Jillian Rayfield December 16, 2010, 8:42 AM

An activist for a sub-group of the anti-gay group the National Organization for Marriage is speaking out against the use of the rainbow as a symbol for gay rights. “We are the real rainbow coalition. The gay lobby does not own the rainbow,” she said.

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, which describes itself as “a project of the National Organization for Marriage.” On its site, the group describes its mission statement as “to promote life-long married love to college students by creating an intellectual and social climate favorable to marriage.”

Becky Yeh of right-wing American Family News Network’s OneNewsNow, a product of the American Family Association, writes that Morse says “the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with man.” Morse told ONN: “Proposition 8 was passed by a great grassroots coalition that included people from all across the religious traditions, and also people of every race and color. We are the real rainbow coalition. The gay lobby does not own the rainbow.”

Morse continued: “We can’t simply let that go by. Families put rainbows in their children’s nurseries. Little Christian preschools will have rainbows…Noah’s Ark and all the animals…. Those are great Christian symbols, great Jewish symbols.” She also described how she wore a rainbow scarf to the Prop 8 hearings to show that anti-gay marriage activists still own the symbol.

Morse operates a blog on the Ruth Institute’s website, and recently wrote a post asking supporters of same-sex marriage: “Do you really believe that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and that gender is irrelevant to parenting? If gender is really irrelevant, why do self-described “gays” insist on having a male sex partner? Why isn’t a really masculine woman just as acceptable as a male sex partner?”

h/t Right Wing Watch.

Gay Rights, National Organization for Marriage, Ruth Institute