Pulling 3 minutes of highlights from more than 30 hours of footage taken at 23 rallies over the past month is no small task! But so many amazing things happened over the past month that I wanted to be sure that our entire team – including each of you – has a chance to watch and be a part of it.

On August 15th, we wrapped up our month-long Summer for Marriage Tour with an enthusiastic crowd of 300 (and live Internet broadcast) at the Rally for Marriage outside the U.S. Capitol, standing with religious and community leaders in the District to call for the people’s right to vote on marriage.

When we first started out on this month-long journey, we envisioned a series of quiet rallies to energize marriage supporters in key battleground states where marriage is under attack. Little did we know how threatened our opponents would be by our tour. But their protests, all too often characterized by hateful intolerance, only raised the profile of the tour, drawing media attention and new supporters to our cause. I was so proud of our supporters at each of the 23 stops – standing together to celebrate marriage, responding with grace and determination even when gay marriage radicals sought to shout us down, harass and intimidate. Thank you.

TwoMillionforMarriage.com!
One of the purposes of the summer tour was to continue expanding our base of grassroots activists for marriage – we’re already more than 700,000 strong and well on our way toward our goal of identifying and organizing an army of 2 million Americans willing to stand up to protect marriage.

We’ve just re-launched our TwoMillionforMarriage.com website, with a whole new look to make it easy for you to sign the petition to protect marriage, and then share the site with your friends. I hope you’ll visit the site today and tell your friends!

With just over two months left before the November elections, we’re launching a major new initiative to reach out to Americans from every walk of life, in every city, county and state across the nation. The effort will center around the new website, supplemented by radio, TV and internet ads, Facebook, Twitter, direct mail, phone calls and emails, as we use every available avenue to reach out to new supporters.

But the most important part of this new initiative is YOU! If each of us were to tell just two others about the campaign to protect marriage, we’d quickly reach our goal of 2 million Americans standing for marriage. In order to reach our goal even faster, we’re using paid advertising to help spread the word.

So here’s what I’m asking you to do today:

1. Tell at least two friends who don’t already know about NOM’s work to protect marriage. Ask them to visit TwoMillionforMarriage.com and sign the petition to protect marriage. In fact, we’ve made it easy – just visit TwoMillionforMarriage.com and use the social network tools to share the petition on Facebook, Tweet it, or send emails inviting your friends to sign.

2. If you’re in a position to give, please consider a gift of $20, $50, or even $100 or more to help get the word out. Your gift helps us reach out into new areas and untapped networks of potential supporters. Use this link to make your secure online gift today!

Thank you for making our summer tour a success, and for standing with us as we continue building momentum toward November!

-Brian

Hello, I am Dr. Alveda King, founder of King for America and Director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life. I wish I could be there with you today. As the daughter of Rev. A. D. King and Naomi King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta King, and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I come from a long line of Christian soldiers who have supported marriage and family. As I offer this testimony, please let me encourage you to continue to stand firm for marriage and family! . . .

As one who understands first hand the losses that society incurs when marriage is weakened, I urge you today to encourage your family, friends and communities to uphold and protect the definition of marriage.

God, who created us, and placed us in the wombs of our mothers, uniting the seed of our fathers and the fruit of our mothers, imprinted us with His dream for marriage. We cannot let a few misguided judges and politicians erase the truth and beauty of the lasting institution of marriage and family.

The Church of God in Christ stands firmly on Biblical truth and common sense in standing for the sanctity of marriage.

What God has joined let no man put asunder!  We defend marriage because it is good and it was established by God who is all good!

Same-sex marriage is not a civil right; it is a civil wrong.  . . . speaking truth to power is something the African American church has a lot of experience with. . . . Justice is grounded in truth, because no lie can live forever. Because truth crushed to earth will rise again.

Because “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—  Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,  Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.” . . .

We, the Church of God in Christ, approximately 6 million strong, stand behind President Brian Brown. We are praying for you. You’re in our thoughts; you’re in our prayers. May God bless you and strengthen you is our prayer.

I was there when Lyndon Johnson signed a piece of paper saying let the people vote. This was not by accident. It was from people lending their bodies to the millions of people around the country who wanted to be here.

I know whereof I speak . . . As a member of the Congress, I stood in that building one year after I got elected, and watched the members of the House and the Senate respond to people of conscience all over this nation, and they passed my home rule bill, a home rule bill that said let the people vote through referendum. . . . I know whereof I speak.

Excuse me if I am kind of excited that each one of you decided to be here and stand for marriage.

I am determined to go all the way through. If it costs my life, I am determined, because I’ve got heaven in my view. If it means I have got to stand alone, if it means my friends be few, I am not worried about what people say. I’ve got heaven on my mind.

I want you to know there are 3 reasons I am here today in support of your noble efforts to preserve the sanctity of marriage. The first is that as a political scientist, I don’t like hearing the use of wedge issues, sideshow issues that run away with the circus.

My second reason for supporting you is I firmly believe with Dr. Martin Luther King and the founding fathers of this nation, that our country ought to be a place where nobody is denied access to five things: income, education, healthcare, housing or shelter from the elements, and justice.

Number third reason for joining this movement is the institution of marriage between a man and a woman is acknowledged by the majority of people on this planet. Billions of people across this world believe that marriage as an institution is God’s schoolroom for teaching us to preserve, protect and defend one another . . . My goal this afternoon is to get you to hang each of these truths on the clothesline of your mind.

When the scientists and historians look back at this era they will be amused at what the enemies of marriage have attempted.

