Supreme Court Rejects NOM's Appeal of Order to Disclose Its Donors

While word is still out as to whether or not the U.S. Supreme Court will hear appeals of lower court DOMA rulings and Prop. 8, the Court did slapped the National Organization for Marriage by refusing its appeal from a lower court ruling that ordered NOM to disclose its donors as required under Maine's campaign disclosure law.  It will be interesting to see whether the gay haters at NOM will risk contempt of court rulings or finally disclose the sources of its seemingly unlimited amounts of money.  Obviously, it would be most sweet if it turned out that NOM was little more than a front for the Roam Catholic Church and/or the Mormon Church.  It would certainly help fuel calls for the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of denominations seeking to secretly funnel money to interfere with the civil laws.   Lest we forget, the image above shows what NOM supporters in Indiana think of LGBT marriage equality.  Here are highlights from the Boston Globe on the development:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from a national anti-gay marriage group that tried to thwart Maine’s campaign disclosure law requiring it to release its donor list, but it’s unlikely the list will be made public soon.

The high court turned aside an appeal from the National Organization for Marriage, a Washington, D.C.-based group that donated $1.9 million to a political action committee that helped repeal Maine’s same-sex marriage law in 2009.

Maine’s campaign disclosure law requires groups that raise or spend more than $5,000 to influence elections to register and disclose donors. NOM contends that releasing the donor list would stymie free speech and subject donors to harassment, but the lower court refused to throw out the law.

Following Monday’s decision, NOM Chairman John Eastman said his group will review Maine’s requests to disclose certain donors in the 2009 campaign. The state, he said, appears to have narrowed the type of information it’s seeking.

Since NOM doesn’t accept donations that are earmarked for designated campaigns, there could be zero people on the list of donors who gave specifically for Maine’s 2009 campaign, Eastman said. NOM will review its materials to see if it sent out solicitations that were Maine-specific, he said.

‘‘We'll now be looking at the narrow subset of donors that meet the new definition — the subset of those that donated for the purpose of advocating for or opposing a ballot initiative in Maine,’’ Eastman said.

Maine Assistant Attorney General Phyllis Gardiner said Eastman is possibly misinterpreting the state’s argument before the Supreme Court.  ‘‘The commission has not narrowed or changed its interpretation of what the statute requires during this litigation,’’ she said.

While the federal lawsuit has played out, NOM is using state courts to challenge the commission’s use of subpoenas in the case. A superior court justice upheld the subpoenas in state court over the summer, but NOM has appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court.