Brian Brown, who heads the National Organization for Marriage and the International Organization for the Family, sent NOM supporters an email yesterday urging them to “make this the summer for protecting marriage supporters.” Brown, who celebrated the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch as a step toward reversing the court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling, said NOM has a four-part plan for the summer, which includes a campaign to “highlight the utter hate that many on the left have for people who remain firm in their belief that marriage is as God created it—one man and one woman.”
Here’s his plan:
- Working with allies, organize tens of thousands of Americans to contact Attorney General Jeff Sessions to demand that the Trump administration move forward with a long-promised Executive Order to protect individuals, pastors, churches and nonprofit groups who believe in traditional marriage from punitive actions against them by the government. We need to remind Attorney General Sessions that candidate Donald Trump repeatedly promised he would issue such an order, and let him know that we expect this promise to be fulfilled. President Trump has tasked Mr. Sessions with this responsibility.
- Work with key champions in Congress, including Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Raul Labrador, to reintroduce the First Amendment Defense Act to make permanent the types of protections that would be contained in an Executive Order. President Trump has already endorsed this type of legislation, but it has not yet been introduced into Congress.
- Conduct a strong public education campaign supporting NOM's legal team as we prepare to file amicus briefs with the US Supreme Court in one of the most consequential religious liberty cases ever to come before the Court – the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which provides the opportunity for a sweeping ruling that governments may not punish people of faith for declining to participate in gay "weddings" that violate their deeply held religious beliefs.
- As part of the public education campaign underlying our regulatory, legislative and judicial work, we must highlight the utter hate that many on the left have for people who remain firm in their belief that marriage is as God created it – one man and one woman. This includes formally launching our First Freedom Initiative which, among other things, will highlight the animus and dangerous tactics of groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the grossly-misnamed Human Rights Campaign.
