PhoboQuotable – Slaggie Gilamonster

“In the spring of 2009, a few states moved to gay marriage and public opinion seemed to shift abruptly in gay marriage’s favor. But by May of that year, support for gay marriage just as abruptly tumbled. Why?

“I believe I was the first person, in the National Review cover story The Carrie Effect, to publicly credit the impact of Carrie Prejean. Pre-Carrie, even most conservative media outlets avoided gay marriage. Carrie gave Fox News and major radio talk show hosts a vehicle for talking about the issue that they understood and liked. The general public was exposed to the truth that the majority continue to oppose gay marriage and that gay marriage advocates are not about tolerance but about imposing their views and punishing dissent, I argued. [snip]

“How can one beautiful young woman make such an outsized difference? It’s because gay marriage advocates are no longer persuading people they are right on marriage; they are suppressing the expression of opposing opinions by raising the cost of speaking up in favor of marriage, while at the same time attempting to make Americans believe that gay marriage won’t have any consequences. Carrie’s ordeal made the first process visible and the second idea hard to swallow.” – Maggie Gallagher, citing a pollster’s claim that public support for marriage equality nosedived during the Miss Ladyfingers USA controversy.

Gallagher notes parenthetically that the same pollster says public support for marriage equality has since returned to pre-Ladyfingers level, which, of course, shoots down the premise for her entire column. But logic has never been Maggie’s strong suit. Nor is the truth, for she makes no mention of her furious backpedaling from Prejean during the sex tape scandal, during which all mention of Miss Ladyfingers magically vanished from NOM’s website.