"A group that opposes same-sex marriage wants to run TV ads in the Rhode Island governor's race, but doesn't want to comply with state campaign finance laws, so it's suing in federal court.posted by ericb at 12:43 PM on September 30, 2010 [1 favorite]
In a lawsuit [PDF] filed last week against the state, the National Organization for Marriage says it should not have to report its expenditures or comply with spending limits or bans that are required for political action committees.
The group -- which held a rally against gay marriage on the State House lawn in July, sparking a counter-rally -- argues it shouldn't be considered a PAC, and says the rules for PACs are burdensome and interfere with free speech.
Rhode Island is one of two New England states that does not allow same-sex marriage. The group also wants to run ads for General Assembly races."
"NOM’s tactic — flout an individual state’s campaign finance laws by failing to register as a PAC and to report its donors, then sue the state for interfering with free speech if its election board attempts to force the group to comply — is pretty standard fare by now. The group is engaged in similar lawsuits in California and Maine, and it’s currently refusing to register as PAC despite its political activity in the state of Minnesota as well.posted by ericb at 12:46 PM on September 30, 2010 [4 favorites]
Most independent observers predict NOM’s challenges will eventually fail — the group has already lost a similar case in the Supreme Court regarding disclosure of its political activity in the state of Washington — but the group’s plan, for now, seems to be to delay as long as possible. It’s got deep enough pockets to fight these cases in the courts for months — or even years — allowing its political spending in state races, meanwhile, to go undisclosed until long after the elections in question have been decided." *
“NOM Exposed builds off the success of Courage Campaign’s NOM Tour Tracker – a blog of first-hand accounts, photos and videos chronicling NOM’s ‘2010 Summer for Marriage—One Man, One Woman’ bus tour of 17 states. The Courage Campaign deployed three staffers to follow NOM’s tour and file reports from the road, generating more than one-million page views and more than 15,000 comments. During the course of the tour, federal courts declared two of NOM’s top policy priorities – California’s Proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act – unconstitutional.posted by ericb at 1:18 PM on September 30, 2010
The NOM Tour Tracker showed NOM’s summer tour consistently outnumbered three-to-one by pro-equality counter rally participants organized by Freedom to Marry and state LGBT organizations. It also showed NOM staff attempting to limit public access to their events and NOM’s sparse supporters doing everything from speaking in tongues, to comparing marriage equality to genocide and advocating the murder of LGBT families.
‘The NOM Tour Tracker unmasked the so-called 'National Organization for Marriage' as a small and secretive fringe group devoted to attacking families, spreading lies, and sowing fear,’ said Courage Campaign Founder and Chairman Rick Jacobs. ‘With a majority of Americans and a growing number of conservatives now standing up for equality, NOM Exposed takes this important work a step further by bringing to light the nefarious connections, shadowy finances, and dubious ethics at the heart of NOM’s brand of political extremism. We are proud to work with the Human Rights Campaign on this important initiative.’
NOM Exposed, the result of several months of research and collaboration, reveals the following:
* At a time of the country's greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, NOM's financial growth has been explosive. NOM has amassed huge resources – estimated to reach or exceed $10M in 2010 – from modest beginnings in 2007.
* NOM is a highly secretive organization that tries to not only hide the identity of its political donors from the voting public in state after state, but operates in a way to discourage people from knowing who its key players and associates are.
* NOM has deep connections to the Catholic Church hierarchy, to the Mormon Church, to evangelical right-wing pastors and churches and to those who have a long history of anti-gay rhetoric and activity. These are individuals and organizations which not only oppose same-sex marriage, but oppose domestic partnerships, civil unions, hate crimes protections and even fertility treatments for women because some of those women could be lesbians.
* Since 2008, NOM and its allies have engaged in a radical, nationwide plan to flout long-established campaign finance disclosure laws. This is nothing short of a strategic, coordinated plan to hide NOM's political activities from voters. This effort has prompted several state investigations and resounding legal defeats for NOM.”
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."So yeah, if by "late-comer" you mean "ever since the beginning of the religion...."
-- Matthew 19:4-6
As Carol Lynn Pearson, the Mormon LGBT advocate who attended the September 19 Oakland meeting, observes:That's more of a "I'm sorry my hand hurts after I've hit you" apology.I think the people who didn’t see [Proposition 8] as a problem then are now in two groups: those who still don’t see it as a problem, and those who say, ‘Wait a minute. What did we just do? Why did we do it? Why is my neighbor so cold to me? Why am I still looked at differently at work? I thought this would just blow over. Is there something here I haven’t thought about?’ And those who experienced it as a significant problem two years ago still experience it as a significant problem. A problem that to many is even exacerbated because the church wants to just do Business As Usual. I know plenty of LDS people who are in no mood to do Business As Usual.
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