National Organization for Marriage
From Mark Potok at the SPLC:
Anti-gay activists claim that all men who molest male children are homosexual. But researchers long ago established that there are two types of molesters: fixated and regressive. Fixated molesters — the stereotypical pedophile — typically molest children of either sex, but have no sexual interest in any adult and can’t be considered heterosexual or homosexual. Regressive molesters are attracted to adults, but may “regress” to children under stress; most of them have been found to be heterosexual in their adult relationships. That’s why the American Psychological Association has officially concluded that “homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men.”
To NOM’s many critics in the LGBT community, this is par for NOM’s course. For more than a year now, gay rights activists have alleged that NOM is playing a shell game, avoiding the most egregiously false defamations of gay people on its own website, but linking directly to others who don’t. The charge had enough impact that Maggie Gallagher — who co-founded NOM in 2007, is past chairwoman of the board, and remains a key NOM spokeswoman — felt forced to respond…
Although FBI hate crime statistics show clearly that gay men and lesbians are by far the most targeted minority in America, NOM portrays donors to its many political campaign efforts as the real victims because a few who have been identified have been criticized by LGBT supporters…
Last year, three separate polls showed that a new majority of Americans — between 51% and 53%, depending on the survey — now favor same-sex marriage. That’s a dramatic change from, for example, 1996, when Gallup found 68% of Americans opposed.
From Peter Montgomery at HuffPo:
Maine’s investigation of the National Organization for Marriage’s campaign finance practices has resulted in the release of several internal fundraising and planning documents. HRC has posted them online where NOM-watchers are poking through them. For sheer reprehensibility, it’s hard to top hiring (or at least planning to hire) someone to find and exploit children who are willing to publicly betray their gay parents…
But even in 2009, the top priority for 2012 was clear: defeating Barack Obama. In order for the group to achieve victory on marriage, “the next president must be a man or woman who expressly articulates a pro-marriage culture, and appoints sympathetic Supreme Court justices.” In order to help achieve that objective, the group discussed plans to “sideswipe Obama” by portraying him as a “social radical” and by taking steps to “[r]aise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty and the federal level.” No wonder Maggie Gallagher is such a fan of Rick Santorum — his campaign plan mirrors NOM’s.
From Mark Potok at the SPLC on evidence uncovered in Maine:
“The strategic goal of this project,” NOM said, “is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots.”
Translation: Let’s get people who support marriage equality to denounce black opponents, making them look like evil racists. Maybe that’ll make people forget that the vast majority of black civil rights leaders support same-sex marriage.
Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has appointed NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, co-founder and former Chairman Dr. Robert George to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Commissioners at the USCIRF are government employees, and hold their posts for two years.
From Towleroad:
Following last weeks announcement of a boycott of Starbucks by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) over its support for marriage equality, a response petition sprang up online to thank the company.
That petition at this posting has almost a quarter of a million (228,151) signatures. NOM’s has 18,826.
At this rate, defeating NC Amendment One is in the bag.
