Cornerstone, the New Hampshire organization most dedicated to repealing marriage equality, expressed “disappointment” over today’s defeat of House Bill 437. Cornerstone claimed same-sex marriage will lead to greater dependency on government services, increases in substance abuse and an escalation of juvenile delinquency — with a cost of $1 trillion over the next decade.
Ultimately, it will be our children that will pay the price for failing to pass HB 437. For instance, genderless marriage ends the biological link between parents and children. In the future, parenting will just become a contract between two people; the gender roles of a mom and a dad will be irrelevant. This violates the right of the child to know their biological mother and father.
There are also real long-term economic consequences to the breakdown of traditional marriage. Such costs include dependency of children on government services like Medicaid, increases in substance abuse, and an escalation of juvenile delinquency. These costs in New Hampshire have been conservatively calculated to be nearly $100 million a year and, nationally, the cost is $100 billion a year or $1 trillion over a decade.
Marcus Bachmann, the husband of GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, has come under fire for his faith-based counseling clinic where counselors reportedly “pray away the gay,” claiming they can convert gays to heterosexuals through Christian payer.
This so-called “reparative” or “conversion” therapy has been roundly rejected by all mainstream health and mental health professional organizations as unscientific and dangerous.
While lacking support among mainstream organizations, “ex-gay” therapy does have advocates among some conservative fringe groups. In New Hampshire, one need look no further than Cornerstone Policy Research and its legislative action arm, Cornerstone Action.
On the Cornerstone website, the Helpful Links page provides links to discredited ‘ex-gay’ therapy groups Love Won Out, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), Exodus International and Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays. And now we learn Kevin Smith, Cornerstone’s executive director, is “thinking seriously” about running for governor. Let the buyer beware.
When Cornerstone Executive Director (and potential GOP gubernatorial candidate) Kevin Smith organized a “Defund Planned Parenthood” event, Planned Parenthood supporters outnumbered Cornerstone allies by a 2-1 margin.
Cornerstone Executive Director Kevin Smith organized a press conference and rally yesterday to applaud the Executive Council for cancelling a Planned Parenthood contract that would provide health services for thousands of women. Smith said the Executive Council “correctly read the mood of taxpayers.” All evidence to the contrary.
Approximately two dozen people with Cornerstone walked past approximately twice as many Planned Parenthood supporters and faced them during the press conference.
The audience booed Musgrave, a former member of Congress from Colorado, and one person shouted “liar” after she accused Planned Parenthood of aiding and abetting sex trafficking.
(For the record, the Planned Parenthood sex trafficking allegation has been thoroughly discredited.)
Once again, Cornerstone’s Kevin Smith is a general fighting the last war — attempting to use strategies and tactics of the past to achieve victory in the present.
Last year, Smith attempted to reproduce Lee Atwater’s infamous “Willie Horton” ad that played on racial fears and portrayed Gov. Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The copycat ad Smith ran against John Lynch in last year’s mid-term election failed to resonate with New Hampshire voters and Lynch coasted to victory.
This year, Smith is attempting to emulate Karl Rove’s 2004 tactics that created an anti-gay backlash against same-sex marriage and helped George W. Bushwin reelection.
Cornerstone will ask each Republican presidential candidate to sign a pledge agreeing marriage should be between one man and one woman.
“Why not try to leverage the influence of the candidates to get them to declare their support for traditional marriage?” Smith said. “If you have a candidate saying they’re not willing to oppose same-sex marriage, I think they’ll have a problem. … We have a wide membership list. We’ll certainly let them know.”
But the world has changed since 2004.
[D]uring the most recent nationwide fights over the issue — the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court and to repeal the military’s ban on gays serving openly in the military — most of the field has refrained from seizing the issue.
For a party that once led the charge against gay rights and reaped political advantages from its place in opposition, it’s a notable evolution — and one that perhaps reflects polling data showing increasing popular support for gay marriage, especially among young people.
“It’s a funny thing about change, it moves slowly until it doesn’t,” said GOP strategist John Weaver. “Finely tuned politicians who are looking to the future may get that sooner than other people. We may be getting to that point where it is less and less of a litmus test in our party.”
Every four years, prospective presidential candidates head to Iowa and fight it out to see who can be the most vociferous supporter of ethanol subsidies. If Cornerstone’s Kevin Smith has his way, the Granite State version will involve opposition to same-sex marriage.
Cornerstone will ask each Republican presidential candidate to sign a pledge agreeing marriage should be between one man and one woman.
“Why not try to leverage the influence of the candidates to get them to declare their support for traditional marriage?” Smith said. “If you have a candidate saying they’re not willing to oppose same-sex marriage, I think they’ll have a problem. … We have a wide membership list. We’ll certainly let them know.”
