CitizenLink leans on high-profile religious-right attorney and Republican National Committeeman James Bopp Jr. to make the case against disclosure.

“We are certainly going to pursue the case vigorously, because the result of the judge’s decision is going to literally be a free-fire zone when we talk about the court sanctioning harassment of people who participate in our democratic process,” Bopp said. “Absent the prospect of protection in future cases, I think the whole idea here by the homosexual lobby is they now have a threat. They [will seek the names of donors] and put them on the Internet. So they already know they’ve got a weapon of intimidation, and without the courts’ protection, they’ll continue to use it.”

The ruling upholding California’s campaign finance disclosure laws was handed down by U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr. on Thursday. California requires political campaigns to disclose the identity of anyone who donates more than $100.

During the 2008 heated Prop 8 campaign, gay-rights websites like Californians Against Hate that opposed the ballot initiative posted information such as the names, addresses and employers of donors to the campaign. In Washington state a similar proposal saw the same kind of websites appear. There, the sites included Whosigned.org and Knowthyneighbor.org.

CitizenLink refers readers to the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation’s report on harassment against Prop 8 supporters. Heritage authors placed the harassment into three categories: vandalism, hostility and slurs, and violence and threats of violence.

Vandals also hit houses of worship. Perpetrators used orange paint to vandalize a statue of the Virgin Mary outside one church. Offices at the Cornerstone Church in Fresno were egged. Swastikas and other graffiti were scrawled on the walls of the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco, a parish known widely as being “gay-friendly.” In San Luis Obispo, the Assembly of God Church was egged and toilet-papered, and a Mormon church had an adhesive poured onto a doormat and keypad. Signs supporting Prop 8 were twisted into a swastika at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Riverside. Someone used a heavy object wrapped with a Yes on 8 sign to smash the window of a pastor’s office at Messiah Lutheran Church in Downey.

In a previous ruling on the matter, Judge England pointed out that, if there were crimes committed by supporters of either side of the debate, they could and should be prosecuted. He said, as for the rest, the heated exchanges were part of the political process and weren’t reason to limit the ability of Californians to fully inform themselves on an issue they were being asked to decide at the ballot box.

Bopp plans to appeal England’s decision once the written version is made available for review.

CitizenLink leans on high-profile religious-right attorney James Bopp to make the case against disclosure.

“We are certainly going to pursue the case vigorously, because the result of the judge’s decision is going to literally be a free-fire zone when we talk about the court sanctioning harassment of people who participate in our democratic process,” Bopp is quoted to say. “Absent the prospect of protection in future cases, I think the whole idea here by the homosexual lobby is they now have a threat. They [will seek the names of donors] and put them on the Internet. So they already know they’ve got a weapon of intimidation, and without the courts’ protection, they’ll continue to use it.”

The ruling upholding California’s campaign finance disclosure laws was handed down by U.S. District Judge Morrison England Jr on Thursday. California requires political campaigns to disclose the identity of anyone who donates more than $100.

During the 2008 heated Prop 8 campaign, gay-rights websites like Californians Against Hate that opposed the ballot initiative posted information such as the names, addresses and employers of donors to the campaign. In Washington state a similar proposal saw the same kind of websites appear. There, the sites included Whosigned.org and Knowthyneighbor.org.

CitizenLink refers readers to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation report on harassment against Prop 8 supporters. The Heritage authors placed the harassment into three categories: vandalism, hostility and slurs, and violence and threats of violence.

Vandals also hit houses of worship. Perpetrators used orange paint to vandalize a statue of the Virgin Mary outside one church. Offices at the Cornerstone Church in Fresno were egged. Swastikas and other graffiti were scrawled on the walls of the Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco, a parish known widely as being “gay-friendly.” In San Luis Obispo, the Assembly of God Church was egged and toilet-papered, and a Mormon church had an adhesive poured onto a doormat and keypad. Signs supporting Prop 8 were twisted into a swastika at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Riverside. Someone used a heavy object wrapped with a Yes on 8 sign to smash the window of a pastor’s office at Messiah Lutheran Church in Downey.

Fear of harassment on the part of Christian groups has been a marked and ironic aspect of the Prop 8 campaign and its aftermath. At the trial that followed passage of the initiative and that considered whether the new law was constitutional, the team defending the law fought hard to keep the proceedings from being broadcast, fearing that witnesses for the defense would be harassed. Yet LGBT people have been one of the most harassed and discriminated classes of American citizens in the post-slavery era.

In a previous ruling on the matter, Judge England pointed out that, if there were crimes committed by supporters of either side of the debate, they could and should be prosecuted. He said, as for the rest, the heated exchanges were part of the political process and weren’t reason to limit the ability of Californians to fully inform themselves on an issue they were being asked to decide at the ballot box.

Bopp plans to appeal England’s decision once the written version is made available for review.

Bopp recently filed a brief with the US Supreme Court on behalf of Catholic Answers, a nonprofit group that has been penalized by the IRS for performing express advocacy against 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry.

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Wednesday, 90 days after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 48 in to law, was the last day to file 504,750 valid, signed petitions with the state. Stop SB 48 organizers announced their failure to gather enough signatures in an email to subscribers titled, “We Fought the Law and the Law Won,” in which they also state plans to keep fighting LGBT-oriented legislation:

While we did not overturn this very bad law, we built a small army of dedicated volunteers that collected an incredible amount of signatures. There will be a next battle. Despite the overuse of the term “tolerance”, there is little tolerance for those who do not endorse the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lifestyles. And there will be more laws passed that advocate for these and attempt to silence any opposition.

SB 48 opponents will have other opportunities to overturn the law, not through a repeal referendum, but through either a ballot initiative or a constitutional amendment — options which demand even more signatures and, consequently, more money than repealing the law by referendum. Karen England, president of the Capitol Resource Institute and leader of the Stop SB 48 campaign (the two entities share an address), could not be immediately reached for comment.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which has worked with Stop SB 48 to overturn the education law, told The American Independent the effort to overturn SB 48 will continue. Dacus admitted a major obstacle to gathering signatures was lack of money and resources, but he said he was impressed with how far the group got.

“No matter how it turns out, one thing is clear,” Dacus said early Wednesday, when it was unknown whether Stop SB 48 qualified for the referendum. “A broad diversity of parents up and down the state of California actually posed a viable threat to repeal legislation without one dollar paid for signature-gatherers.”

