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Filed under: NOM Exposed
What is going on at the National Organization for Marriage?
By Scottie Thomaston
This morning, Jeremy Hooper at Good As You reported that NOM wrote a series of odd, uncharacteristic blog posts and tweets that seemed to admit to past wrongdoing, attempting to cause racial divisions and banning multiple users for no reason whatsoever. The blog post vowed “to turn things around for the better,” suggesting that “marriage is about bringing people together, not pushing them apart” and that pushing people apart “is exactly what this organization has been about…” One of the tweets said that creating a wedge between the black and gay community was wrong.
Towleroad asks, “Has Jesus taken the wheel?”
Alas, no. It appears to have been the work of a hacker. The blog seems to be up and running again after a short time in which it said it was “down for maintenance.” The previous post admitting that racism is probably a bad tactic for an ostensibly religious organization to use is gone.
Their Facebook page unbanned Jeremy Hooper and other previously banned users for no apparent reason. Their page also posted a similar message of apology to readers and banned users.
Hilariously, NOM’s Twitter account has been completely hijacked and reworked. It is now a pro-equality account complete with a rainbow background image and LGBT humanity-affirming tweets. This happened shortly after they sent out tweets about a “mutiny” at NOM. How short-lived this will be remains to be seen.
26 Comments April 11, 2012
National Organization for Marriage wants feds to investigate the Human Rights Campaign
By Scottie Thomaston
After NOM’s plan to divide minorities and promote hostility between marginalized groups through race-baiting, homophobia and harassment of the children of gay couples was exposed, they at first attempted to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal at all. Then when national media outlets started reporting on it, NOM tried to continue race-baiting on live TV and elsewhere, by invoking black legislators or religious people in hopes that gays would lash out and call them a bigot. That didn’t work, either.
Then, it was discovered that when Mitt Romney donated to help the campaign to pass Proposition 8 in 2008, he sent his donation through unusual channels, making it difficult to find his donation. A whistleblower sent the filing to the Human Rights Campaign and it was leaked. Now that the memos are out and the questionable donation has been discovered, it has provided more evidence to back up the perception that NOM is desperate to hide their donors. NOM has a long sordid history of desperately attempting to hide donors from disclosure through a series of failed court challenges; in one of those challenges by a NOM-affiliated group, even Justice Antonin Scalia at one point called out their cowardice:
There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously [...] and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.
And now NOM is responding by demanding a federal investigation into the Human Rights Campaign and the IRS:
“It appears that someone with either the IRS or the HRC may have committed a federal crime by illegally obtaining and then releasing a confidential tax return of the National Organization for Marriage,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “It’s clear that the tax return was stolen, either from NOM or from the government. The Huffington Post article says that HRC claimed they received the document from a ‘whistleblower.’ But the term ‘whistleblower’ is completely inapt. We’re talking about a criminal who has stolen confidential tax return information. We demand to know who this criminal is, whether they work for the HRC or the IRS, and how they obtained confidential tax information filed only with the US government.”
Apparently, to take the spotlight off their odious tactics (and not to mention possible violations of the law, they are accusing the Human Rights Campaign of odious tactics and law-breaking. The HRC has a short blog post on the request for investigation.
65 Comments April 6, 2012
NOM’s racist tactics criticized by New York Times, Washington Times
By Scottie Thomaston
The fall out from the revelations of NOM’s race-baiting to divide gays from racial minority communities continues as more newspaper editorial boards speak out. The NJ Star-Ledger recently said of NOM that, “The NOM agenda reveals the dark corners of a movement that will do anything to impose its will.”
One of the memos that were released showed NOM’s plan to find children of gay couples to exploit by asking them to express their “concerns” on camera. The Star-Ledger says that:
It is sick beyond words that a group to “save” marriage would exploit racial and ethnic divisions, stir intolerance and fear, and even rip families apart by pitting children against parents. In their self-described “battle,” they come across as the biggest losers of all.
Last week it was revealed that Mitt Romney donated $10,000 to NOM in 2008 through an obscure Alabama PAC to help them pass Proposition 8. The donation was well-known at the time but the revelation that it was sent in through a PAC from another state and not mailed directly to NOM was news, sent to the Human Rights Campaign by a whistleblower. Yesterday, the New York Times weighed in on that news, urging the Republican presidential candidates to distance themselves from NOM and its vile tactics.
Writing that, “These are not the musings of a marginalized group,” the NYT opines:
The day after the memos became public, National Organization for Marriage’s co-founder and chairman emeritus, Robert George, was appointed by John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, to a United States commission focused on addressing religious intolerance and extremism around the globe.Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have publicly aligned themselves with the group and signed its pledge to work aggressively from the White House against same-sex marriage.
Now that the group’s poisonous political approach is out in the open, Mr. Romney and the others should be racing to make clear their disapproval.
We detect no stampede.
In the conservative paper the Washington Times, R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, also weighs in on the controversy surrounding NOM. Cooper says Republicans can’t be associated with these divisive and cruel tactics:
Putting aside NOM’s callous disregard for LGBT families, my party, the Republican party, cannot afford to be associated with an organization that arrogantly seeks to manipulate African American and Latino voters, particularly when the Republican Party is working hard to promote our message of economic opportunity and individual liberty among these communities. Crude identity politics has no place in today’s conservative movement.
It’s one thing to see the New York Times editorialize against this; it’s quite another to see a Republican group come out against it so strongly, and in a conservative newspaper. Cooper accuses NOM of threatening and intimidating Republicans into acquiesence:
In addition to crude racial tactics, NOM has also engaged in a clear campaign of intimidation against any Republican official or candidate who dares to agree with Vice President Dick Cheney that “freedom means freedom for everyone.” From threatening billboards to promising to pour millions of dollars into local elections to punish pro-equality Republicans, NOM’s leadership has set their sights on dividing the GOP at a time when we most need to be uniting to retake the White House.
He closes out his piece by telling readers that “NOM is a cancer that needs to be removed for the good of the conservative movement[.]” At this point it is hard to see who NOM has not embarrassed. Their former chair seems willing to defend their racist strategy, but we haven’t heard from their current chair. None of their supporters seem to be coming to their defense. This has been a complete disaster for their organization.
6 Comments April 3, 2012
