The colossal failure of National Organization for Marriage

National Organization for Marriage's Facebook cover photo,
modified to reflect the reality-based community's experience. Tuesday was great.

After the bittersweet result of 2008 election with the joy of Obama's win being mitigated by the passage of Prop 8, 2012 was just a flat-out incredible night for the LGBT community. From the top of the ticket, to the smallest local races, conventional wisdom that gay is political kryptonite can finally be set out on the curb for pick up.

In the biggest race of the night, the gay friendliest president ever handily won reelection. Just a year ago it was very widely believed that a marriage equality supportive candidate could not win the swing states. And then, President Obama and his team bet against that and publicly endorsed the idea, and then went on to sweep all the swing states.

Come January, we'll have our first out LGB United States senator. The House will have at least six LGBT members including a second gay dad and the first gay person of color. In Colorado, an out gay man will serve as House Speaker, and a lesbian will be Senate pro-tem, the number two position in that chamber. Hundreds of out members of the gay community won in state and local races, including Stacie Laughton who in contrast to Obama's 58M-some, garnered just 1,588 votes but in New Hampshire that's enough to send her to the state House where she will be the first open transgender to serve.

"This wasn't incremental progress. This was a breathtaking leap forward," said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, dedicated to electing out politicians.

With the defeat of Minnesota's ban on marriage equality and a resurgent Democratic majority, talk has already turned to moving forward legislatively with marriage equality there. Conservatives may rue they picked that fight last year and activated a community, and their network of friends and family, to fight back.

But let's pause and reflect that rarely has a political movement, organization or candidate for all their spending and efforts emerged with so much egg on their face as National Organization for Marriage (NOM) did this cycle. Calling this "The Marriage Election," they tried their best, up and down the ticket to make it a national referendum on gay people's right to marry.

It was, of course, very literally a referendum on LGBT people's right to marry in four states, all four opposition campaigns NOM largely funded and controlled and all of which NOM lost.

But NOM's ambition was bigger than just the ballot initiatives, and they may have bitten off more than they could chew.

They sought to punish the four marriage equality supportive Republicans in the New York senate and had at best mixed results. One retired, one was reelected, one lost in a primary, and one lost in the general'to a Democrat who supports marriage equality "without hesitation" in his own words. So, it's unclear how that helps them, or proves their point voters hate gay-friendly politicians. Moreover, if they take credit for Republican Sen. Saland's defeat, we can also thank them for finally swaying the New York state Senate back into Democratic control, a rarity in that state. So thanks for that, and good luck on your fanciful New York repeal plan, now that you've helped the LGBT community and their allies return control both state chambers to Democrats again.

They attempted to unseat an Iowa Supreme Court Justice that ruled for marriage equality there, but again, the tactic that succeeded in the past failed in 2012 and Justice Wiggins was retained. This despite NOM spending $465,000 to unseat him.

Efforts to unseat Iowa Supreme Court Justice Wiggins for affirming marriage equality failed. Let us not forget the spectacular almost two to one defeat of NOM's effort to repeal marriage equality in the New Hampshire House in March of 2012. Despite a chamber that was about 75 percent Republican, not only did they fail to persaude a majority of the chamber, they failed to get a majority of Republicans. The 2012 election results prove New Hampshire was no anomaly, it was the harbinger of a trend.

NOM spent a lot in the GOP presidential primary, but Mitt Romney surely wasn't their first pick, over favorites Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann, nor did their attacks on Ron Paul probably have much influence. They tried their best to go after the president as the enemy of marriage. Above their Facebook cover photo that repeated the call to supporters to see this as "The Marriage Election." (I may have Photoshopped it a little.)

After setting up that frame that this whole election is about "protecting marriage," like any good conservatives having lost, they will surely find some reason to spin why their very definitive loss "didn't count." It wasn't really all about marriage, and we didn't really lose a fair and legitimate debate of that point. It was the hurricane, or something.

But NOM lost. They just lost. Two sides came to the table, made their arguments to the voters and the better argument won. The response could not have been more clear.

And NOM and their crowd lost.

And they lost a lot.

(Continue reading below the fold.)