He credited a Los Angeles Times editorial from April for a large part of the public opposition to SB 48. The editorial stated its opposition to the bill based on the belief that educators, not politicians, should write textbooks.

In June, the LA Times published another article on SB 48, claiming groups against the legislation for ideological reasons, such as Catholics for the Common Good, were misrepresenting the paper’s position:

Although the editorial board also opposes the bill, it’s not because these additions would shatter a child’s image of marriage. It’s because the board doesn’t want to see education politicized. In other words: Politicians shouldn’t be in the business of writing textbooks.

Dacus said he opposes SB 48 because it amounted to indoctrination of California’s children and because it is based on subjection, politics and speculation.

“This legislation requires subjective speculation of who in history [was] engaged in homosexual conduct. It will necessitate speculation of who in history was allegedly homosexual or transgender or not,” he said, claiming that a high school in Los Angeles has attempted to “pigeonhole” Abraham Lincoln as a gay man.

In part, the law states:

This bill would update references to certain categories of persons and additionally would require instruction in social sciences to include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, persons with disabilities, and members of other cultural groups, to the development of California and the United States.

Dacus told TAI the new law forces schools to teach students “only positive things” about LGBT history, but, as written, the legislation prohibits “materials that reflect adversely upon persons because of their race, creed or sexual orientation.”

Asked about the provision of the law that requires inclusions of historical contributions from persons with disabilities, Dacus said: “No one based upon their disability, gender, race or orientation shall ever be excluded [from] history because of those factors.”

Rick Jacobs, founder of the Courage Campaign, a multi-issue advocacy group based in Los Angeles, told TAI he was not surprised that Stop SB 48 failed in its first repeal attempt, and he compared the groups in charge to “rightwing fringe groups equivalent to the Westboro Baptist Church.”

“The entirety of this campaign has been about lies and fear,” Jacobs said.

He said Courage Campaign enlisted 15,000 people to monitor Stop SB 48 signature solicitors throughout the state. The group has filed a complaint against Stop SB 48 with the state attorney general after one monitor discovered a campaigner trying to attract signatures by claiming the petition was to prevent child molestation.

Watch the video:

Advocacy group Equality California has also filed a complaint with the state’s ethics board in protest of Stop SB 48′s campaign practices.

“We’re going to remain vigilant,” Jacobs said. “If [SB 48 opponents] decide to try again, we will be there.”

“We do not Have Enough Signatures,” read the headline of newsletter emailed to SB 48 opponents by the Stop SB 48 campaign. Stop SB 48 is based in Sacramento, Calif., and is associated with the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), a conservative state policy group that encourages churches to influence public policy.

In its 17th letter in a series of last-minute appeals, Stop SB 48 organizers admitted they are short the number of signatures needed — 504,760 — to qualify for a referendum before the law is implemented next January.

Ever since the education law passed this summer, Stop SB 48 has been emailing subscribers for help and money on an almost daily basis. On Tuesday, the group emailed supporters saying they anticipated having enough signatures by the Oct. 11 deadline, but two days later, organizers said that, due to improperly filled-out petitions, “If we had to turn in today, we failed.”

An example of the campaign’s desperation was evidenced by a text American Independent reporter Mikhail Zinshteyn received from the organization on Thursday. Zinshteyn had no prior knowledge of or communication with the group, but he does have a California cell phone number. The text he received read:

Subject: Stop
Homosexual & Transgender training in schools www.StopSB48.com to Download, Sign, Stamp & Send Petitions that will Voter Veto SB48

But even if Stop SB 48 is able to scrape together enough signatures in the next four days, more problems will likely arise, this time with California’s Fair Political Practices Commission.

On Monday, Equality California, the state’s largest LGBT-rights organization, filed a complaint (PDF) with the Fair Political Practices Commission, asking the agency to investigate whether three organizations connected with referendum campaign have violated the state’s campaign finance law.

The three organizations called out include Stop SB 48; the Capitol Resource Center, to whom the the Stop SB 48 website and campaign materials are registered and addressed; and the Pacific Justice Institute.

In the complaint, Equality California Executive Director Roland Palencia suggested that, because of its high amount of campaign activity so far, Stop SB 48 has likely raised and spent enough money that would require the organization to register with the state as a political committee.

“They are raising and spending funds specifically for the purpose of qualifying a referendum,” Palencia wrote. “As you know, organizations that raise or spend funds for political purposes are political committees and incur filing obligations. Such reporting is essential for the public to understand the sources of funding behind statewide ballot measures. In addition, their coordinated campaign with Stop SB 48 likely constitutes unreported in-kind contributions.  This violation obscures the source and nature of Stop SB 48’s support.”

Both the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI) and the Pacific Justice Institute have denied the allegations, framing them as a political maneuver to thwart a repeal of the new law.

“They are grasping at straws,” CRI CEO Karen England told TAI. ”I have no idea where they got most of what they are accusing us of. … They didn’t wait for our filings to get the facts straight.”

England said invidual donations to Stop SB 48 have not amounted to more than $5,000 and neither have expenditures; thus disclosure would be unnecessary at this point, and the group plans to file at the end of the month. She also disputed Equality California’s other allegation, that CRI has failed to report as a lobbyist employer. England said CRI has not had a lobbyist on staff since 1997.

The point of the complaint is essentially to find out what they don’t know, California Equality spokesperson Rebekah Orr told TAI.

“Their activities seemed to indicate violations,” Orr said. “The question is what do they have to hide? People who are considering signing this petition deserve to know who is sponsoring that effort.”

When asked how much money the campaign has raised so far and which organizations have donated, England told TAI to wait for the campaign disclosure reports at the end of this month.

Orr also noted that the the separation between CRI and Stop SB 48 is unclear. Nowhere on Stop SB 48’s website is there reference to CRI, and Orr said the same thing about SB 48 mailers; yet the site is registered to Capitol Resource Family Impact, which is CRI’s legal arm. Although England claims she is volunteering for Stop SB 48, she still receives a paycheck (PDF) from CRI, which shares a mailing address with the referendum campaign.

Orr also said that Stop SB 48 has been untruthful about the bill they are trying to repeal, claiming that it will force all California schools to to endorse transgenderism, bisexuality, and homosexuality, which she said is not the case.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Gallagher, “who often testified at hearings and engaged in public debates on behalf of NOM, became a frequent target of wrath from the gay-rights movement.” In a statement, NOM’s co-founder said she was stepping down to complete her Oxford University Press book “Debating Same-Sex Marriage” but that she would remain on NOM’s board and “continue to work on specific projects for NOM.”

