Frank Schubert, the National Political Director for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is the mastermind who ran the campaign that persuaded voters to vote in favor of Proposition 8 in California in 2008, thereby outlawing gay marriage in the state.
As HuffPost Gay Voices Editor-at-Large Michelangelo Signorile noted in a recent interview with Schubert, he moved on from California to other states and helped in the campaign that got three judges who had ruled in favor of marriage equality removed from the Iowa Supreme Court in retention elections in 2010. And according to the New York Times, he was also on retainer for up to $20,000 a month from each of the anti-marriage equality campaigns in Maine, Maryland, Washington and Minnesota this past fall (though all four campaigns failed and gay marriage passed in the first three states and an anti-marriage equality amendment was thwarted in Minnesota).
Now Schubert is back in the news with a blog post on the NOM website responding to Newt Gingrich's recent -- and surprising -- statements to the Huffington Post in which he said he now supports marriage equality (to a point):
While he continued to profess a belief that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman, he suggested that the party (and he himself) could accept a distinction between a "marriage in a church from a legal document issued by the state" -- the latter being acceptable.
Schubert writes on the NOM blog:
Newt Gingrich has provided valuable public service to America. As a candidate he signed NOM’s pledge to take action as president to preserve marriage.
But sometimes good men say stupid things, and this is one of those times.
Gingrich’s conclusion that gay “marriage” is inevitable is ridiculous. His comments suggest the results of marriage races in Maine, Maryland and Washington, which allowed three deep-blue states to endorse redefining marriage means that it is inevitable.
Schubert also claims that though NOM is disappointed with the results of the election, they believe that "by an overwhelming 60% margin (according to a national survey conducted by Gingrich’s own pollster, Kellyanne Conway), the American people continue to believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman."
While recent surveys have differed in their exact findings regarding America's opinion on marriage equality, it's clear there is more and more support for the movement to legalize same-sex marriage. An ABC News-Washington Post poll in November found that 51 percent of Americans support marriage equality and in December a poll released by POLITICO and George Washington University found that 63 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds backed same-sex marriage.
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