News

Mar 5, 2013

While some pundits argue social issues are passé and ought to take a back seat to issues such as the economy, the National Organization for Marriage maintains traditional marriage remains a winning issue – for both Republicans and Democrats.

Representatives with the National Organization for Marriage are in Washington, DC, this week, meeting with members of Congress to discuss the marriage issue. That comes as dozens of Republicans, including advisers to former President George W. Bush, four former governors and two members of Congress are pressuring the Supreme Court to overturn California's Proposition 8 (related story).

On Monday, NOM proclaimed that marriage is not a partisan issue – and backed up that statement with the following pledge: it will spend half a million dollars to defeat any Republican legislator who votes in favor of redefining marriage in Minnesota; and will support any Democrat who votes to preserve marriage.

Last week, Republican state senator Branden Petersen announced he was considering becoming a co-sponsor of a proposal to legalize “gay marriage” in Minnesota. According to news reports, such legislation could be introduced this week.

“NOM does not hesitate to oppose weak Republicans and support strong Democrats,” says the organization’s president, Brian Brown. “Standing for true marriage is the right thing to do for Minnesota families, and especially for children.”

The marriage proponent urges legislators in Minnesota to consider what happened to GOP senators in New York during the last election. “Four of them were responsible for passing gay marriage,” he notes. “We helped take out three of those senators by repeatedly informing their constituents of their betrayal on marriage. They are now out of office. We will not hesitate to do the same thing in Minnesota.”

Generally speaking, however, the GOP did not fare well across the country. Brown addressed that matter Wednesday during an interview on Sandy Rios in the Morning on American Family Radio.

"A lot of establishment and inside-the-Beltway consultants want to blame social issues for the losses in this last election,” he said. “As we all know, anyone can look at the presidential campaign [and find that] almost all of the messaging from Karl Rove down was focused on the economy."

Brown argued that "there is absolutely no way to say that somehow social issues” can be blamed for the poor election showing by political conservatives.

“In fact, it’s the exact opposite,” he stated. “We should have done more and better messaging on social issues – and the way you can simply prove this is look at how the marriage amendments did in deep Blue states. They did on average 6.8 points better than Governor Romney."

He added that that came about despite traditional marriage groups being outspent nearly 3-to-1 by same-sex marriage proponents. And that, said Brown, shows traditional marriage is still a winning issue.