A day after the announcement, NOM introduced a brand-new project, the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance (MarriageADA), for which Gallagher is listed as being among primary staff, along with Damian Goddard.

MarriageADA is described as a ”supportive community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the  debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.”

It is a (tax-deductible) nonprofit financed by the NOM’s 501(c)3 arm, the NOM Institute.

The first project Marriage ADA is engaged in is in North Carolina, one of the latest states to introduce a ballot proposal to amend its constitution to restrict marriage to straight couples. MarriageADA is is representing author Frank Turek, who has written three books about religion, public policy and same-sex marriage. The latter — “Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone” – is the subject of a consumer complaint MarriageADA has filed against Bank of America in North Carolina. In a video, Turek claims he lost his leadership-training contract with Cisco and Bank of America because of the book.

“We want to create an America in which people do not fear losing their jobs, or any other threats to their person or property, because they do not agree with gay marriage,” Gallagher said about the new project. “I believe both sides in this debate deserve basic respect for exercising their core civil rights as Americans to engage in an important public debate.”

MarriageADA is an extension of NOM’s never-ending battle to keep its donors secret.

From the MarriageADA website:

The Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is dedicated to one, simple, and profound idea: No American should be afraid to exercise core civil rights: to speak, to donate, to organize, to sign petitions, or to vote for marriage as the union of husband and wife.

[...]

If you have been threatened, harassed, or made to feel afraid because you believe in the great, foundational truth of Genesis –we are born male and female and called to come together in love to give children mothers and fathers—Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is here to help you: you are not alone.

In an email newsletter to supporters, sent Thursday night, NOM President Brian Brown explained the strategy behind the new project:

NOM’s Marriage Anti-Defamation League is fighting back! We’ve reached out, in the first instance, to citizens of North Carolina in the Charlotte area, where Bank of America is headquartered, and let me tell you, in the hundreds and the thousands they have responded: Are you outraged that Frank Turek was fired? Yes!

Will you call the company to complain? More than than 1,400 North Carolinians, out of the 9,000 we called, agreed to phone in their dismay. 37 percent of them are customers of Bank of America.

(I have to pause to give a shout out to the American Family Association, which has also taken up Frank Turek’s cause, God bless them!)

NOM’s Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is not a one-shot. It’s the beginning of something truly big. We need to come together in love to support each other in the threats to our jobs, our families, and our rights that are now clearly laid down by gay-marriage advocates.

In the meantime, Eastman, law professor at Chapman University School of Law, founding director of the conservative Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and contributor for the Claremont Institute, is taking over Gallagher’s post.

In a commprehensive primer on Eastman, Media Matters points out that Gallagher’s anti-gay rhetoric — calling homosexuality “an unfortunate thing” which represents “at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction” and accusing gay men and lesbians of  “committing several different kinds of sins” — has been matched by Eastman’s, who has called homosexuality one of ““two new indicia of barbarism” in the 20th Century.

The American Independent’s sister site The Colorado Independent explains Eastman has defended the Boy Scouts’ discrimination against gay and lesbian troop leaders and has been a strong opponent to same-sex parents adopting children.

Last month, Eastman participated in a blog symposium sponsored by the Supreme Court of the United States blog (SCOTUSblog) on the subject of same-sex marriage. In his entry, Eastman defended the ”constitutionality of traditional marriage,” writing: “It is no denigration of one class or the other to acknowledge the biological truth that same-sex and opposite-sex couples are not similarly situated with respect to at least one of the purposes of marriage, namely, procreation.”

Initially, NOM had announced Gallagher would be participating in the symposium, but she never did. In an email, SCOTUSblog told TAI that Gallagher decided not to submit an entry due to “time limitations.”

Watch MarriageADA video on Frank Turek:

The information presented on the site, which is sponsored and produced by Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government (MCRG), is promoted as non-religious, fact-based and intended to supply same-sex marriage opponents with talking points to convert other voters, as well as elected officials. The information is distilled into 13 paragraphs to be used to generate a “personal message” to Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown; Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Brian Frosh; state Senate and House leaders; and the sender’s specific district representatives.

In reality, the reasons not to support marriage equality as provided by MCRG are based on newspaper editorials and articles and videos from religious right policy groups such as the Heritage Foundation and the Knights of Columbus. A 10-part video series produced by Focus on the Family offers myriad hypotheticals and talking points but little in the way of documented evidence that supports its intended message, that same-sex marriages negatively impact straight marriages and children.

This letter, if used in its entirety, begins by instructing the state lawmakers that, “[b]y a 54 to 37 margin, Maryland voters believe that marriage should be only between a man and a woman.” The source cited is a February 2011 poll conducted by Lawrence Research, whose president, Gary Lawrence, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and worked on California’s Proposition 8 campaign, which helped ban same-sex marriage there in 2008. The Minnesota Independent, a sister publication of The American Independent, previously reported that Lawrence Research has ties to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and was paid more than $500,000 from gay marriage opponents in California between 2007 and 2008. Other public opinion polls of Marylanders’ marriage views have shown different results from Lawrence’s poll, e.g., an Annapolis-based Gonzales Research poll showing that 51 percent of Maryland residents support same-sex marriage.

Other potentially misleading points presented in the letter:

“Redefining marriage impinges on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of action. … At least one father has been jailed for insisting on his parental right to be notified when sexually objectionable material was being presented to his kindergartner.”

For years anti-marriage-equality groups have used this story about David Parker, who in April 2005 was arrested for refusing to leave the principal’s office at Joseph Estabrook School in Lexington, Mass., following repeated failed attempts to get the school to agree to notify him and offer a possible opt-out for his five-year-old son in the event that “homosexual curriculum” would be taught in his son’s kindergarten class. The original dispute resulted after Parker’s son came home from school with the book “Who’s in a Family?” which is a children’s book about different types of families and includes a page about a family made up of two women and their two children.

“Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable parts; studies have shown that children fare best, in all respects, when raised in a loving home with both biological parents. Same sex couples by definition deprive a child of one, if not both, biological parents.  Maryland must not do this to the children.”

