(Today our team is coming to you from Rochester, MN, home of the Mayo Clinic and 153 miles southeast of yesterday's visit in St. Cloud (they actually had to drive back through St. Paul, where we were on Wednesday, to get here!). If you missed yesterday' s dueling rallies in St. Cloud, MN, you can find coverage here. You can also find coverage from the big rallies in St. Paul, including video of an especially moving equality rally under the rotunda in the Minnesota State Capitol, by clicking here and here -Adam)

By Arisha Michelle Hatch

The NOM rally has just begun and not many people – be they NOM supporters or equality activists – have found their way to this rural Minnesota church- the New Life Worship Center, which is set in the middle of a large green pasture.

We count a total of 18 NOM attendees, 9 NOM staffers/volunteers, and 2 priests in yet another parking lot:

(And yes, that's our old friend, Minnesota Family Council's Chuck Darrell, of yesterday's interview fame, who is speaking)

This recalls the #NOMTurnoutFAIL at the parking lot in Lima, Ohio:

This event was like that, only with more priests. Actually, if you look at the two images, there's not a lot of difference.

7 pro-equality supporters stand about 1,000 feet away in this very remote and rural location. We're in the parking lot witnessing the event. However, the Rochester Olmstead Central Command, a mid-sized RV unit filled presumably with police officers, found the New Life Worship Center just fine; we counted seven police officers.

The local NBC affiliate came to interview Brian Brown, but drove off just before the rally began. One other non-NOM camera crew here.

More to come…

UPDATE BY ARISHA (10:48 PST): In the middle of the rally. The sound system went ironically as Brown spoke of being silenced by equality activists. Whoops. Nonetheless, he kept talking until the sound was quickly repaired.

Our old friend, Chuck Darryl, just finished speaking. He stuck to his traditional talking points speech from St. Cloud, veering completely off-message only once.

\"There's this revisionist notion that faith stops [at the church],\" Darrell began. \"They believe the lie about the separation of church and state… and what happens is there's no Christian biblical mindset or voice.\"

UPDATE BY ADAM (11:26 PST): Here's one of the pro-equality supporters, Bob Werner, being interviewed by the local Channel 6 news:

Phyllis has the video of the interview, which we'll have up later today.

UPDATE BY ADAM (12:02 PST): A really weird quote from Brian Brown at today's rally (h/t LLB from the comments):

If we do not stand up for marriage we will be treated under the law as bigots.

One interpretation is that this plays along with NOM's effort to paint themselves as the poor, oppressed minority standing up for \"civil rights\". E.g., if Brown and his comrades do not \"stand up\" for marriage by using that frame, the rest of the world will see them as bigots denying freedom and equality to their peers.

Or, another interpretation from Str8 AlEye Mikael in the comments:

\"If laws protecting gays are passed, we will have to confess to our true nature, and we will be held lawfully accountable for the ways in which we treat those different from ourselves!\" There's a word for that, and I think it rhymes with spigot…

Also, I will have video coming of a today's chat between Arisha and Brian Brown (it's a lengthy one), as well as video of the local TV interview with Bob Werner, a local equality supporter.

UPDATE BY ADAM (1:05 PST): Remarkable quote #2:

\"It is 1972 for marriage. This is the same as the time as before Roe v. Wade. . . . What if William Wilberforce listened to those telling him not to bring his religion into the public square?\"

Right, because same-sex marriage equality is the same thing as the slave trade. William Wilberforce was a prominent British abolitionist.