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Carrie Prejean And David Tyree Were NOM’s ‘Glamorous Non-Cognitive Elite’
Beauty queen Carrie Prejean and football star David Tyree were merely two pawns in Maggie Gallagher‘s palms, fulfilling a corporate strategy and directive to use “artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous non-cognitive elites” to advance their message that same-sex marriage is wrong. Yes, the scandal of NOM‘s playbook — revealed this week by HRC in previously sealed court documents — includes the revelations that NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, was prepared to start a race war in order to “protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.”
READ: NOM’s Confidential Court Documents Reveal Worldwide Corporate Strategy Of Divisive Race-Baiting
Carrie Prejean and David Tyree certainly fit the bill — and NOM’s description:
Hollywood with its cultural biases is far bigger than we can hope to be. We recognize this. But we also recognize the opportunity – the disproportionate potential impact of proactively seeking to gather and connect a community of artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous non-cognitive elites across national boundaries. (This is applying the Witherspoon and IAV model to non-intellectual elites.)
Ouch.
Pretty but stupid is pretty much what NOM was calling for, and in both cases, received.
Prejean, who came to “power” after, ironically, after telling gay blogger Perez Hilton that marriage should be between a man and a woman, only to lose her Miss California USA crown for (alleged) breaches of contract. But her comments and loss were Maggie Gallagher and NOM’s gain.
We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.
Of course, Prejean was wrong on all counts. The vast majority of Americans — especially in April, 2009 — do not “live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite.”
And so was born — albeit for a very short time — the Maggie Gallagher/NOM partnership with the glamorous non-cognitive elite beauty queen Carrie Prejean. A partnership that Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown milked dry, making money off her non-cognitiveness. Until, as GLAAD noted yesterday, “NOM later distanced itself from her.”
More from GLAAD:
These documents, unsealed as a part of a court case NOM is fighting in Maine also reveal that the anti-LGBT group has been actively interested in – as they say – “fanning the hostility” (p.12) between the LGBT community and the black community, and also revealed that NOM has been attempting to turn Latino families against marriage equality by framing the LGBT movement as part of – in their words – “assimilation.”
NOM is the most well-represented group on GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project (#glaadCAP), with five associated figures (Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, Christopher Plante, Jennifer Roback Morse, Robert George) among those anti-LGBT activists with profiles. And now we know that they refer to their own supporters as “non-intellectual.”
Of course, then there was football star David Tyree, the former Giants football star, an African-American who said that just because a minority has an agenda, they shouldn’t be allowed to change marriage. The irony and hypocrisy were mind-blowing, then, and now. And his rendition of the NOM glamorous non-cognitive elite theme fit like a glove.
In June of 2011, in a statement recorded for the National Organization for Marriage, Tyree stated that if New York passed a same-sex marriage equality law, “this will be the beginning of our country’s sliding toward, you know, it’s a strong word, but anarchy.”
As The New Civil Rights Movement reported at the time,
When CNN host Kyra Phillips asked Tyree to explain, he stated, “I’m saying that in the sense of, basically, morality. If there’s no basis of moral fiber, in a community, and we continually slip away, from that, I believe, that will essentially lead to lawlessness. Does that mean there will be riots running around? I don’t think, that’s not necessarily what I’m referring to…â€
At which point Phillips interrupts Tyree and explains, “But that’s what anarchy means. It’s social and political disorder, due to the absence of a government, or control by the government.â€
Tyree, attempting to defend himself, states, “I think if we look up the word ‘anarchy,’ there’s a few definitions, but I don’t really want to focus on that.â€
Again, Phillips challenges Tyree, asking him for any evidence that “gay marriage has any negative impact on other marriages or the sanctity of marriage, or culture, or children? Where is your evidence?â€
Tyree just says “I can’t necessarily get into statistics. That’s not my voice.â€
Phillips challenges Tyree on the issue of diversity, “as an African-American male, can you appreciate that?â€
Stumbling, Tyree tells Kyra Phillips that same-sex marriage is “unnatural,†and says “the original intent of a marriage is to procreate.â€
Later that month, just like Joe The Plumber, Tyree told the media he didn’t want his kids to think gay people were normal. Gallagher must have been especially proud that day.
Hopefully, Gallagher — now all but entirely divorced from her brainchild, NOM — is no longer proud. Sadly, the chances of that seem slim.
Image of Carrie Prejean via Wikimedia
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
