Brian Brown Pulls Strings with Sen. Ruben Diaz for NY Hate Fest

Brian Brown, President of hate group, National Organization for Marriage (photo by Jamie McGonnigal, EqualityPhotography.com)

As discussed during last week’s covert operation (sort-of), where I secretly transcribed a phone call that anti-gay activist and president of the National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown was having, it seems the hate rallies are indeed headed to New York.

While Brown was on the phone with NY Sen. Ruben Diaz, he became noticeably upset when Diaz told him he wouldn’t be going to the July 24th rally. Diaz made this decision apparently after Brown informed him that the Archbishop would not be attending.

It seems Diaz has changed his mind and has written a letter to Archbishop Dolan to try to get him to attend the hate anti-equality hate rally at the end of the month. One must wonder what Brown did to change Diaz’ mind on the topic.

“In the great spirit of interfaith unity, I invite you to join me and my fellow ministers on Sunday, July 24th at 3PM at a March for Marriage that has been organized by the National Organization for Marriage to be held outside Governor Andrew Cuomo’s midtown office at 633 Third Avenue.”

“Our peaceful and prayerful rally will protest the redefinition of marriage and demand that all New Yorkers have the right to vote on this very serious social issue.”

“You know that I have tremendous respect for you and I am most hopeful that you and your fellow bishops and clergy will join us on the 24th.”

Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz

This comes a day after Brown made waves by claiming that the NY Legislature “stole” the right of New Yorker’s to vote. Of course, Brown chooses to ignore that we have a representative government and we vote to give certain legislators the right to vote for us. He also said that the vote wasn’t transparent or fair, despite unprecedented media coverage and literally dozens of emails from Brown’s own National Organization for Marriage – not sure how a topic can be less transparent or fair. Unless of course it’s just not fair when Brown loses. Perhaps it’s more fair to ignore election laws in states like Maine and Minnesota and more transparent to not report the names of contributors as required by law. Seems Brown needs some lessons in transparency and fairness.

Brian Brown EXPOSED in Covert Gay Activist Operation (sort of)

Brian Brown at DCA (photo by Jamie McGonnigal, EqualityPhotography.com)

So, I’m on my way to Fort Wayne, Indiana for an anime convention (for those who don’t know, I do voices for Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh! and a bunch of other animated things)…anyway…I’m going through the line at security and I recognize the man in front of me as Brian Brown, the President of the hate group, The National Organization for Marriage. Strangely, I thought he was taller. I also was surprised to see he was a smoker (Marlboro Lights). He almost forgot his plane ticket and passport on the conveyor belt, and like a good gay person, I handed it to him.

After that, we both happened to be in need of a place to charge our phones. I sat down at a small table and he stood at the phone charging station. How surprised was I when he picked up his phone, dialed and said “Hello Senator…” I went into stealth mode and immediately began transcribing.

It didn’t become clear until his next call that he was talking to Senator Ruben Diaz. He was begging Diaz to show up to a rally. Apparently Diaz was grilling him about who was going to be there and Brian told him that Archbishop Timothy Dolan would not be in attendance. Apparently, that’s when Diaz said he wasn’t going to come and Brian got noticeably upset. He started to raise his voice and told Diaz that his constituents were still very upset about the vote and he really needed to be there. The call ended. According to Jeremy hooper at GoodAsYou.org (the resident expert on all things NOM), This call more than likely had to do with the July 24th NY Family Research Foundation event. This is of course, the same day that New York plans to start recognizing marriage equality with the first marriage licenses handed out to same-sex partners.

Brian then called someone (presumably Maggie Gallagher) and mentioned he’d just spoken to Diaz and he wasn’t coming to the rally. he said he wasn’t worried though about the Hispanic turnout because “they love this stuff.” He turned his back a few times and became inaudible, but he did mention the recent Foxx Amendment to the Defense Bill regarding DOMA and said he’d picked up “16 Democrats.” He said he needed to “make a big deal about it today and on Monday.” He told whoever was on the phone that they should talk to Tom McClusky because he knows the most about it.

