ConnexionCampaign to end gay marriage falsely claims Barack Obama’s support
Greater Than, a recently launched campaign to overturn gay marriage nationwide, misrepresented a quote from former President Barack Obama to falsely imply that he supports their campaign — he does not.
The campaign’s website shows Obama’s image alongside those of other anti-LGBTQ+ bigots, like slain MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, Christian conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, and right-wing “satirical news” peddler Seth Dillon.
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Below Obama’s image is a 2010 quote in which he said, “We know that children benefit not just from loving mothers and loving fathers, but from strong and loving marriages as well.”
The insinuation is that Obama agrees with the anti-gay trope that “all children deserve a father and mother” (rather than two parents of the same sex) and that he considers same-sex marriages as weaker or less loving that different-sex marriages.
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Obama’s quote actually comes from a 2010 event promoting responsible fatherhood, according to Right Wing Watch; not an anti-gay speech.
Obama expressed support for same-sex marriage during his 1996 Illinois state Senate campaign, telling The Windy City Times that he supported legalizing same-sex marriage and would fight efforts to ban it.
He infamously backtracked on this position during his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns — stating that he supported civil unions for LGBTQ+ couples but believed “marriage is between one man and one woman” — likely in an effort to court conservative moderate voters and avoid GOP anti-gay attacks. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer even dishonestly claimed that Obama’s 1996 statement had been forged, but Pfeiffer’s claim was later walked back by a White House spokesperson.
Barack Obama publicly declared his support for same-sex marriage in a May 9, 2012 interview with ABC News, making him the first sitting U.S. president to do so. He also appointed two Supreme Court justices — Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — who both voted in favor of the landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
Greater Than’s website also features what appears to be an AI-generated image of a Black teenage boy looking sad and troubled, while his oblivious and uncaring white gay dads hold hands in the background.
It’s notable that a campaign seemingly entirely run by white Christian conservatives would misrepresent the only Black president’s words and then fabricate a computer-generated photo-realistic image of a Black boy menaced by gay men in order to gain sympathy from Black community members and people who care about children’s well-being; essentially treating Black people as puppets and props.
Katy Faust, the anti-marriage-equality activist behind the campaign, has also peddled decades-old anti-gay smears insinuating that LGBTQ+ people harm kids.
“There is a direct connection between gay marriage and child victimization,” Faust recently told Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ+ organization that has been certified as a hate group. Faust has also said that her campaign’s central message will be, “Don’t touch the kids,” a phrase insinuating right-wing smears of queer people molesting and “sexualizing” children.
The Greater Than website and its supporters — which include over 47 different anti-LGBTQ+ organizations that oppose any expansion of queer civil rights — regularly refer to LGBTQ+ parents as “adults who have their own idiosyncratic romantic desires” and people who “put adult desires over children’s needs,” as if LGBTQ+ identities or raising kids were merely some sort of queer kink rather than naturally human.
Faust has also described parenting by same-sex couples as a “destructive state-sanctioned gaslighting experiment on children,” echoing language deployed by opponents of gender-affirming care for minors.
In reality, studies consistently show that same-sex couples are just as good of parents – and sometimes better than – opposite-sex couples. Additionally, a Cornell University review showed that 75 out of 79 studies “concluded that children of gay or lesbian parents fare no worse than other children.”
In a January 27 interview with Luke Martin on the UnBelievable podcast, Faust revealed that her parents divorced and her mother is now in a 40-year relationship with another woman.
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