During a recent hearing on the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) chastised Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery for citing a 2010 Department of Health and Human Services study (PDF) supposedly showing that children of married gay and lesbian couples are negatively impacted in comparison to children of straight married parents. Franken pointed out the study actually stated that children thrive better with intact two-parent families, making no distinction between gay or straight parents.

Minnery actually gives the introduction for the video series promoted on MCRG’s site, wherein he says: “We all need to know how to defend marriage intelligently and persuasively. … These arguments are composed of common sense, historical fact and scientific research results, but not scriptural passages. … [W]e’ve taken this approach because we want to reach as many people as possible, especially those who may not believe in the Bible.”

Other arguments employed by MCRG:

• “Redefining marriage renders at least one gender ‘unnecessary.’ … Ample sociological data show the devastation of fatherless families. Common sense tells us of the need for a mother. Maryland must not set the false standard that things we know to be tragic social problems are, in fact, good.”

• “Same sex attraction is not genetic or an immutable characteristic. Ann Heche, former lesbian partner of Ellen DeGeneres, left Ms. DeGeneres to marry a man. Sinead O’Connor, a pop star who was once a lesbian, fell in love with a male and married him. Donnie McClurkin, Grammy award-winning gospel singer, after 20 years living as a homosexual is now a heterosexual.”

• “In the first three years after legalizing “same sex marriage” in Massachusetts, less than 5% of the estimated LGBT population and less than 0.2% of the total population of the state chose to enter into same sex marriage.  However despite the miniscule numbers, the result was still just as devastating.”

The treasurer of MCRG, to whom this website is registered, is Dr. Ruth Jacobs, an infectious-disease specialist in Rockville, Md. In 2009, Jacobs testified at a hearing over whether the Council of the District of Columbia should legalize same-sex marriage. Jacobs had brought with her statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and told the council members, “[W]hile new HIV infections have decreased among both heterosexuals and injection drug users, the annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men has been steadily increasing since the ’90s. The surgeon general has stated ‘condoms provide some protection, but anal intercourse is simply too dangerous to practice.’ … Anal sex has higher HIV transmission than vaginal sex; estimates are as high as one life-altering HIV deadly conversion for every 20 anal-sex acts.”

Her many points boiled down to the following conclusion: “The immediate action of passing same sex marriage bill 18482 is to normalize predominately homosexual activities such as anal sex and require their promotion in schools as a legal, normal activity and part of the sex education.”

In response to Jacobs’ testimony, D.C. Council Member David Catania told Jacobs that, by her logic, only lesbians in the District should be able to marry, since their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are lower than any other sexual group. The D.C. City Council approved gay marriage in December 2009.

Stand for Marriage Maine PAC led the successful campaign to repeal gay marriage legalization in Maine in 2009 by popular vote in a People’s Veto.

Both sides of the Maine marriage campaign are beginning to prepare for a potential referendum in 2012; yet questions linger surrounding donor identities in the 2009 campaign, particularly for the side that supported “Question 1,” which repealed same-sex marriage.

Question 1 opponents, led by EqualityMaine, raised approximately $5.7 million from more than 10,000 donors, 12 times more individual donors than the winning side, which raised approximately $3.4 million from a handful of churches and conservative Christian organizations, according to a November 2009 report (PDF) released by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. The largest chunks of donations that went to the repeal effort came from NOM ($1.9 million), the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland ($500,000) and Focus on the Family Maine Marriage Committee ($114,000).

The American Independent recently reported that NOM is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices over whether or not NOM should have registered with the state and formed a ballot question committee — which means disclosing expenditures and contributions. That case is pending in the First Circuit Court. And last week, the United States Court of Appeals First Circuit ruled against NOM in an appeal that Maine’s election laws were unconstitutional. Thus, the investigation into NOM’s fundraising is presently stalled, and many of the names and organizations of those who donated money to defeating marriage equality in Maine are still unknown.

Openly gay political consultant and GOP presidential contender Fred Karger sparked the NOM investigation, having made it his ongoing project to follow NOM’s campaign money since the organization’s anti-same-sex-marriage campaign efforts in California in 2008. But it is straight, married activist Paul Kendrick who made it his mission to follow the actions of the Portland diocese. What immediately sparked his interest into the “Yes on 1″ campaign of 2009 was the fact that money was coming out of the Roman Catholic Portland Diocese, but there were very few individual contributions from church leaders.

“There are about 700 priests, nuns and deacons in the diocese, yet only four names appear on the reporting,” Kendrick recently told TAI from his home in Freeport, Maine. “What can we surmise? Can we surmise that what Bishop [Richard Joseph] Malone did, priests and deacons don’t support this? Did they all donate $49 dollars? … [Catholic leaders] were advertising themselves as followers of God but didn’t have the guts to stand publicly for their convictions,” Kendrick said.

The Stand for Marriage Maine PAC was run by Portland diocese public affairs director Marc Mutty, who took a leave of absence from the diocese to run the campaign. Mutty told TAI that, to his knowledge, the church followed all campaign-finance rules with regard to its contributions to the SMM PAC. He said that any contributions made without a name attached to them came from plate collections. Fallout criticisms about how and how much the diocese donated were based on general disapproval that the diocese participated in the political campaign, Mutty said.

“We don’t operate based on public opinion,” he said. “We operate based on what is the right thing to do. Public sentiment is not so much an issue.”

Quarterly campaign-finance disclosure reports from 2009 available on the Maine ethics commission’s website reveal several names of religious figures from across the country who donated more than $50 (the donating amount at which point an individual’s name must be disclosed, according to Maine’s election laws) to the SMM PAC; however, individual names from the Portland diocese are scarce. For the reporting period between July 6 and Sept. 30, 2009, only Father Paul Marquis of the Portland diocese is listed as having contributed $100. During that reporting period, the Portland diocese reportedly contributed about $345,000 to Stand for Marriage Maine in 16 payments, ranging from $200 to $149,300.

Aside from monetary and staff contributions, the Portland diocese has been painted as having had significant influence on the results of the 2009 campaign.

In a National Catholic Register article titled “Marriage Victory in Maine,” from November 2009, Joan Frawley Desmond laid out how the church wielded its influence.

The defeat of same-sex “marriage” at the polls in Maine Nov. 3 suggests that Portland Bishop Richard Malone’s “commonsense” message resonated with the state’s relatively secular voters.

