On The show tonight, Thursday, February 9th, Thom interviewed Maggie Gallagher who is an anti-gay marriage activist. I have had my own first hand experience with Maggie Gallagher and, as a result, I understand her frame of mind - and it's ugly. I first became acquainted with her anti-gay crusading when I watched a show several years ago which featured her debating a proponent of gay marriage. I was not convinced that the anti-gay position she took was truly without animus, as she claimed, and so I e-mailed her to say so. She e-mailed back to assure me that her position was, in fact, taken out of a sincere conviction. I wrote her again to make what I thought were rational arguments to refute the talking points she had used in the debate. Following that she e-mailed to ask me who I represented and when I replied that I represented only myself her response was that she was an important syndicated columnist and that she didn't have to engage with people like me. So I wrote one last time to tell her that her last message to me betrayed her arrogance and that I now understood that it wasn't personal conviction that drove her but a sense of superiority. Maggie Gallagher makes a career out of fighting to deny to some people a special condition that she, herself, feels entitled to enjoy (marriage) and in doing so she arrogantly assumes that an attribute she possesses, heterosexuality, is inherently superior with regard to the way that society and families function. She ought not assume.
The reason Maggie Gallagher is a fraud is because she continues to knowingly disseminate lies in her crusade to deny marriage rights to certain people for what turns out to be no good reason. She, and most all anti-gay activists, continue to repeat unfounded myths, complete fabrications and discredited arguments in order to foster feelings of fear and loathing among the public. And, despicably, it is only in order to perpetuate anti-gay crusading which also just happens to be a very lucrative business model for her and her allies. Why else, if she truly believes in reason and in rational debate, would she ignore the available evidence and continue to repeat lies and misinformation? And, I believe, the reason she is able to do so and still sleep at night is because she possesses some sick, twisted sense of superiority which allows her to justify to herself the incredible harm she inflicts on others. It's pathetic that she must diminish others in order to inflate her own sense of self worth.
So don't be taken in by Maggie Gallagher's cool, calculating facade of rationality; it is fraudulent.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/11/09/children-of-gay-parents/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/gay-parents-better-than-straights_n_1208659.html
Comments
When Maggie Gallagher cited the 14th Amendment, I nearly choked on my iced tea.
The 14th Amendment is precisely why same-sex marriage should be legal. It says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States" without any disqualification for sexual orientation.
(I am reposting some comments of mine which I see should have been here instead of where I originally posted)
Thom's debating skills are supposedly highly polished but I find the discourse usually to be just a useless string of "gotcha's". Take the "debate" with Maggie Gallagher, an activist against gay marriage. She trounced Thom. She presented a simple. clearly-defined target yet he kept setting up his own strawman targets because he had the come-backs in his toolbox. She didn't make her case on religious or constitutional grounds yet Thom kept trying to set her up to shoot her down on those premises. She didn't take the bait. He could have shed some light on the divide such as, where does she draw the line? Civil unions? What rights should a gay couple have? Her tying marriage to the ability to produce children was such a plum - Thom could have hit her out of the park but he chose to follow his standard litany of comfortable "talking points". Thom should have had the skills to tease out her real motives on the air, as you have.