#2336: Jennifer Thieme

A.k.a. Jennifer Thieme Johnson

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is the belligerently bigoted antigay organization led by Brian Brown. The Ruth Institute was established as one of their projects for conducting youth outreach, and aims to halt the “sexual revolution” (a catch-all concept on the Christian Right to describe an alleged conspiracy to undermine the “traditional” heterosexual family in the name of sexual freedom), though it serves largely as a vehicle for spreading the Catholic right-wing Gospel of its founder, Jennifer Roback Morse. Jennifer Thieme is – or at least was at some point – its Director of Finance & Advancement.

Thieme has voiced her worry (in 2013) that marriage equality laws will mean that no one can be a bride or a groom ever again, claiming that in states that recognize same-sex marriages “no woman gets to be a bride and no man gets to be a groom,” which may come as a surprising piece of information to those married in those states. But Thieme also perceived a larger socialist conspiracy: “The state will not likely give up the increased power it gets over individuals, children, and the church as this change gains traction,” wrote Thieme, urging libertarians not to back gay rights because “socialists support it.” Apparently “redefining marriage” also “redefines parenthood”, meaning that, if gay people are allowed to be parents, the institution of parenthood is in jeopardy. There are, in other words, some fundamental distinctions Thieme struggles to get completely clear. She has also argued that the pride flag is a corruption of the American flag because the pride flag contains stripes (do check that link for some good examples of fantastically tortured reasoning).

Diagnosis: We don’t really know what Thieme is up to these days, and she seems to be a pretty minor character, but NOM and the Ruth Institute are still around, and Thieme’s idiocy remains fairly representative, so we think she merits an entry.