Tuesday, July 05, 2011

NOM and Its Spokesmen Are Skating on Legal Thin Ice

Time and time again the Christianists - and in my view that includes the Catholic Church hierarchy - believe that they are above law. Indeed, the rule of law applies to everyone else, not them. In fact, they constantly claim special rights not given to anyone else even as they accuse others of doing what they are guilty of themselves. A perfect example of this arrogant mindset is the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") which in state after state refuses to comply with election finance disclosure laws. NOM needs to either be shut down or forced to comply with the same disclosure laws as everyone else. And if NOM refuses to comply, then put its leadership behind bars or at a minimum fine the living Hell out of them (Yikes! Imagine how immensely fat Maggie Gallagher would look in horizontal stripes!). Fred Karger has a column at Alan Colmes' blog that lays out the case against NOM. Here are highlights:
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Poor Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown; what a sad couple. The front group they run for the Mormon and Catholic Churches, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), is under an active investigation for money laundering in Maine. This investigation by the State Attorney General and the Maine Ethics Commission has been underway for nearly two years, because NOM likely believes that it is above the law.
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Well, one or both of these alleged lawbreakers could end up in prison if there was “intent” when they decided not to report the source of the $1.9 million that they raised to take away Maine’s marriage equality law back in November 2009.
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You see, they decided not to report the names of any of their donors as required under Maine’s election law. That must be because they promised their contributors that their names would be kept “secret” in dozens of emails that I turned over to that state’s Ethics Commission.
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Maggie and Brian are now threatening to spend $2 million to defeat the four Republican State Senators in New York who absolutely did the right thing and voted for gay marriage just 10 days ago. Wonder if they plan on laundering that money, too? NOM has sued 23 states to invalidate their election laws so they can bully anyone who goes against them, and they do it with secret money.
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Maggie and Brian, you lost in New York, Washington, DC, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The tide has turned against you and your secret backers. The public has turned on you, too. Polls show a majority of Americans support marriage equality and the support keeps growing. So before the ice breaks beneath you two, if you’re so concerned about marriage, why don’t you tackle the growing divorce rate, and leave happy gay and lesbian couples alone?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Micheal,
Here in Minnesota, they won't be able to do that. The groups tried to get an exemption to the Minnesota disclosure laws and the judge refused.
See this article on who's spending money to support the amendment.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/83305/anti-gay-marriage-constitutional-amendment-donors


Scott