Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an anti-marriage-equality group, was interviewed on the Feb. 11 edition MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes, and it didn't go well for her.
Gallagher was vigorously challenged in regard to NOM's position on marriage equality and her alleged personal animus toward the LGBTQ community. This led her to get defensive, and she made a bunch of denials that can be easily disproven (the pertinent stuff begins at 8:44 of the video). According to Scott Wooledge of Daily Kos:
The sparks really fly when Richard Kim, executive editor of TheNation.com, gets a chance to address Gallagher. He begins by saying:
Kim: I think you and your organization have really failed to present any evidence that same-sex marriage impacts heterosexual marriages. You also however have advocated for gay reparative therapy, as has the National Organization for Marriage, you have called homosexuality a "dysfunction" and not normal...
Gallagher is really quite angry at this accusation.
Gallagher: No! I have not! I have not! I have not done any of those things!
Kim continues:
Kim: So it's hard to escape the conclusion that there is just antigay animus and bogotry behind your campaign.
Gallagher is full of righteous indignation at the lies, the damn dirty lies!!!
Gallagher: You know you are making up -- well, you can make up any conclusions you want. But you have just made up a bunch of facts that aren't true.
Gallagher proceeded to say that NOM does not advocate for gay reparative therapy. Kim then called attention to several articles on NOM's webpage that called homosexuality a mental health problem. These were Maggie's exact words: "No there isn't. You are confusing us with some other organization. It's not true." Gallagher also said that she keeps a close view of what goes on the blog and that just because NOM links to a piece doesn't mean the group endorses it.
Of course, that explanation is just plain ludicrous. Linking to a piece doesn't mean you endorse the piece. It is all about context. And generally, when NOM links to pieces about the LGBTQ community, the inference is that we are the diseased other out to destroy society. So I am of the opinion that there is a slight degree of endorsement with regard to the pieces that NOM links to.
Gallagher used the "we don't endorse everything we link to" defense in December, when it was discovered that NOM's blog linked to an article entitled "A 'Bad Catholic' Case Against SSM?" The article made many negative claims about the LGBTQ community and cited research from junk scientist Paul Cameron, a discredited researcher who has said that homosexuality is a mental health problem. Amongst other things, Cameron has claimed that gay men stuff gerbils up their rectums. He has also been censured by folks on the left and right of the political spectrum for his bad research techniques.
According to Equality Matters, NOM has also promoted columns that said:
These pieces are promoted either on NOM's main blog or the blog of the NOM-affiliated Ruth Institute, run by Jennifer Roback Morse. Morse once wrote a piece implying that white gay men are stealing African-American children from their homes via adoption.
According to blogger Jeremy Hooper, Gallagher herself has made some ugly comments about the LGBTQ community in spite of her assertions that she hasn't:
Maggie has called homosexuality an "unfortunate thing," "at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction much as impotence or infertility," and "a sexual disability preventing certain individuals from participating in the normal reproductive patterns of the human species." She has also suggested that gays "can always control their behavior," and even called on a sitting President to give more funding to scientifically-shunned "ex-gay" research.
Hooper also points out that NOM's people have in fact endorsed reparative therapy:
Also, NOM president Brian Brown recently touted a (flawed) "ex-gay" study, saying "Even those who disagree with us about gay marriage (or Christian sexual ethics) should feel good about this this scientific verification of the possibility of free will triumphing over desire. We are all more than our instincts, sexual or otherwise" [SOURCE]. NOM's Culture Director, Thomas Peters, has advocated for Courage, a Catholic "change" organization. Peters has also said that the MSM intentionally denies that "change happens."
The belief that Gallagher bombed rather badly during this interview is one that NOM itself may share.