NOM co-founder: I don’t think of myself as heterosexual

PinkNews logo on pink background with rainbow corners.

A co-founder of the National Organisation for Marriage has claimed that she doesn’t think of herself as heterosexual.

Maggie Gallagher, who formed the group, which militantly opposes same-sex marriage, made the comments on her blog.

She wrote: “Not all categories that are real are founded on fixed unchangeable essences.

“Sexual orientation as a concept is a way of organizing ‘given reality’ (sexual attraction) into a communal identity, the strongest kind. It is therefore not at all like race, and but rather more akin to religion.

“I never ever think of myself as a heterosexual, nonetheless my own ideas about my experience of sexuality (“we are born male and female and called to come together in love in this thing called marriage”) are core enough to my identity and my sense of what is required for communal good that I am willing to suffer rather than renounce them, if necessary.

“They are not positions I hold, they are part of who I am.”

Gallagher has previously admitted there is no way to stop same-sex marriage, and says opponents must shift to trying to sustain a sub-culture of ‘traditional marriage’.

In March, she said equal marriage was likely to happen in all 50 states within 18 months “whether we like it or not”.