[…]

Testifying before the state’s legislature in August, Bishop Malone described same-sex “marriage” as “a dangerous sociological experiment that I believe will have negative consequences for society as a whole. … Children will be taught in schools that same-sex ‘marriage’ and traditional marriage are simply different expressions of the same thing, and that the logical and consistent understanding that marriage and reproduction are intrinsically linked is no longer valid”

Mutty said he’s not sure what type of role the diocese will play in a future marriage equality campaign, if marriage equality advocates are able to collect the required 80,000 signatures to put the question on the ballot in 2012. Mutty’s currently drafting recommendations to the bishop as to how much money the diocese could potentially donate and if staff members should participate.

“This is a very difficult time financially for most people,” he said. “The diocese is certainly experiencing difficulties in this economy.”

Regardless of how the church might be involved next year, Mutty told TAI he will not be running the campaign as he did in 2009, saying the campaign was “extremely taxing on my health, psyche and family.”

Future fight over marriage in Maine

In August 2009, when Karger initially asked the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices to investigate the campaign-fundraising activities of the organizations that helped end same-sex marriage in Maine, he accused Stand for Marriage Maine of being a “front” for NOM, an accusation that was rejected by both organizations at the time.

Presently, however, it appears that NOM is maintaining control over the SMM PAC.

Asked who will be chairing Stand for Marriage Maine in a potential referendum campaign next year, former SMM PAC treasurer Joseph A. Keaney told TAI to ask Brian Brown, NOM’s president and SMM board member.

“[NOM] contributed the most to Stand for Marriage Maine, by far –- almost $2 million,” Keaney said.

Keaney has been listed as SMM’s treasurer on every campaign disclosure report filed between Sept. 2009, when Stand for Marriage Maine initially registered as a PAC, and the most recent report, filed July 2011. Yet the Portland, Maine-based certified public accountant said he is not sure he will continue as the PAC treasurer if a referendum moves forward. First off, he said he has not been asked yet. If he is asked to participate in the campaign, he said, it will depend on what arrangements are made, noting that he was paid for his work on the first campaign.

Brown did not immediately return TAI’s request for comment.

The EqualityMaine PAC is representing the preliminary efforts of a potential campaign to restore marriage equality in Maine next year by putting a voter referendum on the ballot. Thus far, EqualityMaine has only filed $25 in campaign contributions for 2011. Stand for Marriage Maine on the other hand has filed a $32,411 contribution from NOM and a $25 contribution from an unknown source so far this year.

EqualityMaine spokesperson Timothy Rose remains confident that his organization will be able to gather the requisite 80,000 signatures to put the question –- currently phrased as, “Do you support marriage licenses for same sex couples while protecting religious freedom?” — on the ballot. Currently, the question language is in for review with the secretary of state, but Rose said the group hopes to begin the process of collecting signatures this week.

Rose said that what marriage equality advocates in Maine learned from their failure in 2009 was that it is impossible to change hearts and minds during a campaign. Instead, EqualityMaine has been working to change hearts and minds before a potential 2012 campaign, by talking one-and-one to voters. Rose said that two independent polls conducted in 2009 and 2011 show that Maine citizens support legalized marriage for gay and lesbian couples by 53 percent.

“[We] made a commitment to the LGBT community that we wouldn’t bring the question up again until we were statistically certain [it can pass],” Rose said.

What’s critical, he said, is to make sure identified marriage equality supporters make it to the ballot box. Having the referendum during an election year will help in that effort, he said.

Fast-forward to today, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is still involved in an ongoing-but-stalled investigation and lawsuit with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices over whether or not the group broke state law when it contributed money to the 2009 “Yes on 1” campaign run largely by the Stand for Marriage Maine Political Action Committee (SMM).

With a new campaign for a possible 2012 referendum on the ban emerging –- coupled with a soon-to-be released behind-the-scenes documentary about the 2009 campaign –- The American Independent takes a look at the case’s two-year course and what the investigation has revealed about the leading organization against legalizing marriage for gay and lesbian couples since 2008.

The investigation

Despite claiming Maine’s marriage-equality reversal as a victory, for the past two years, NOM has fought the state’s attempt to investigate its fundraising records, claiming it did not directly fundraise for the Maine campaign. Attempts made by Maine’s ethics commission to test the veracity of NOM’s claims have been halted by litigation.

On Aug. 13, 2009, political consultant, activist and little-known 2012 GOP presidential contender Fred Karger sent a memo to Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics, requesting an investigation into NOM and the Stand for Marriage Maine PAC. In the original request for investigation, filed on behalf of his organization Californians Against Hate, Karger accused NOM and SMM of “money laundering,” claiming the organizations –- along with other big campaign donors such as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and Focus on the Family — had acted as “fronts” for other individual donors who did not want their identities to be revealed in campaign-finance disclosure reports. Californians Against Hate formed in July 2008 to draw attention to the “mega-donors” in California’s Proposition 8 campaign.

From a memo Karger sent to Wayne, dated Aug. 13, 2009, speaking about Stand for Marriage PAC’s first campaign finance report:

Stand for Marriage PAC reported raising $343,689.50 during the period April 1 to July 5, 2009. We found it very suspicious that of that total, only $400 was given by individuals. The balance of $343,289.50 was contributed by various religious organizations and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. That means that individual contributions to repeal gay marriage in Maine are only .001% of the total raised. Are the proponents trying to hide the identities of those contributing to their campaign? Are they directing all contributions to existing organizations, who then gave the money to Stand for Marriage PAC? This appears to be the case. If this is true, would it not be considered money laundering?

Maine campaign finance law specifies that all political action committees are required to report the names and addresses of contributors who have given more than $50 to the PAC. The law also specifies that it is illegal for a PAC to “knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another person.”

In the end, the ethics commission chose not to investigate Stand for Marriage Maine. But where the commission saw potential illegal activity, based on the evidence Karger provided (in the form of fundraising emails and direct mailers sent to supporters throughout the Maine marriage campaign), was with the National Organization for Marriage.

On Oct. 1, 2009, the Maine ethics commission authorized its staff to conduct an investigation regarding whether NOM violated a campaign-finance law provision which states that organizations raising or spending more than $5,000 “for the purpose of initiating or promoting a ballot question” are required to register and to file campaign finance reports as a ballot question committee.

