The National Organization for Marriage has targeted Rhode Island with a new $100,000 advertising campaign, aimed at derailing legislative efforts to legalize gay marriage.
Last week, bills were introduced in the state House and Senate chambers and call for legalizing “civil marriage” between people of the same gender, positioning Rhode Island as the next battleground for same-sex marriage.
Just two days earlier, Governor Lincoln Chafee, in his inaugural address, called on legislators to swiftly legalize same-sex marriage, so that Rhode Island could “catch up to her New England neighbors.’’
“Lincoln Chaffee got just 36% of the vote in the recent election, and fewer popular votes than the Cool Moose Party’s candidate for Lieutenant Governor,” Christopher Plante, executive director of the local NOM chapter, said in a press release (that mis-spelled Chafee’s name). “Our message is that getting 36% of the vote is no mandate to redefine the institution of marriage for all of Rhode Island society.”
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The ad criticizes Chafee for what it says is claiming a mandate to push gay marriage with no vote of the people even though he got only 36 percent of the vote on Election Day. The ad does not mention that three of the four major candidates for governor in November’s election supported same-sex marriage, representing nearly two-thirds of the vote.
Not surprising, NOM took a few other liberties with their facts — Stop 8’s Matt Baume exposes them. Watch here:
Brown University political science professor Wendy Schiller said the group is using the ad to try and cut off what appears to be growing momentum to legalize gay marriage in Rhode Island.
“The idea that voters have no say in this is inaccurate,” she said. “Voters vote for the state legislator.”
