National Organization for Marriage
President Brian Brown. (AP)
(CNSNews.com) – Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), spoke with CNSNews.com on Saturday and said the view that marriage is between one man and one woman is increasingly silenced as hate speech.
“We’re now at the point of using the force of government to punish religious organizations,” said Brown at the march in Washington, D.C. “This is not just undermining religious liberty this is the opposite of religious liberty.”
Brown spoke at NOM’s fourth annual March for Marriage against same-sex marriage and the first march following the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized homosexual marriage last June.
CNSNews.com asked Brown about his continued commitment to the issue following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Well, you know, just like the life movement, Roe v. Wade didn’t stop the life movement,” he said. “There were a couple of tough years, but out of the wreckage of Roe arose a vibrant, winning coalition.”
“It’s going to take years, maybe decades, but we need a movement that has this march to be a living symbol year in and year out that we’re here, we’re not going away, and we’re growing,” he continued.
Brown said there are two observable detrimental consequences of the ruling: “the religious liberty effects” and “what’s happening with transgender issues and especially bathroom bills.”
“We’re seeing bakers, florists, videographers, anyone who’s involved in the wedding service industry who’s a Christian, persecuted, put out of business,” he said of the religious liberty consequences of the ruling.
“What’s happening with transgender issues and especially bathroom bills -- I think that is a direct consequence,” he added. “Once you say that there’s no distinction between mothers and fathers, husbands and wives in the law, then there’s no distinction between male and female. So, we’re headed in a direction where a lot of things we’ve taken for granted are now up for grabs.”
(AP photo.)
“If male and female are interchangeable, the whole notion of men showering in men’s showers, women showering in women’s showers, I mean everything’s turned upside down,” said Brown, “and that’s because you get to these ridiculous ends because the place you start with, the place you start from is wrong.”
“The first principles are wrong,” he said. “Men and women are different and that’s just a fundamental reality, and when you undermine that reality it has secondary consequences that are profound.”
CNSNews.com also asked Brown if he has seen a move to characterize any sort of position for man-woman marriage as hate speech and silence it.
“Yeah definitely,” he said. “We’re now at the point of using the force of government to punish religious organizations. This is not just undermining religious liberty. This is the opposite of religious liberty. This is exactly what our founders fled from and feared. This is persecution.”
“The consequences have been profound and I think they’re only going to get worse unless Christians band together and stand up,” Brown said.
The March for Marriage is an annual rally organized by the National Organization for Marriage. A small crowd gathered Saturday for speeches and the march to the U.S. Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