There’s just one potential problem with Smith’s plan. Politicians, even those of the GOP variety, may take a look at the New Hampshire electorate — not to mention national trends — and try to change the subject.
A WMUR Granite State Poll conducted earlier this month indicated Granite State voters oppose repeal of New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage law by a whopping 62% - 29% margin. And while Republican-registered voters support repeal by a 46% - 38% margin, the all-important undeclared voters (who will be eligible to cast GOP ballots in the presidential primary) mirror the mood of the general population and oppose repeal by 65% - 25% margin.
Maybe the risk-adverse GOP candidates will all line up for their photo-op with Smith and sign Cornerstone’s homophobic pledge. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a candidate out there looking to separate himself from the pack who might just tell Smith what to do with his pledge.
“We’ve been saying since the summer of 2009 that the voters would eventually reject the far-left radical agenda of the New Hampshire legislature and last night they finally got their say. Not only did they return fiscal and social sanity to the statehouse, but they did so in historic proportions — a clear repudiation of the prior legislature’s extreme out-of-touch policies.”
In 1998, Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater, masterminded an infamous political ad that played on racial fears and portrayed Gov. Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The Willie Horton ad featured the menacing mug shot of Horton, an African-American convicted of assault, armed robbery, and rape while out on a prison furlough. The ad was roundly condemned as racist and Atwater eventually issued a deathbed apology to Dukakis.
Histoy repeats itself in a direct mail piece attacking New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch. The mailer from Cornerstone Action attacks Lynch for his support of SB 500, the prison parole reform bill Cornerstone calls “John Lynch’s sex offender release bill.” The mailer features Lynch in a line up with four sex offenders, including two African-Americans and a Latino.
Why hasn’t John Stephen denounced this mailer? Where’s the outrage?
Cornerstone Action, the advocacy arm of Cornerstone Policy Research, is at it again.
You may remember their radio spot denouncing U.S. Senate candidate Bill Binnie as “shockingly liberal,” followed by a 30-second TV ad with the same message.
This weekend, Cornerstone bought a full-page ad in the Union Leader attacking Binnie once again.
The ad is designed as a movie poster for “Shockingly Liberal,” a film starring Binnie (as an Indiana Jones-like character) and co-starring four Democratic politicians Binnie has contributed to.
Binnie, meanwhile, has promised to point his campaign in a positive direction — but the pressure will be on him to respond.
FactCheck.org says Cornerstone Action and the National Organization for Marriage are guilty of a misleading attack in their ad describing GOP Senate candidate Bill Binnie as “shockingly liberal.”
[The] ad goes too far when accusing GOP Senate candidate Bill Binnie in New Hampshire of supporting abortion rights “to avoid the expense of disabled children,” and claiming Binnie is “excited about imposing gay marriage” on the state. These and other charges in the ad are rooted in true statements, but taken out of context.
FactCheck.org monitors the factual accuracy of political TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases, applying the best practices of both journalism and scholarship to increase public knowledge and understanding
Their blow-by-blow analysis of the Cornerstone ad follows below the fold.
In a letter to Kelly Ayotte’s Senate campaign, Michael Toner, counsel for the Binnie campaign, accuses Ayotte and Cornerstone Action of illegal coordination in the making of the negative television ad that began running today.
As you know, Kevin Smith and Kelly Ayotte were previously colleagues in New Hampshire state government. As you also know, Mr. Smith is the Executive Director of Cornerstone Action and presumably directs and controls the organization’s activities, including the content of the organization’s advertising. That Mr. Smith is controlling and directing an advertising effort benefitting the Ayotte Campaign is very troubling given the long and established working relationship between Mr. Smith and Kelly Ayotte.
The Binnie Campaign further has reason to believe that a former Ayotte Campaign employee, Harold Parker, filmed some of the footage that appears in Cornerstone Action’s advertisement that is benefitting the Ayotte Campaign. If anyone associated with the Ayotte Campaign supplied Cornerstone Action with any footage that is included in the advertisement – or was materially involved in the development, production, or placement of the advertisement in any way – that is yet another ground for concluding that unlawful coordination took place under FEC regulations. Moreover, the Binnie Campaign believes it is highly likely that Ayotte Campaign contributors have donated to Cornerstone Action and have helped finance the advertisement at issue.
Federal election laws prohibit outside groups and federal campaigns from coordinating their advertising efforts. The Binnie campaign threatens to file a complaint with the FEC if they do not receive an “adequate response.”
New Hampshire-based Cornerstone Action and the New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage have joined forces with a $125,000 media buy on WMUR and cable outlets attacking Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bill Binnie.
The 30-second television ad lambastes Bill Binnie as “shocking liberal” and is a follow up to the Cornerstone-produced radio ad with a similar theme that ran last month.
In 1998, Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater, masterminded an infamous political ad that played on racial fears and portrayed Gov. Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The 
