National Organization for Marriage: Same-Sex Weddings Equal Slavery

Marriage is the practice of two people making a legal, emotional, and sometimes spiritual commitment to each other. Slavery is the practice of one or more people using coercion, violence, threats, deceit, and other means to control another person or group of people. It doesn't seem like it would be easy to conflate these two things, right? Well, the National Organization for Marriage has somehow managed to say that promoting marriage equality is the same as promoting slavery. Ask them to apologize for and retract this ridiculous comparison.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has been the primary opponent of state-level marriage equality legislation, including Proposition 8 in California and Question 1 in Maine. And this summer, they've been on tour denouncing same-sex marriage around the country. As Daily Kos points out, it's hard to choose which of their many tweets and public statements are the most offensive, but in my mind there is one clear winner. According spokesman Brian Brown on Twitter, “It is 1972 for marriage. This is the same as the time as before Roe v. Wade. . . . What if William Wilberforce listened to those telling him not to bring his religion into the public square?"

William Wilberforce was a British Member of Parliament in the 19th century who was almost single-handedly responsible for ending slavery in the British empire, and is today lauded as one of the most famous abolitionists in the world. He was also a devout Christian, which is the religion Brown references. But by comparing Wilberforce's public campaign against slavery to NOM's public campaign against marriage equality, they are equating the systematic sale and enslavement of an entire continent of people with the extension of the right to marry whom they choose to all Americans.

This comparison is offensive on a number of levels. It's offensive to LGBT people and marriage equality advocates because it equates them with slave traders. It's offensive to modern-day abolitionists and human rights advocates, because it belittles the horrific abuses they fight by equating them with a generally positive social institution. And it's offensive to people who think and use common sense, because same-sex marriage is no more comparable to the slave trade than apples are to a Ford Pinto or outer space.

Photo credit: Mike Licht