NOM's Hate March Flops, Less Than 50 Attend Event

Calling last weekend's "March for Marriage" in Washington, D.C. a massive failure would be a falsehood. With less than 50 participants showing up for the anti-LGBT event, there was nothing "massive" about it.

Maybe if it rained as forecasted, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) could have blamed the elements for the dismal attendance at their latest (and most likely last) annual March for Marriage. But the weather cooperated and the hate show went on as schedule. But it ended up being a show without an audience.

A report published by Right Wing Watch described the sparsely attended event as follows:

Fifteen minutes before the event was scheduled to begin, about 20 adults were milling around an empty stage while several children worked to unfurl large red and blue banners to carry during the march. One passerby wondered whether they were going to a kite festival.

Erroneously likening his anti-LGBT followers' cause to that of slave abolitionists from the 19th century, NOM president Brian Brown addressed the low turnout "elephant" in the room.

"There may not be thousands of us here today," he said to the gaggle of participants. "It doesn't matter. There were only a few that stood with William Wilberforce when he stood up and said 'no' to the slave trade in England. He was mocked, he was derided, he was laughed at. We remember him as a hero now, because ultimately his life's work was successful, but it wasn't successful in his own lifetime."

Outside of participants, what was noticeably absent from this year's march was the presence of major speakers. Once a platform for the anti-LGBT likes of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, the best NOM could scrape up last weekend was a smattering of no-names from Brown's other anti-LGBT organization the World Congress of Families.

Once a destination event that drew thousands of "traditional marriage" supporters, NOM's annual march has been on the steady decline in recent years.

In 2014, following the United States Supreme Court's decision rolling back parts of the Defense of Marriage Act, the event drew less than 2,000 participants. In 2016, after a one-year hiatus following the high court's decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the march returned with fewer than 250 in the crowd. With less than 50 in attendance this year, conventional wisdom would dictate that the event has run its course.

But conventional (or any other kind of) wisdom isn't what a group like NOM is built on. And Brown promised his minions that the event would be back.

"Every year, we're going to be here whether there's thousands or hundreds or tens" of people,�he said.