Over at my home blog, OpenLeft.com, I often do a round-up of LGBT-related news and actions that are worth noting. I thought I’d bring the same feature here for some noteworthy items you may have missed:
We didn’t get many other videos up yesterday of rally coverage in Indianapolis, so here’s one for folks to check out. As usual massive turnout #FAIL, and you can see that by how NOM always asks supporters to come closer so it looks like they have an actual crowd.
HRC and Fred Sainz are spot on in their release regarding NOM today:
“The bus tour is a total sham, plain and simple,” said Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications. “NOM’s highly-touted bus tour is less about so-called ‘traditional marriage’ and more about creating an elaborate and cynical stunt. NOM rolled out a summer of nationwide events in order to draw lawful protesters, all so that NOM and its allies can pepper ongoing lawsuits challenging public disclosure laws with made-up stories of harassment. This unprecedented victimization crusade is the lowest denominator of political activism, and it won’t fly.”
Fresh off a massive #FAIL in Indianapolis where pro-equality supporters more than tripled the number from NOM’s side, and where one of their supporters was caught with a sign claiming the solution to “gay marriage” was two nooses, we’re in Madison, WI today.
Arisha just radioed in- fifteen minutes before the NOM rally, the police already started to surround the place with yellow caution tape.
Which can mean only one thing: Brian Brown and his anti-equality followers are back on tour.
But you know what excites me even more?
This:
That’s a hand-counted crowd of 466 pro-equality supporters, my friends. Four hundred and sixty-six. Easily the biggest crowd yet!
NOM’s side? Arisha counts 54.
Below, some excellent signs from the tour. We’ll have more details as this develops…
UPDATE BY ADAM (12:17 PST) : I just got off the phone with Anthony, our videographer on hand. He told me the pro-equality marchers came down from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the State Capitol and took over the entire street- something you can see in the photo below:
Sidewalk to sidewalk, the street was full of nearly what we counted as 466 pro-equality supporters. Amazing.
Anthony also confirmed that Brian Brown is indeed back on tour- and up to his old tricks. Where before Brian and NOM attempted to keep our NOM Tour Trackers from covering the event in Annapolis, this time they had the local authorities wall off their supporters in the statehouse courtyard with yellow tape- and refused to let equality supporters inside. It brings separate but unequal a whole new meaning. Anthony and Arisha did manage to get inside, though.
Anthony is uploading video of this soon. The question we at NOMTourTracker.com have to ask is, what are Brian and NOM afraid of that they need to wall off an entire section of the courtyard?
UPDATE BY ARISHA (12:22 PST): Poor Brian. Just as he and his supporters decided to re-join the tour, NOM was met with its largest equality counter-demonstration to date. 466 equality activists marched down the streets of Madison and up the steps of the State House to greet a decent-sized crowd of NOM supporters – relative to their other tour stops – that at one point reached 54 people.
Nonetheless, the massive upstaging of NOM couldn’t go by without a little spin from NOM’s speakers.
“Thank you all for coming,” Julliane Appling , a representative from Wisconsin Family Action began. “[We hoped our turnout would be larger], but our people actually have jobs.”
Maggie and Brian both cheered.
“I ran up the steps in front of the [equality] marchers,” Brandy, a Wisconsin equality activist said. “As I watched the sea of rainbows ascend the steps, I was in tears. This is my town – my community – and today, I am proud.”
“They had months to prepare for their rally, we organized our [counter-protest] in one week,” chimed in another equality activist, also in tears, a as a chant of “We are the majority” began in the background.
She stopped talking to me to join in with the chant and disappeared into the crowd before I could get her name.
“In many of the places we’ve gone to, people have attempted to silence us,” said Brown, acknowledging the sizable equality protest. “In Rhode Island, protestors attempted to shout us down, to storm the stage.”
Oh Brian….Rhode Island was soooo two weeks ago. But now that you’re talking First Amendment rights, let’s talk a bit about our cameraman that you had the Maryland police threaten to arrest in Annapolis the last time you were on tour.
Stay tuned. We’re working to upload Brian’s answer to our First Amendment query, along with a funny video you’ll love.
UPDATE BY ADAM (1:42 PM PST): Okay, our first video is in, courtesy of commenter “New”:
Wow.
The second is Anthony’s coverage standing from the Statehouse looking down at the throng of equality supporters marching up the street. It’s a bit of a different perspective than the video from the comments I posted above.
The
Also, his frame “I believe we are part of the new civil rights movement” is laughable. Civil rights is about extending rights to those who are oppressed, and Brian supports amendments that restrict them. We all know it, and we’re going to continue to demonstrate it along with countless families and couples on tour.
