Tim Pawlenty has joined presidential
hopefuls Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in signing
NOM's anti-gay marriage pledge.
Brian Brown, the president of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), told MSNBC host Thomas
Roberts on Friday that Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota,
had agreed to become the fourth candidate to sign onto his group's
pledge.
“We are very excited that not only
three, now a fourth candidate has signed on,” Brown said. “Tim
Pawlenty, we got word last night is signing on.”
Brown went on to deny that marriage
equality is a matter of rights: “[T]he notion that what you're
doing by passing same-sex marriage is expanding rights is wrong.
You're basically undermining the rights of those of us who believe
that marriage is between a man and a woman.” (The video is
embedded in the right panel of this page.)
During
a Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) segment, NOM board chair
Maggie Gallagher took a swipe at Pawlenty for refusing to sign the
pledge.
“The big question is really what's
going to happen with Governor Tim Pawlenty, who explicitly declined
to sign NOM's marriage pledge this week,” Gallagher said. “We're
hoping the governor changes his mind, because we think it's pretty
peculiar for Governor Pawlenty, who's been a champion for marriage in
Minnesota, to refuse to do the same for the people of America.”
Candidates that sign NOM's 5-point pledge promise
to support a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage,
defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, appoint judges
and an attorney general who will “respect the original meaning of
the Constitution,” appoint a presidential commission to investigate
the “harassment of traditional marriage supporters,” and back
legislation that would allow a ballot question on the issue for
voters of the District of Columbia.