4-10-09, 11:09 am

In a statement exposing falsehoods contained in a TV ad against marriage equality produced by an anti-gay coalition, LGBT civil rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) accused the group of hiring actors to invent or distort social issues related to the question of same-sex marriage.

The National Organization for Marriage is set to run an expensive TV ad campaign on major cable news outlets in selected markets in the coming days. The ads will describe purported problems ordinary people encounter when opposing marriage for all people.

“What’s next for the National Organization for Marriage? Will they hire legendary infomercial pitchman Ron Popeil to hawk their phony agenda?” said Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Brad Luna. “This ad is full of outrageous falsehoods – and they don’t even come out of the mouths of real people.”

HRC established a new interactive website, , to counter some of the claims in the anti-gay attack ads and to help LGBT couples provide a real perspective on the issue.

A recent press release from HRC rebuts some of the myths and falsehoods in the TV ads. The general argument of the ad is that the push for marriage equality isn’t just about rights for same-sex couples, it’s about imposing contrary values on people of faith.

The ads cite three examples where the 'homosexual agenda' undermined their religious freedoms. In one example, a California doctor claimed that she was forced to choose between her faith and her job after a court ruled that she could not discriminate against a lesbian by refusing to treat her. But the doctor chose a profession that promises to “first, do no harm,” and the law requires her to treat a patient in need regardless of her religious beliefs. 'The law does not, and cannot, dictate her faith – it can only insist that she follow her oath as a medical professional,' HRC said.

In a second incident, a member of New Jersey church group described being punished by the state for refusing to allow a beachside pavilion that it rents out to the general public to be used for civil union ceremonies. But New Jersey law does not challenge the church organization’s beliefs about homosexuality, it merely required that a pavilion that had been open to the public for years comply with laws protecting everyone from discrimination, including gays and lesbians.

In a third example, a Massachusetts parent claims to be forced to stand by helpless after unsuccessfully suing to end public school discussions of family diversity, including of same-sex couples. In this situation, the parent was not stopped from disagreeing or teaching her beliefs at home, or even educating her child in a setting that is more in line with her faith traditions. She simply was not allowed to dictate the curriculum for all students based on her religious views.

According to the HRC statement, 'All three examples involve religious people who enter the public sphere, but don’t want to abide by the general non-discriminatory rules everyone else does.' The authorities in each case, HRC added, never hindered or mandated the personal religious beliefs of the people involved. On the contrary, each situation described in the TV ads appears to be a case where authorities prevented one person or group from imposing personal religious views on others or treating others unfairly in the public arena.

In addition to revealing the facts behind the claims in the ads, HRC also exposed the fact that the group behind the ads hired actors to portray the supposedly real life incidents described. Part of this expose was revealed in a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show, April 9th.

See a video of this segment here (starts at about 2:10):