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The National Organization for Marriage has struggled in recent years to populate its annual anti-marriage-equality March for Marriage, with especially dismal turnout last year for the first march since the Supreme Court effectively made marriage equality the law of the land. But this year’s march reached a new low, as waning enthusiasm for the cause and what NOM president Brian Brown said were scheduling and permit troubles combined to produce a crowd of about 50.

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. Gradually, a few more participants arrived, including five men wearing the signature capes of the group Tradition, Family and Property and carrying a “Honk for Traditional Marriage” sign.

While in previous years, the March for Marriage’s numbers have been increased by various church-sponsored buses and a large contingent bused in by New York state Sen. Ruben Diaz, this year there appeared to be no large groups.

Brown told the crowd not to be discouraged by their small numbers, comparing their cause to that of abolitionists in the 18th and early 19th century.

“We are on the side of truth,” he said. “We are on the side of true human rights, we are on the side of true civil rights. And in every fight for civil rights, it took a creative minority who were willing to stand up and speak truth to power no matter what the cost. And you know what? There may not be thousands of us here today. 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.”

“Every year, we’re going to be here whether there’s thousands or hundreds or tens” of people, he said.

Brown insisted that the Supreme Court “did not and could not and will not change the nature of marriage” but has instead “put a lie within the law.”

He warned that Americans are now experiencing the “consequences of that lie” and that “the brave new world that we predicted is happening,” in what he warned was the rise of “three-person marriage” and attacks on religious liberty.

He told the crowd that he would keep working to overturn the Obergefell marriage equality decision and would be ready to advance a state same-sex marriage ban to get a case before the Supreme Court at the right time.

“The court has been wrong and wrong time and time again,” he said, citing the rulings in Dred Scott, Buck v. Bell and Roe v. Wade. “And guess what? The court has overturned its own rulings that were wrong. It’s going to take another justice, maybe two. It may take 20 years, maybe more. ”

“I firmly believe that with God’s grace, we are going to correct this illegitimate court decision,” he said.

Brown pointed to his many travels overseas, where he works to unite global anti-LGBTQ leaders with the World Congress of Families, saying that while the U.S. has “made a very damaging mistake” at home, “around the world, good things are happening.” He mentioned the recent WCF conference in Hungary, which has restricted marriage in its constitution, and travels to Romania and Taiwan, where he met recently with activists working to overturn a court ruling granting marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Longtime NOM strategist Frank Schubert also addressed the rally, calling the Obergefell decision “anti-constitutional” and “illegitimate” and saying that “it will only take one new justice on the Supreme Court” to reverse it.

Brown also invited three African-American anti-marriage-equality activists to speak, including Eric Wallace of Freedom’s Journal Institute, a cosponsor of the march. Wallace hosted a Black Conservative Summit in Washington this week that was billed as a regional event for Brown’s World Congress of Families.

Another participant in Wallace’s summit, Denise Walker of Everlasting Light Ministries, told the NOM crowd that Americans in general, and African-Americans in particular, have turned their back on the “God who delivered us out of slavery” and “later brought the Civil Right’s Movement.”

“We left God,” she said, “then we allowed ourselves to be aligned with ungodly movements. This gay rights movement is ungodly, it’s from the pit of hell.”

The Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg published a post on the FRC’s blog today urging the Senate to grill Kristin Goodwin about any “homosexual conduct” she may have engaged in prior to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2011.

As we noted last week, anti-LGBTQ activists are up in arms over Goodwin’s nomination to serve as a commandant of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy because she is a lesbian. In his post, Sprigg urged Senate Republicans to make Goodwin’s sexual history a focus of questions during her confirmation hearing.

Sprigg states that, contrary to popular belief, the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell regulations enacted by the Department of Defense under President Bill Clinton in 1994 differed from the law that was enacted by Congress at the time regarding the issue of homosexuality in the military.

DOD regulations declared that “sexual orientation is considered a personal and private matter, and homosexual orientation is not a bar to service entry or continued service unless manifested by homosexual conduct,” and Sprigg notes that, under the law, engaging in “homosexual conduct” was grounds for dismissal:

"The law also declared flatly that “A member of the armed forces shall be separated from the armed forces” [emphasis added] if it was found: (1) That the member has engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in a homosexual act or acts . . .

(2) That the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect . . .

(3) That the member has married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex.

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The actual law enacted by Congress, however, made clear that all three elements of a “homosexual orientation”—attractions, conduct, and self-identification—remained problematic for the military. The statement, “The presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity [emphasis added] or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk,” addresses sexual attractions. And both the conduct (“the member has engaged in . . . a homosexual act”) and the self-identification (“the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual”) remained grounds for separation from military service. This was the state of the law until September 2011."

Goodwin graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1993 and Sprigg argues that if she engaged in any “homosexual conduct” prior to 2011, then she violated the law and is incapable of upholding the Air Force Honor Code.

As such, he insists that the Senate question Goodwin on this matter during its hearings:

"In light of this, it should be clear that the issue involving Goodwin’s integrity is not just limited to how she may or may not have answered a question in 1993 or 1994. Whether she complied with federal law regarding eligibility for military service relates to both her sexual conduct and her sexual attractions at any point up until September 2011.

To be specific—if anyone at any point during Goodwin’s accession into the military and the repeal of the 1993 law in 2011, engaged in a homosexual act, they would have been in violation of the law (both the 1993 law and possibly the law against sodomy in the Uniform Code of Military Justice) and subject to separation from the military. If, during that time, a person experienced same-sex sexual attractions, it could be interpreted as “a propensity . . . to engage in homosexual acts.”

In my research on Goodwin’s career, I have not found any published evidence that she violated the law. [Mikey] Weinstein, citing a source he says spoke with Goodwin, declared in his complaint that Goodwin “relates that she did not become aware of her sexual orientation until well after DADT went into effect.”

However, there is nothing to prevent members of the Senate from raising these questions, as well as questions about her commitment to freedom of speech and religion for cadets. They may be crucial to determining whether she is suitable for promotion, or fit to command the Air Force Academy—and, as God and Country pointed out, to oversee its honor code."