"This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California, to the New York Island,
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream Waters,
This land was made for you and me..."

Have you heard about how Peter, Paul & Mary -- one of the most famous musical groups of the 1960s -- just stood up to the National Organization for Marriage?

It all started when participants on the Courage Campaign Institute's Prop 8 Trial Tracker web site noticed that NOM was playing Peter, Paul & Mary's version of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" at their anti-equality rallies.

Kathleen Perrin, a frequent commenter on the Prop 8 Trial Tracker, was stunned and deeply offended that NOM was using this beautiful folk song to drown out the chants of equality counter-protesters. Kathleen knew that Woody Guthrie and Peter, Paul & Mary unequivocally supported justice and equality for all. So she contacted Peter Yarrow, one of the performers in the group along with Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers (Travers passed away in 2009).

Peter Yarrow responded to Kathleen, saying use of the song by NOM was "heartbreaking" and then sent a cease-and-desist to NOM, telling them to stop playing their song.

But Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey didn't stop there. On behalf of "Peter, Paul & Mary," their letter went on to make an impassioned defense of the freedom to marry: 

"We strongly support the rights of all gays and lesbians to enjoy the rights and rituals of marriage that are enjoyed by their straight counterparts, and consider the abridgement of this right contrary to the sense of equal protection and fairness inherent in, and applied by, the law of the Constitution of the United States."

Click here now to read the cease-and-desist letter to NOM from Peter, Paul & Mary. Then add your name to our card thanking them for taking a stand for marriage equality against NOM. We'll deliver your signature to Peter, Paul & Mary, along with the signatures of thousands of other Courage Campaign community members. DEADLINE: Friday, 5 p.m.:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/ThankYouPPM

In a guest post on Courage's Prop 8 Trial Tracker web site, Kathleen Perrin wrote:

"All along the NOM tour we saw, time and again, how NOM inverted the truth, portraying themselves as the oppressed instead of the oppressor. NOM's president Brian Brown even made the outrageous claim that he follows in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr. as the leader of a new civil rights movement."

NOM's playing of "This Land Is Your Land" at their rallies is just as Orwellian -- a twisted version of the truth.

Will you stand by Peter, Paul & Mary as they tell NOM to cease using this recording in a way that associates these staunch supporters of marriage equality with NOM's offensive anti-equality agenda? Just click here now to add your name. DEADLINE: Friday, 5 p.m.:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/ThankYouPPM

Thank you for standing in solidarity with Peter, Paul & Mary. Together, we'll stop NOM.

Eden James
Managing Director, Courage Campaign Institute 

Courage Campaign Institute is a part of the Courage Campaign's multi-issue online organizing network that empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots supporters to push for progressive change and full equality in California and across the country. To get involved in the Courage Campaign Institute, visit "Testimony: Equality on Trial" -- our year-long campaign to bring the Prop 8 trial into the lives of Americans.

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