Then came the interesting part for me. He said he needed to talk to Justin about who to hire with regards to a “New York International” organization. He has a meeting planned with the Christian Institute of Scotland and then said he didn’t “have much faith in the Mexican group.” Again, Jeremy Hooper recognized that Thomas Peters (NOM staffer) has been tweeting about some of NOM’s “exciting new plans.” This could very well have to do with that.

I’m not sure if there’s any actual news here, other than the fact that NOM is planning some International work involving the Christian Institute of Scotland and that he doesn’t really care for the Mexican group. He certainly didn’t mind categorically assuming that Hispanic people love hating gay people. Jeremy Hooper also agreed that Brian Brown was much shorter than he expected.

NOM’s Anti-Gay Rally Speaker Screams Gays are “Worthy to Death”

Rev. Sen. Ruben Diaz and NOM President Brian Brown (photo: Jeremy Hooper, GoodAsYou.org)

Due to inclement weather and a knee injury, I was unfortunately unable to attend today’s “Rally to Defend Marriage” in the Bronx, but thanks to the unending work of blogger and activist, Jeremy Hooper at GoodAsYou, we’re learning a lot about the event.

The rally, first proposed and planned by Reverend Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. of New York, was supposed to bring more than 20,000 people to the Bronx to fight against marriage equality. Diaz is the most fiercely anti-gay politician in New York, despite having two gay brothers. This rally was planned after New York Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell introduced legislation (again) to bring marriage equality to New York State.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) jumped on board to sponsor the march and pay for commercials and other event costs, thus endorsing the things being said in the rally by their guests. In the past, NOM has been very careful about speaking against the violence their rally attendees frequently endorse towards LGBT people. After Larry Adams attended a NOM rally in Indianapolis last summer carrying a sign indicating that the solution to gay marriage is to murder gay people, NOM tried to distance themselves from the message.

This time, it may not be so easy for NOM to distance itself from the message. Whereas previously the violent message was coming from rally attendees, at today’s rally in the Bronx, the quote from one of the rally’s speakers referred to gays and lesbians as “worthy to death.” Perhaps there was something lost in the Spanish to English translation, but it seems clear from the speakers as well as the crowd’s response that an endorsement of murder is the message being presented. Many thanks to Jeremy Hooper for this video. Please visit this link at GoodAsYou.org for the full disturbing video.

NY Dem Senator Diaz Ignores AIDS, Leads Anti-Gay Rally

As many of you know, there is a vote that is close to happening in New York for marriage equality. It happened in 2009 and failed after many Democrats bailed on promises and betrayed their progressive values because of pressure from influential money groups. One of those Democrats that voted against it, was only trying to hide his closeted behavior and his corrupt political behavior.

The NY Assembly (which has now voted and passed a marriage equality bill three times previously) is ready to vote again on the bill presented by openly-gay Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell. But as we can see, the Assembly is not the problem. The problem is the NY Senate, which clearly has issues of it’s own when it comes to a bill which a majority of New Yorker’s now support.

The primary opponent of marriage equality in the New York Senate is Democrat Ruben Diaz, Sr., a Pentecostal minister from the Bronx. This Sunday, instead of supporting the AIDS Walk, Diaz is holding an anti-gay rally in the Bronx.

According to studies, Sen. Diaz’ Borough leads the state in new HIV/AIDS cases amongst Latino men, yet clearly the Reverend feels it is more important to rally against gays and lesbians than to work to change these horrifying statistics. Diaz has gone so far as to ask Christians to not attend church on Sunday May 15th and instead attend his anti-gay rally.

Diaz has claimed that there will be more than 20,000 bigots at his rally. And this time, he has the support of the National Organization for Marriage – one of the country’s foremost hate groups – who has been sending out mailings and buying up millions of dollars worth of anti-gay television advertisements in NY these past few weeks.

We will be attending the anti-gay event to take photos and will be reporting back on Sunday evening with some coverage of the hateful event.