For the ethics commission, the concern was not so much on how much money NOM gave to Stand for Marriage PAC for the Yes on 1 campaign, which totaled approximately $1.9 million (though the commission did not know the full amount before the investigation began); the issue was on how much NOM spent on fundraising efforts specifically targeting Maine. NOM’s argument was that it raised money without specifying where the money was going.

The fundraising emails and direct mailers Karger provided the commission showed where NOM mentioned Maine (along with other states) when asking for donations. Karger also pointed out that NOM repeatedly promised donors anonymity in exchange for “generous donations,” with promises such as, “[U]nlike in California, every dollar you give to NOM’s Northeast Action Plan today is private, with no risk of harassment from gay marriage protesters.”

Additionally, NOM President Brian Brown sat on Stand for Marriage Maine’s five-member executive committee.

Both Stand for Marriage Maine PAC and NOM disputed Karger’s accusations through their shared lawyer Barry A. Bostrom of Terre Haute, Ind.-based litigation firm Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom.

In defense of NOM, Bostrom wrote:

NOM is a national organization that is active in several states across the country. It makes large contributions from its general treasury in several states. By “general treasury” we mean funds not solicited or designated for any specific state or ballot measure. … If the Commission were to launch a pre-election investigation, Karger will likely run ads and issue press releases trumpeting the “news” that the “Yes on Question 1″ campaign is under official investigation for ‘illegal’ activities. …  The Commission should not permit itself to be used in this matter, which could potentially impact the outcome of a free and fair election that is of crucial important to the people of Maine.

The day the ethics commission voted (3 to 2) to launch the investigation, NOM President Brian Brown told reporters:

“We look forward to the investigation because we’re gonna be able to prove that we’ve done nothing wrong. We’ve complied with all campaign finance law, and this is nothing more than an attempt to harass people who want to stand up for traditional marriage.”

Watch a WMTW.com video clip on the ruling:

The lawsuits

Brown claimed he “looked forward to the investigation,” but on Oct. 21, before the investigation could even begin, NOM sued the state, claiming the provision of the law it was accused of violating was unconstitutional. The plaintiffs were denied a request for a restraining order to prevent the commission from pursuing its investigation while the state tested the constitutionality of Maine’s campaign-finance law. The investigation went forward, and the commission subpoenaed NOM for documents and information.

Rather than submitting the requested information, NOM filed petitions to “vacate or modify” the subpoenas, objecting to them as “overbroad, irrelevant, and immaterial.”

The commission denied NOM’s request. In a memo, dated Feb. 19, 2010, Wayne wrote to his staff:

NOM contributed $1.93 million to SMM, which ran a successful political campaign expressly advocating in favor of the same-sex marriage people’s veto referendum. NOM provided roughly 62.6% of SMM’s funding.

In a memo dated March 16, 2010, Wayne wrote to his staff:

Mr. Brown also asserts that if he has to answer questions by the Commission staff or counsel regarding communications with SMM, that will “substantially alter how [he] would choose to communicate in the future.” This is plainly not enough to constitute irreparable harm. If it were, then every investigation that involves asking people questions about activities that may trigger certain regulatory obligations would constitute irreparable harm – a notion unsupported by the case law we have reviewed.

Wayne, who has been the executive director of the Maine ethics commission for the past eight years, recently told TAI that he could not remember another entity suing the state to prevent an investigation.

“Most of the time, if there’s a question on whether a political party or political interest group has complied [with the law], most respondents are cooperative and provide information to the state to determine whether there were violations or not,” Wayne said.

He called NOM’s actions “unusual.”

“I think anyone who really wants to understand why NOM is doing this,” Wayne said, “they believe [seeking the identities of their donors] interferes with the political process. That’s motivating the legislation.”

On March 3, 2010, NOM’s team filed another suit in state Superior Court challenging the commission’s Feb. 25, 2010, decision to deny their requests to vacate the subpoenas. This effectively halted the investigation.

What is NOM afraid of revealing?

In August 2010, the U.S. District Court upheld the constitutionality of Maine’s campaign finance law, but NOM refused to concede defeat and appealed the court’s decision. The federal case moves forward next month, when the U.S. District Court will be hearing oral arguments for NOM’s appeal case. The next court date is scheduled for Sept. 14 in Boston, Wayne said.

Last month, Karger wrote a post in the blog Liberaland, suggesting Brown and Gallagher could face prison time depending on the commission’s ruling.

“Some people will absolutely say anything to try to get publicity for themselves,” NOM”s counsel Jim Bopp, Jr., told TAI in an email, in response to Karger’s implication that NOM’s leaders could face jail time. “I guess it worked.”

He did not comment further on the matter.

In response to questions as to why NOM has been fighting this investigation for so long, NOM board chair Maggie Gallagher said she was not familiar enough with the investigation or lawsuit to comment, and President Brian Brown chose not to respond.

Among the materials requested by the Maine ethics commission in last year’s subpoena include: all revenue NOM received in 2009 and where that revenue came from; the identity of any donors to NOM who contributed $5,000 or more in 2009; and all communications between NOM and these donors. The commission also requested all information regarding expenditures made by NOM or by Stand for Marriage Maine PAC related to the people’s veto referendum on same-sex marriage; all communication between NOM and SMM; and minutes from SMM and NOM board meetings throughout 2009.

Most of the above-mentioned information would not be disclosed to the public, Wayne has stated during commission meetings, but NOM has demonstrated it does not even want to disclose documentation to a state agency whose job is to ensure ethics in elections and campaigns.

If Maine’s ethics commission — if it is ever able to continue its investigation — finds that NOM violated the law, at that point, the organization might have to disclose where it got its money to help Maine revoke marriage privileges from same-sex couples.

“The 2009 people’s veto referendum was a high-profile election that affected the civic rights of Maine citizens,” Wayne told TAI. “It’s important in general for Maine voters to know who is influencing elections, where the financing for campaigns is coming from [so that voters] can evaluate the messages in campaigns [that appear] in voters’ mailboxes and on their TV screens.”

In part, the goal of the investigation is to make NOM’s actions in Maine more transparent. Regardless of whether that’s happened, the Maine investigation has challenged NOM’s persistent donation-solicitation promise that contributors’ names will never be revealed.

NOM’s fundraising communications now come with a disclaimer. A recent email, dated Aug. 4, 2011:

Contributions or gifts to the National Organization for Marriage, a 501(c)(4) organization with QNC status, are not tax-deductible. The National Organization for Marriage does not accept contributions from business corporations, labor unions, foreign nationals, or federal contractors; however, it may accept contributions from federally registered political action committees. Donations may be used for political purposes such as supporting or opposing candidates. No funds will be earmarked or reserved for any political purpose.