Let me say this to our gay brothers and sisters: Marriage is civil society’s schoolroom for teaching people how to care for protect and defend one another beyond race, sexual preference. I need you and you need me. We’re all a part of God’s body. I love you. I need you. We need one another. . . . We have a right to access to income, education, healthcare, housing, and justice. But you do not have a right to be used by the greedy powers that be who want the sideshows to run away with the circus. They are exploiting you and using the gay marriage issue for their power. We have got to stop them from diverting with wedge issues.

Children of every race, creed and color need a mother and father who care for them, and who teach them how to care for, love and protect one another. . .

“If my people, called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways,” the world will be much better. Because we did our thing on August the 15^th back in 2010. And we are going to win.  What I said to you today is true. It’s not true because I said it; I said it because it’s true.

Here in the nation’s capital, the leaders have refused to let the people vote.

Democracy is not a commodity to be bartered away.

Ballot initiatives are an example of democracy in action. Unfortunately, democracy can be inconvenient and even scary sometimes. But this is what our nation was founded on.  . . . Let the people vote on marriage! We cannot be selective when we apply the principles of democracy.

To ensure a government by the people, for the people…the people must be ensured the right to vote.

To assure government of the people, by the people, for the people . . . the people must be assured the right to vote. We are determined that our leadership will not be slaves to special interests.

We must remind the public that the district council is an elected body with authority delegated from congress to act on matters that further the public interest and not their own interests, political or personal. . . .

The district is a city of 600,000 people, . . . and yet 11 members of the DC Council are denying all the hundreds of thousands of voters the right to vote on marriage. . . .

. . . Let the people vote on marriage.

Vote for great marriage candidates this fall.

A small minority with a lot of money is basically saying to the rest of us, you sit down, shut up, your opinion doesn’t count. It’s just not true.

[My father moved his family to Washington DC in 1954 after being threatened for participating in the civil rights movement.] I believe where we are today is the same situation. A minority is imposing its will. They are willing to threaten us. They’re willing to talk down to us. They’re trying to intimidate us, and I’m here to tell you: Don’t be intimidated. Stand up.

I’m here to tell you that all they’re doing is acting like the bullies that I grew up with in the ghetto. You know what I’m talking about. . . . But we’re going to overcome, we’re going to take this battle all the way to the Supreme Court, and we are going to win. Yes, we are going to win.

Let me make this real plain: What we have to do now is to deal with the fact that the same-sex marriage proponents have manipulated the process. They’ve paid all this money to these politicians, and we’re going to have to play musical chairs and snatch some chairs out from under some politicians and let them know there are consequences to immoral and corrupt actions.

I have one last thing to tell you. I appreciate your heart. . . . that you’ve come out here on a day like today. I applaud you for coming forth. But you come as a remnant, meaning you represent all the people that believe in traditional marriage all around this region. And your opponents will try to say it’s not enough. . . . They’re trying to shout you  down. But if they weren’t afraid of you, they would ignore you. . . .  Their presence confirms their fear, and it ought to energize you. You gotta stand up. Spend money, support candidates. We gotta make a difference. I n the next 18 months, if we do what we have to do, the people of the District are going to get the right to vote.  . . .

Let freedom ring from Sacramento, California to the hallowed halls of the court in Boston, Massachusetts. Let freedom ring in Washington, DC. Let freedom ring in Maine. Let freedom ring from the high mountains to the low valleys and all the places in between. Let freedom ring as we go to the polls this fall and let our voices be heard!

I believe that this fight is the beginning of a new civil rights movement, and I don’t say that in any shallow way. I mean it. And what I mean is this: that in states and jursidictions that fundamentally redefine marriage, there are consequences . . . . They are immediate; they are clear and profound. We must stand up for our civil rights to hold our faith and raise our children as we see fit without being labeled as bigots.  . . .

When we are told that we are bigots, and when the law puts this powerful new idea to work, it means that we will be punished, repressed and marginalized, and we don’t have to guess at how this will happen. When we look to Massachusetts and we see the Catholic Charities adoption agency trying to live out its gospel mission . . . and it is put out business because they believe children deserve a mother and father, don’t ask me what the consequences of same-sex marriage are. . . .

When our children are taught in schools that it’s the same thing for Jimmy to grow up and marry Johnny as it is to marry Mary, and we the parents are bigots for teaching them otherwise, there is a core civil right that has just been abridged. . . .

Speakers will include Dr. Walter Fauntroy, Bishop Harry Jackson, a message from Dr. Alveda King, a special live performance from Gospel Singers, Song-Writers and Producers Deitrick and Damitra Haddon and more!

Join us at 2pm as we wrap up this year’s Summer for Marriage Tour and stand for marriage in our nation’s capital!

“When a lower judge makes an unprecedented ruling, that totally overturns existing Supreme Court precedent, the normal thing for that judge to do is to stay his decision, and let the higher courts decide in an orderly fashion that respects the rule of law, if he’s right, or if he’s way off-base. Judge Walker’s ruling is more evidence he is not a neutral referee, he’s an activist on this issue. He doesn’t even want his ruling ignoring Supreme Court precedent and imposing gay marriage against the expressed wishes of the electorate appealed to the Ninth Circuit. Walker feels that that only the state politicians who were against Prop 8 have standing to appeal and the over 7 million California voters who supported Prop 8 shouldn’t be able to even present their position to a higher court. It’s outrageous. The People are supposed to be sovereign, not the politicians. This stay order will be appealed to the Ninth Circuit and if necessary to Justice Anthony Kennedy, and I think it is a tactical mistake on Judge Walker’s part to display his injudicious zeal–once again–before Kennedy’s eyes.”