Summer for Marriage: Love, Commitment, & the #NOMTourFail

Freedom to Marry's Online Organizer Cameron Tolle reflects on the Summer for Marriage tour that mobilized over 4,000 supporters of the freedom to marry to speak out for equality.

At the beginning of the summer, the National Organization for Marriage announced that it would be taking its message of discrimination on the road.  NOM embarked on a 23-city “Summer for Marriage” tour, seeking to turnout thousands of supporters at its “One Man, One Woman” rallies to supposedly demonstrate widespread support for excluding same-sex couples from the rights, privileges, and benefits of marriage.  In response, Freedom to Marry teamed up with local and state organizations to counter NOM’s divisive message by showing that LOVE + COMMITMENT= MARRIAGE. 

To say that NOM failed to achieve its goals this summer is a bit of an understatement.  The #NOMTourFail was marked by sparsely attended rallies in abandoned parking lots, lies about gay families, and deceitful rhetoric.  What NOM intended to be a summer focused on “One Man, One Woman” marriage was ultimately nothing of the sort. 

Instead, supporters of the freedom to marry across the country made sure that this summer highlighted the strength of LGBT communities and the importance of marriage for our families.   In city after city on the tour, equality supporters quickly organized rallies, press conferences, and film screenings tha tcontinually outnumbered NOM’s supporters. All in all, more than 4,000 marriage equality supporters attended events on the Summer for Marriage tour, compared to the 1,300 or so that attended NOM’s rallies in parking lots and churches around the country.  While we easily outnumbered NOM 3 to 1 in most cities, some events drew even larger crowds of supporters!  In Madison, 466 pro-equality supporters marched through the streets of the Wisconsin state capitol! In case you missed the video when it was posted on NOM Tour Tracker (a partnership between Freedom to Marry and Courage Campaign), check it out now. It’s truly powerful:

 

And that’s just a taste of the amazing actions taken by equality supporters all over the country! The NOM Tour Tracker captured countless stories of loving couples and their children, energized equality activists, and of course, hateful (and sometimes violent) messages from NOM and its supporters.

Special thanks go to our partner organizations!  If it weren’t for the hard work and dedication of the folks at Courage CampaignGetEqual, Human Rights CampaignEquality Federation, and numerous statewide LGBT organizations across the country, the success of the Summer for Marriage tour would not have been possible.

…So does anyone know when NOM is touring again?