Meanwhile, the future of legal marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Maine is uncertain.

NOM leaders have stated confidence they will be able to prevent a repeal of the repeal. Gallagher recently told the Associated Press: “We’d be optimistic about winning again if they want to put Maine through another campaign.” And as The American Independent recently reported, NOM is trying to raise between $15 million and $20 million by the end of fiscal year 2011, for all of its anti-marriage-equality efforts across the country.

CitizenLink reports:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — where the Prop 8 case is on appeal — asked the state’s high court to determine, whether under California law, marriage amendment proponents “have the authority to assert the State’s interest,” since California’s governor and attorney general refuse to do so.

On Aug. 4, 2010, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled (PDF) that Prop 8 was unconstitutional.

From U.S. District Chief Vaughn R. Walker’s August 2010 decision:

Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, as excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest. One example of a legitimate state interest in not issuing marriage licenses to a particular group might be a scarcity of marriage licenses or county officials to issue them. But marriage licenses in California are not a limited commodity, and the existence of 18,000 same-sex married couples in California shows that the state has the resources to allow both same-sex and opposite-sex couples to wed.

Prop 8 proponents appealed the court’s decision.

Those defending Proposition 8, the “defendant-intervenors” in the case, includeProtectMarriage.com; Yes on 8, a Project of California Renewal; and “official proponents” Dennis Hollingsworth, Gail J. Knight, Martin F. Gutierrez, Hakshing William Tam and Mark A. Jansson. They are being represented in part by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Plaintiffs in the case are two same-sex couples: Kristin M. Perry and Sandra B. Stier, who live in Berkeley, Calif., and raise four children together; and Paul T. Katami and Jeffrey J. Zarrillo, who live in Burbank. The “plaintiff-intervenors” are the city and county of San Francisco.

The chairman of ProtectMarriage.com’s executive committee, Ron Prentice (also CEO of the California Family Council, a Focus on the Family affiliate), was quoted in CitizenLink expressing hope that the case will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The record of this case is packed with disregard for legal precedent, and the issues of states’ rights, the people’s will, and, of course, the definition of marriage, are extremely significant,” Prentice said. “The coalition of national organizations like Focus on the Family, and state organizations like all of the family policy councils, will not be deterred on the issue of marriage, because it involves God’s heart, society’s future and a child’s protection.”

One of the groups representing the couples in this case, the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), has started a movement asking California marriage-equality supporters to petition the court to release video footage of the public trial that led up to last August’s decision, which they claim the Prop 8 proponents are trying to prevent.

In the meantime, AFER has released videos of its own, on the lives of the couples in the lawsuit.

Watch Perry & Stier’s story:

Kris and Sandy from American Foundation for Equal Ri on Vimeo.

Watch Katami & Zarrillo’s story:

Paul and Jeff from American Foundation for Equal Ri on Vimeo.

NOM’s most recent defeat on this front was in Minnesota, a state where the organization recently helped pass a proposed constitutional amendment to appear on the ballot in 2012 that defines “marriage” as being only between one man and one woman. On June 30, the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board ruled that NOM and faith-based policy group the Minnesota Family Council must disclose their corporate donations.

The ruling forced NOM leaders to roll back on a promise they have been making to donors since the group formed in 2007: Their identities would never be revealed. And while the arguments made before campaign-finance boards in various states have remained consistent — to protect donors from violence and harassment — the arguments made to supporters and donors have been much more complex and carefully crafted. Over the past four years, NOM has carved out a narrative that its movement is one of religious integrity, grassroots nobility and subject to intense persecution from violent radicals.

The American Independent has analyzed redacted fundraising emails (PDF, large) from the early years of NOM’s anti-marriage-equality campaign collected and archived by the University of California – Los Angeles Department of Statistics. NOM has used different rhetorical tactics to solicit donations while simultaneously making the case for opacity, among them: painting NOM supporters as persecuted victims and marriage-equality advocates as violent perpetrators, and telling donors their livelihoods would be at risk were their names to be revealed.

NOM President Brian Brown’s emails through 2008 and 2009, and even today, often end in similar ways, with a postscript below his signature. From Nov. 14, 2008:

P.S.: Can you help us continue to fight? Donations to the National Organization for Marriage are not tax-deductible–but they are also not public record. Given the attacks on donors, I’m pleased to tell you: You can help us continue the fight without fearing for your family in these troubled times.

And from Jan. 30, 2009:

Help us defend Prop 8 now and in the future: Can you give $100, $500, or even $5,000 to support marriage? Donations to National Organization for Marriage are NOT tax-deductible but they are also NOT public information. So you can fight back against the bullying in good conscience without any anxieties.

Reason to donate and donate privately: Religious persecution

Once speculation began to buzz around LGBT-rights groups that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was heavily involved in pushing Proposition 8 in California in 2008 by donating money, time and volunteers to the campaign, NOM rushed to vilify the backlash spilling out from the gay community. Repeated in email after email are supposed threats faced by “traditional marriage” supporters “to people’s property, to their persons, to their livelihoods, and to their place of worship.”

In early November 2008, envelopes containing white powder were mailed to two LDS temples, in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, and to the headquarters of Knights of Columbus (which donated $1.4 million to NOM in 2009, as The Washington Independent previously reported) in New Haven, Conn. On Nov. 15, 2008, the Associated Pressreported that the packages — anticipated to be anthrax or another bioterrorist substance — tested nontoxic by the FBI. The source of the white powder mailings was never determined, and several LGBT advocacy groups condemned the threats, but the LDS and NOM blamed gay-rights groups and used these incidences as evidence that marriage-equality supporters were harassing anti-same-sex-marriage activists.

In an email dated Nov. 20, 2008, three weeks after Californians voted to strip homosexuals of their newly-received marriage rights, NOM President Brown announced the launch of AbovetheHate.com, a website (which doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2008) run by NOM and erected in response to the purported anger members of the Mormon church were facing for investing millions of dollars into the amendment to ban gay marriage in California. The main feature on the site is a letter addressed to Thomas S. Monson, president of the LDS church, and co-signed by 5,583 Evangelical, Catholic and Mormon leaders. The letter essentially defended the Mormon church’s extensive monetary contributions that went to defeating same-sex marriage in California and Arizona.

