NOM's Growing Trail of Lies and Court Losses

In my view, one doesn't encounter bigger liars and worse purveyors of untruths than among the professional Christian set and the mouth pieces of "pro-family" and "pro-marriage" organizations. As noted before, if the lips of these people are moving, it's almost assured that they are lying. Among the worse is the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") which not only disseminates constant lies but which also sees itself above the law. Especially the laws of states that require disclosure of donors to political campaign organizations. While whines that disclosure of the names of its donors will expose them to harassment by LGBT activists, a part of me continues to feel that the real reason is that NOM is actually funded by a small group of big money donors - perhaps even the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church or the Knights of Columbus - who realize that there could be a huge political/financial cost attached if the public learned the real truth about who is actually bankrolling NOM's increasingly dishonest anti-gay agenda. A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at to NOM's continued lies and its loss in every state where it has challenged campaign finance disclosure laws. Here are some highlights:

The National Organization for Marriage must think the whole world is against them. They can’t seem to catch a break—especially in the courts—as judges keep ruling against their claims that they have to keep their donors’ names private because of pervasive harassment by pro-marriage equality activists.

So far, . . . “four federal judges and three state boards in seven states—California, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island and Washington—have all found NOM’s evidence to be lacking. Not a single state has backed up NOM.”

In the latest ruling in California, the judge noted that the complaints of “harassment” were often protected forms of free speech including “picketing, protesting, boycotting, distributing flyers, destroying yard signs, and voicing dissent.”

It’s easy to laugh at NOM for believing that being picketed or glared at is actually harassment when gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people have faced very real harassment in the form of beatings, murders, vicious bullying that has led to suicides, and job and housing discrimination. In fact, new statistics on hate crimes released by the FBI show hate crimes were on the rise last year against gay men especially.

NOM has had to resort to puffing up the truth and trying to make legal forms of protest against them amount to persecution. NOM’s actions are simply transparent ploys to raise sympathy, and most importantly, raise money. It is obvious to the courts that NOM has not been victimized, and it should be obvious to the majority of those following the debate that no real harm has come to any anti-marriage equality activist . . .

We truly need to know who is bank rolling NOM and, if it's the Catholic Church or Mormon Church or Knights of Columbus, serious consideration needs to be aimed at revoking their tax-exempt status. For too long the courts and states have failed to play hardball with NOM.