“Stage Fright” transcript from The Rachel Maddow Show
Original Air Date 9. April 2009; clip taken down by National Organization for Marriage:
Human Rights Campaign, the gay rights group notable for not having the word gay in their
name, has pulled off a coup and they‘re counter-organizing against a group called the National
Organization for Marriage. The National Organization for Marriage is itself notable for not
having in their name the phrase, we mean just straight people‘s marriages. The “National
Organization for Straight-only Marriage” is running a new multimillion ad campaign warning
about how scary it is for gay people‘s relationships to have legal recognition.
Here‘s a little bit of the ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There‘s a storm gathering.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The clouds are dark and the winds are strong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I am afraid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Spooky, right? Spooky.
Human Rights Campaign has done a good job refuting some of the “Gay marriage ruined my
life” stories that are in the ad, but they‘ve also gone one better—somehow obtaining video
footage of the people who applied to pretend that they were straight people who had been
somehow hurt by gay marriage. These folks have been referred to elsewhere today as actors.
I‘m going to withhold judgment here and just let you make that call.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, the storm is—there is a storm gathering.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The clouds are dark, and the winds are strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am afraid—and I am afraid.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some who would advocate—some who advocate for same sex
marriage have taken this—the issue .
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: . far beyond same-sex couples.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A storm—the storm is coming. But we have hope.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A rainbow of coalition of—a rainbow coalition of people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A rainbow collision of people of every creed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Creed—creed and color are coming together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It allows us to perfect—to protect marriage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)MADDOW: We do not know how Human Rights Campaign got access to the audition tapes,
but because they did, we do know that pretending to be a straight person hurt by gay marriage
is apparently very, very challenging.