Our friends at NOM Exposed have just released leaked internal documents that show how the National Organization for Marriage is fighting the culture war. Our executive director has some strong words for NOM:
“The National Organization For Marriage has just shown the depth of it’s contempt for our families,” said Jennifer Chrisler, Executive director of the Family Equality Council. “Despite demonstrated efforts to recruit our children and dig up dirt on LGBT families they can’t find any proof for their hateful rhetoric, and it’s appalling that they would even try. As the lesbian mother of two happy, healthy well-adjusted children I will do what any parent would – stand up and protect my children. NOM will stop at nothing to demonize and delegitimize American families. So Family Equality Council will not stop until every child, including the two million children with a parent who is LGBT, grows up free from the fear that a hate group is targeting their family.”
Here’s some highlights from HRC:
Racial Politics
- NOM’s admitted key goal is to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.”
- NOM aims to manipulate Hispanic communities by “making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity” and “to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of ‘Anglo’ culture.”
Facing a Losing Battle
- They were 0 for 3 in their 2010 priority: “Roll back gay marriage in New Hampshire, Iowa, and D.C.” Marriage equality remains on the books in all three with the New Hampshire Republican legislature just last week rejecting a move to repeal their law.
Huge Coffers Fund Phony “Research”
- NOM outlined a plan to spend $100,000 on a “study of what schools are teaching in gay marriage/civil union regimes.”
- $150,000 is earmarked for videotaping stories of those supposedly harmed by marriage equality called “The Face of the Victims” project.
- $60,000 in salary earmarked for an “outreach coordinator to identify children of gay parents willing to speak on camera.”
- $50,000 earmarked for “Expert Witness Project” that couldn’t cultivate a single credible witness to stand up in the Prop 8 trial for example.
Painting Themselves as Victims
- NOM pushes the false notion that Americans are under attack: “Gay marriage is the tip of the spear, the weapon that will be and is being used to marginalize and repress Christianity and the Church.”
- Embracing marriage equality supposedly “affects economic performance, expands the regulatory and taxing powers of government, and threatens the family businesses that generate economic growth and prosperity.”
- Despite every court to hear the issue finding no evidence of any harassment or intimidation, NOM continues to claim “gay marriage advocates have focused relentlessly on harassing and intimidating local donors.”
Ignoring Campaign Finance Rules
- NOM brags that “one key advantage we now have is the capacity to protect the identity of our donors.”
- Worried about disclosure laws, NOM encourages donors to give to a slush fund for use around the country saying, “It is critical that we have a reserve fund to give to these efforts to ensure victory and protect donor identity.”
Small Movement with a Big Voice
- Recognizing that they are a fringe movement, they brag about having wide media exposure writing: “there is an opportunity for a small countercultural community to have a disproportionate cultural impact.”
It’s Not Just About Marriage
- NOM can no longer claim that they’re only focused on marriage. Their “American Principles Project” seeks to “Expose Obama as a social radical” by “develop[ing] side issues” like “pornography” and veering off into issues around the Guantanamo Prison and opposing administration appointments.
- As part of their “cultural strategies” they suggest “raising the negatives on homosexuality.”
- Their state affiliate in Rhode Island “hopes to introduce divorce reform legislation in an effort to strengthen Rhode Island’s marriage and families.”
Taking their Movement Internationally
- “The movement for gay marriage is global. The counterrevolution protecting marriage needs to have a similar international reach.”