Last week, NOM Tour Tracker reported that the Courage Campaign Institute’s videographer, Jethro Rothe-Kushel, was threatened with arrest by the Maryland Capitol Police at the NOM rally in Annapolis. You can see the video that Jethro shot of the incident, along with footage of Arisha Michelle Hatch confronting the officer here:
Jethro wrote at NOMTourTracker.com, a project launched by both Courage and Freedom to Marry:
After some secretive communications on his mobile device, and a conversation between Mr. Brown and a police officer, he finally began his rally at about 25 minutes after the hour. Like clockwork, just thirty seconds after the rally finally began, I was approached by the same officer, as you can see in the video.
I then tried to shoot from about 100 yards away at the foot of the square over the heads of a handful of his staffers who he instructed to stay close to the stage. Brown started talking about the aftermath of Prop 8 in California, but just I was about to capture some solid footage of the event, the officer again approached me and quarantined me to a corner across the street. This time he was stronger and came with a threat:
“Don’t make me lock you up!”
As we wrote at the time, Jethro had the right to videotape in a public place. This week, we were proven right, as the Maryland Capitol Police Chief apologized to NOM Tour Tracker for the way in which this situation was handled. His statement to NOM Tour Tracker:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the situation that occurred on July 21 at Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis. I have thoroughly investigated this incident and have concluded that the situation should have been handled differently.
I regret the way this was conducted and take full responsibility for any inconvenience or embarrassment this may have caused. We are already in the process of instituting corrective training measures to address issues of this nature in the future.
We are also in the process of modifying our website to include the rules and regulations on the utilization of Lawyer’s Mall for both those who apply and are approved for permits, for those who are observing, and for any counter-demonstrators.
Once again I greatly appreciate you bringing this issue to my attention. If I can be of any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Phil Palmere
Chief of Police
Department of General Services, Maryland Capitol Police
Additionally, Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs spoke with Chief Palmere, accepted his apology, and conveyed his appreciation for he and his team for protecting our communities and our freedoms. We at NOM Tour Tracker appreciate Chief Palmere’s sincerity and his service.
Courage Campaign’s press release on this, including a statement from Rick, is in the extended entry. (more…)
Hey everyone — I’ve got some great, great news. Adam Bink, who blogs for Open Left is going to be taking the lead on managing NOMTourTracker.com right up until the final event in Washington, D.C. on August 15.
After two amazing weeks of managing the Tour Tracker, we decided that giving Adam the reins would help increase our capacity to cover even more on the tour as well as give me the time to focus on promoting our tour coverage to the outside world, including more than 700,000 Courage Campaign Institute members.
If you’ve read Adam’s work over the years, you know that he’s one of the best bloggers out there, on LGBT issues as well as on the progressive movement. With his deep experience and knowledge of the LGBT movement and his passion for holding NOM accountable, I’m confident that we’ll be able to take NOMTourTracker.com to the next level.
Please take a moment in the comments and welcome Adam.
Eden James
Managing Director
Courage Campaign Institute
I said “Yes” because of you. Yes, you.
by Adam Bink
Hey there, fellow equality supporters! Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Adam Bink, an editor over at the progressive political blog OpenLeft.com, and I’m happy to be taking over the editorial reins from Eden here at NOMTrialTracker for the next coupla weeks. I want to do two things here- one is tell you a bit about myself, and two is get into how my role here came about.
OpenLeft is a blog founded in July 2007 to strengthen dialogues between “inside” and “outside” political organizations and activists. We’re also a blog that prides itself on combining writing and activism. We engage in strategic e-campaigns where we can. At OpenLeft, I’ve covered the LGBT “beat” since last year, and ramped it up when I started working with the No On 1 campaign to protect marriage equality in Maine (which is how I got to know Eden).
I went on to cover the efforts to legalize the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in my home state of New York as well as New Jersey, and have been writing and organizing on this critical issue ever since. So I want to let you know that working on marriage equality is something I live and breathe personally, and I’m looking forward to working with you on that.
Second, let me get a little bit into how this new role came about.
Over the long weekend while Eden and I were at the Netroots Nation conference, he asked me to take over the blog management here at NOMTrialTracker for the rest of the tour. I’m a bit busy myself, so I wasn’t sure I’d have the time. Then I went back and re-read the posts for the last few weeks, along with your comments.
And I was inspired. I’ve been a longtime activist for marriage equality, and I’ve met folks out there in our great country at rallies and in campaign war rooms who just don’t give up. Their determination is inspiring. I saw the same thing in comment threads here. The research, photos, news tracking I see is fantastic. Even the snark (hi, Louis!) is awesome. And I knew we could finish this tour together, and even take it a step up.
So I’ll be e-working with our team to keep bringing you the same intrepid coverage of NOM and their big dose of #FAIL, day-in and day-out. And I’ll even be adding some new features to have a little fun at NOM’s expense. Together, we’ll keep beating back the narrative that NOM is a credible, successful organization- and keep marching towards winning equality for same-sex couples, nationwide.
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