NOM’s Brian Brown Urges Nuclear Option So Gorsuch Can Help Overturn Roe, Marriage Equality

Anti-LGBTQ activist Brian Brown said in an email on Monday that Republican senators should do “whatever it takes” to confirm Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Brown heads two anti-equality groups, the National Organization for Marriage and the International Organization for the Family. He said that confirming Gorsuch is the first step in NOM’s plan for reversing the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision:

As you know, the path to reversing the illegitimate, anti-constitutional ruling of the Supreme Court redefining marriage begins with the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch. Once he becomes a justice, we will likely be only one vote shy of reversing this horrible decision.

Brown asked supporters to sign a petition urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to support a change to Senate rules—the so-called “nuclear option”—to help Gorsuch “sail to confirmation.”

Gorsuch may have stonewalled senators’ efforts to help the public learn what he thinks about important constitutional questions, but as we have noted before, his Religious Right supporters are absolutely convinced that he’ll help them achieve their goals of reversing marriage equality and overturning Roe v. Wade. Here’s some language from the petition Brown is promoting:

Judge Gorsuch’s record shows that he is committed to stopping judicial activism and interpreting cases on the basis of what the constitution actually says rather than on the basis of an ideological bias or of a desire to legislate from the bench. Such judicial activism has been evident in many decisions of the last several decades, including notably the fateful Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in 1973 and the much more recent Obergefell decision that sought to supplant a radical redefinition of marriage for what marriage intrinsically is: the union of one man and one woman. Like Justice Scalia whom he will replace, Judge Gorsuch surely sees the errors of these decisions and, if given the opportunity, will rule to overturn them and put our country back on the right track of respecting life and marriage.