the meantime:
“I will remain on the NOM board, and continue to work on specific projects for NOM, as well as taking on some additional outside projects I’ve long deferred, such as finishing my book Debating Same-Sex Marriage¸ which I’ve been working on for Oxford University Press with Prof. John Corvino,” Gallagher added.
Apparently Maggie really saw herself as NOM’s progenitor, and now that it’s off and running she can step back and watch her baby grow up. From the Advocate:
“My original intention in co-founding the National Organization for Marriage was to launch a politically sophisticated national activist organization to fight for the views of millions of Americans who believe that marriage is and should remain the union of husband and wife,” she said in a statement. “I think it’s fair to say that NOM has been launched, and is now far more successful than even I dreamed (and I dreamed big!).”
![Eastman_maggiex390](https://www.autostraddle.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Eastman_maggiex390.jpg?resize=390%2C285)
IMAGE VIA THE ADVOCATE
Maggie Gallagher has not necessarily accomplished a lot during her time as NOM’s chair, but she has irritated us approximately infinity times. She tried to stop gay marriage from happening in NY even after it was legalized. She was the star witness of this bizarre “hearing” on the evils of gay marriage perpetuated by Rep. Trent Franks. She and her organization have said a lot of really mean things. She’s misrepresented a lot of false information about gay people as being the truth. Her organization’s most recent substantial achievement is getting all three of the major Republican candidates for president to sign a pledge regarding gay marriage and their distaste for it. Without her, will we see a change for the better?
Probably not. Her replacement will be a man named Dr. John Eastman, who is similar to Maggie Gallagher in that he thinks gay people are a menace to society and that their marriage somehow ensure that his children will never really know happiness or security. He is slightly dissimilar to Maggie Gallagher in that he has a strong law background, having been Dean of Chapman University Law School and “has participated in over 50 cases in our nation’s highest courts,” according to NOM’s press release. He lost a run for California’s Attorney General last year, although good news, he was supported by some Tea Party activists! Is he excited for this new career opportunity? Well, here’s what he said.
“Marriage has quite correctly been described as a bedrock of civilization. Protecting the institution of marriage is a critically important issue, and I’m honored to join such distinguished company on the Board of such a phenomenally effective organization as the National Organization for Marriage.”
Based on his track record, it seems safe to say that there is even more you will disagree with him on than just that NOM is a “phenomenally effective organization.” For instance, he believes that marriage is for procreation and families, and “the people who have the greatest natural instinct to care for children are the natural parents,” which doesn’t leave a lot of room for you and your family. Also, one has to wonder if, though NOM has become gradually less effectual and been taken less seriously in recent months, if the appointment of a male ‘intellectual’ figure with tea party connections will be successful in somehow leveraging the environment of political extremism around the 2012 election to once again make people care about them at least a little.
Either way, you can at least look forward to reading Maggie Gallagher’s book. Maybe she’ll ask us for a blurb.
Because gay people never have families.
Oh wait. Except for sometimes they do.
“the people who have the greatest natural instinct to care for children are the natural parents…” hold the phone, has John Eastman said something I don’t wildly disagree with?! Let’s take this one line that could possibly be construed to mean that people who love children and want children are “natural” parents simply because they love and want children, not because they’re into the P in the V. I’m going to hold onto this little scrap of sanity.
I’m sure Maggie Gallagher’s book will be a real keeper once I’ve colored in all its pages with rainbows and drawn a unicorn on each cover and blotted out her face and… no, no, I don’t think I’ll ever really be able to look at it.
So the Mormons got sick of her running their organization? I’m glad they’ve found a nice replacement.
I kind of doubt anyone’s going to buy her book…
MAN, DAMMIT CHAPMAN! … my roommate had to take classes with this dick
So, can you only run NOM if your neck and chin are no longer separate?
They’re just secretly depressed by the lack of a chin.
excuse me, are you disrespecting the sacred union of one neck and one chin?
alternative explanation: it’s a natural defense mechanism – they inflate their neck pouches to ward off predatory gays that are looking to scavenge the spoils of their right to marry.
SHE’S COMING TO MY SCHOOL. She’s going on a tour around the country with this Corvino dude doing debates on gay marriage (which is where the book is coming from) and my school is a stopping point. Actually, it’s happening this coming Monday. I’m not looking forward to the poison my friends and I will undoubtedly hear.
omg. can you like, stand up in assembly and call her out on being a horrendous, hateful bigot?? or are they just gonna make you guys sit there silently and listen as she attempts to indoctrinate the youth.
Do you have enough gay-friendly students at your school to do a big thing where a bunch of people wear red and sit next to people who are wearing orange who sit next to people wearing yellow and so on until you’ve got one big rainbow sitting in front of the NOM jackasses? Because that would be awesome, and no one would even know it was a protest until everyone was seated together.
I love that idea! I’m part of the LGBT student organization on campus, so actually I could probably coordinate something like that! I’d have to talk to some people, but yeah, totally doable. And I don’t think we can just stand up and yell things (I wish),but my organization is having a discussion afterwards to get out all the ranting.
You should definitely tell us how it goes.
Are you a high school or college student? Either way I would organize a major protest, picket signs and all. Although I understand the difficulty of pulling this off in a HS environment.
Except I just did some quick research to try and plan something in my area… and found out that John Corvino is a LGBTQ activist and is going on tour to debate the issues with her. As per his own words:
“Why “dignify” Maggie Gallagher with a platform for her pernicious views? Because, like it or not, those views are still shared by the majority of voters, in every single state in which marriage equality has been put to the ballot. You may call Maggie Gallagher a right-wing fringe lunatic all you like, but her side is winning plenty of battles, even while it is slowly losing the war.”
the rest of the article is here.
http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino-conversations-with-maggie-gallagher/
As interesting as this sounds…I still find it hard to completely get down. I suppose he is right, open discussion and debate are really the only ways to change people’s minds but at the same time working with someone who so awfully harms our cause is just hard to stomach.
We’re a college campus. And yeah, as upset as I am that she’s even coming to campus, it’s tempered by the fact that it will be in debate form. My hope at the moment is that people will see how crazy and illogical her and her arguments really are and recognize the absurdity of their own beliefs. This is of course a long shot, but I can hope. And my organization was kind of upset that no one consulted us on this seeing as we are the LGBT student union. We certainly would have had something to say.
Right, so, totally read that as ‘Maggie Gyllenhaal’ and was massively confused as to how that was possible. Got to learn to read.
THIS HAPPENED TO ME TOO
i was just like “oooh maggie gyllenhaal! relevant to my interests!”
clearly i live in canada……
same here.
so,I didn’t get why she would quit being in charge of ‘Numerous Outstanding Movies’
we should create our own NOM, it will be for lgbt pacman themed parties. then we can get our events ‘confused’
I’m really worried Chapman Law is going to get a bad name because of this – some of the biggest marriage equality proponents in Orange County are affiliated with Chapman Law and we’ve held multiple LGBT forums there.
Oh eek, there goes a large chunk of my respect for Oxford University Press.
It should be noted that the book is not being spearheaded by Maggie herself, but gay-philosopher-activist John Corvino, who is a professor (hence Oxford U. Press). While, there is a time and a place for relentlessly fighting the ignorance and willful stupidity of homophobic arguments, largely fueled by fundamentalist religious moralists such as Gallagher, it might be a not so terrible idea to have the kind of debate Corvino proposes. It gives people who may potentially or are already considering the issues a a clearer view of how totally bogus/illogical/irrational their fears and opinions actually are.