“In the wake of our Prop 8 victory, gay marriage activists have singled out the LDS Church for protests, hate mail, petitions to remove tax-exempt status, a lawsuit alleging election reporting violations, and even an anthrax hoax,” Brown wrote in the Nov. 20 email. “Reading some gay marriage blogs over the past few days, I was shocked by the venomous anti-religious bigotry being leveled against the LDS Church.”

The “anti-religious bigotry” Brown refers to partly exemplified by a Daily Kos blog postlinked on the AbovetheHate homepage (no other blogs are cited). The post, written by Dante Atkins, is dated Oct. 20, 2008, before the California marriage amendment vote:

“[T]he No on Prop 8 folks told me recently that the “Protect Marriage” campaign has raised $30 million dollars–over half of it from the Mormon Church. Now, I have nothing personally against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They most certainly have the constitutional right to worship in their own way. They have the right to minister in whatever way they see fit and to marry whomever they see fit in their churches. … But when the church and its members invest millions of dollars in an attempt to write discrimination into my state’s constitution and divorce my friend Brian against his will, there will be hell to pay.“

In the post, Atkins included a spreadsheet of donors to anti-gay-marriage campaigns in Arizona and California, which revealed their names, cities, amount donated and affiliation to the Mormon church. Atkins then asked marriage-equality supporters to research top donors’ backgrounds to find evidence of support for “less than honorable causes,” in the name of creating negative publicity for the Mormon church. Atkins encouraged readers to use “any LEGAL tool at your disposal.”

Brown wrote in reply:

This sort of targeted harassment against a minority religious community – simply because they have chosen to exercise their constitutional rights to vote, organize, and donate in support of a cause they believe in – has no place in American politics.

On Dec. 12, 2008, Brown updated his email subscribers, writing, “We have 5000 courageous signers so far. (Can you sacrifice $5 a month to help us keep the message going? For the price of a Big Mac you can counter the campaign of hate directed at religious people across this country.)”

A television ad from October 2008 — again, before the Prop 8 vote — produced byCourage Campaign depicted Mormon missionaries invading a lesbian couple’s home and stealing their wedding rings, ripping their marriage licenses. The ad was repeatedly excoriated by Brown, who on Nov. 14, 2008, wrote:

“A TV ad campaign viciously attacking a religious minority has been followed by a week of public intimidations, threats, calls for retribution, and attacks on people’s livelihoods, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And this unprecedented flood of sheer hatred against Americans who think marriage is the union of husband and wife has been applauded and encouraged by mainstream, powerful politicians and organizations.”

Reason to donate and donate privately: If outed, donors could lose revenue/jobs

NOM launched another website on Dec. 10, 2008, the now-defunct BustTheBlacklist.com, a response to gay-marriage advocates launching boycotts against select California businesses that donated (or whose employees donated) to reverse marriage equality. Brown’s December 2008 emails focus on the small-amount donors attacked by anti-Prop 8 protesters, one being a Pollo Loco franchise employee from Lakewood, Calif., who, according to Brown, donated $100 to the Prop 8 campaign as an individual, not a representative of the restaurant chain.

Around this time, NOM and California-based coalition ProtectMarriage.com filed a jointlawsuit (PDF) against California Secretary of State Debra Bowen — in an effort to conceal the identities of their donors– and California campaign finance law, specifically the part that requires those who donate $100 or less to reveal their personal information. The lawsuit also challenged state campaign-finance policy that required reporting donations after a proposition had been voted on.

“Some people who supported Proposition 8 had their home and churches vandalized, were forced to resign their jobs, and were even threatened with violence and death,” Brown wrote in a December email defending the lawsuit.

NOM accused gay advocates of driving down A-1 Self  Storage’s Yelp ratings because the storage company donated to the Prop 8 campaign. In an email on Feb. 6, 2009, Brown asked supporters to go Yelp and write positive ratings for the business.

In an attempt to demonstrate that businesses were being harmed by the gay-marriage advocacy, in November 2008, the NOM team brought up the dating service eHarmony, which had been ruled by New Jersey’s attorney general to open up its online matchmaking services to same-sex couples. In fact, the ruling was the result of a 2005 lawsuit.

On Nov. 21, 2008, Brown wrote:

That New Jersey’s attorney general wanted to do so is just weird, given the large number of online dating (and, er, other) services available. Forcing eHarmony to provide a gay dating service makes sense only when you recognize what the architects of this movement really have in mind: using the law as a club to reshape the culture totally, so that people who believe in marriage – and the rest of traditional sexual morality – are forced out of the public eye altogether.

Reason to donate and donate privately: Protecting African Americans

Another oft-used NOM strategy has been to pit two minority groups — African Americans and the LGBT community — against each other, claiming gay-marriage advocates in California were specifically targeting African Americans by protesting Prop 8. NOM has also suggested that, generally, gay marriage threatens the black community.

In an email dated Nov. 21, 2008, Brown wrote:

Religious minorities (Mormons and African-Americans) are bearing the brunt of a new wall of licensed hatred, approved and encouraged by formerly responsible voices. No Americans, and especially not a religious minority, should face these kind of ugly threats because they have exercised their core civil rights to vote, to speak, or to donate in support of an idea like: marriage is the union of husband and wife.

In an email dated Nov. 14, 2008, Brown attempted to draw a correlation between former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to repeal Prop 8 and racism:

“What is Arnold Schwarzenegger, a white Republican, doing calling on courts to invalidate the votes of the 70 percent of African-Americans who voted to uphold marriage as one man and one woman?”

Another email, dated Aug. 26, 2009, discussed a Netroots Nation conference and picked out pieces of LGBT activists discussing their strategies to fight proposed state amendments banning same-sex marriage. Brown noted that a New Jersey woman making a documentary said she was having trouble finding members of the “minority” community who would speak in favor of same-sex marriage in the film.

“Maybe New Jersey minority community members understand that the ideal for children is a husband and wife working together in marriage, and that gay marriage will change what all our kids are taught by our own government,” Brown wrote in response. “Maybe they do not want to see the moral education of New Jersey’s black or Latino children co-opted to serve the interests of wealthy donors to the Democratic Party. Maybe they understand that there is something wrong when ‘civil rights’ is taken over to mean the right of two men to insist that we all view their relationship as a marriage, whether we like it or not.”