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发帖数: 4174 | 1 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/national-organization-
WASHINGTON -- In 2008, the owners of a Sacramento ice cream parlor donated
thousands of dollars to support Proposition 8, which would ban marriage
equality in California. Gay rights activists, unhappy with the owners'
actions, posted negative reviews of the company online. Protesters also
stood outside the shop and handed out free rainbow sherbert and waved signs
reading "I love rainbow sherbert" and "It's a rocky road to equality."
That is just one of the examples that the National Organization for Marriage
has cited as evidence of the "countless reports of threats, harassment, and
reprisals" that marriage equality opponents have faced by LGBT activists.
In another instance in Washington state, an opponent of marriage equality
was collecting petition signatures to challenge a law granting legal
protections to same-sex couples, when two ladies "glared at him and one said
'we have feelings too.'" He did not report the incident to the police.
In state after state, judges are finding that these sorts of examples do not
actually constitute "harassment," and they're rejecting NOM's requests to
therefore keep its donors secret and be exempt from campaign finance
disclosure laws.
NOM's strategy is essentially reversing the traditional argument -- that gay
individuals frequently face harassment -- and arguing instead that gay
individuals are the harassers.
But four federal judges and three state boards in seven states -- California
, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island and Washington -- have all
found NOM's evidence to be lacking. Not a single state has backed up NOM.
NOM did not return a request for comment for this article.
The latest setback for NOM came in California. In October, a federal judge
in Sacramento, U.S. District Judge Morrison England, Jr., ruled that NOM and
the pro-Proposition 8 group ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition of religious
conservatives, was not exempt from state disclosure rules and therefore
ineligible to keep their donors secret.
"First, while Plaintiffs characterize their evidence as voluminous and
comprised of 'virtually countless reports of threats, harassment, and
reprisals' ... they have pointed to relatively few incidents allegedly
suffered by persons located across the entire country who had somehow
manifested their support for traditional marriage," England wrote in his
opinion in ProtectMarriage.com v. Debra Bowen, which was filed on Nov. 4.
"In addition, the vast majority of the incidents cited by Plaintiffs are
arguably, as characterized by Defendants, typical of any controversial
campaign," continued England. "For example, picketing, protesting,
boycotting, distributing flyers, destroying yard signs and voicing dissent
do not necessarily rise to the level of 'harassment' or 'reprisals,'
especially in comparison to acts directed at groups in the past. Moreover, a
good portion of these actions are themselves forms of speech protected by
the United States Constitution."
Federal Judge Benjamin Settle, who was nominated by President George W. Bush
, came to a similar conclusion in Doe v. Reed, which was filed on Oct. 17.
"Doe [the plaintiff] has supplied no evidence that police were or are now
unable or unwilling to mitigate any claimed harassment or are now unable or
unwilling to control the same, should disclosure be made. This is a quite
different situation than the progeny of cases providing an as-applied
exemption wherein the government was actually involved in carrying out the
harassment, which was historic, pervasive and documented," he wrote.
Despite these setbacks, gay rights advocates are warning that NOM will still
be a force in the 2012 elections.
"Independent courts and judges have created a historical record documenting
NOM's fake victimization crusade," said Kevin Nix, spokesman for the Human
Rights Campaign. "But make no mistake: the group remains a tour de force
next year when it comes to stopping marriage equality and electing anti-
equality candidates at the federal and state levels -- particularly under
the leadership of NOM's extremist new chairman."
Presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick
Santorum have all signed NOM's pledge committing to pushing for a federal
constitutional amendment banning marriage equality.
A less-noticed part of that pledge also binds the presidential contenders to
setting up a "presidential commission on religious liberty to investigate
and document reports of Americans who have been harassed or threatened for
exercising key civil rights to organize, to speak, to donate or to vote for
marriage and to propose new protections, if needed."
"Many of the Republican presidential hopefuls were duped into taking NOM's
pledge that is substantively and morally empty, one which is based on claims
that have been soundly rejected by even conservative federal judges," said
HRC President Joe Solmonese. "I urge the candidates to reconsider and
retract their pledge. It's doubtful that most Americans would look fondly
upon a candidate whose plan is to walk into the White House with a plan to
launch baseless investigations of their fellow citizens."
NOM has faced losses like the ones in Washington and California in five
other states.
In Maine, NOM spent $1.8 million to oppose the referendum on marriage
equality, according to the website NOMExposed.org, which is a project of the
Human Rights Campaign the Courage Campaign. In March, the 1st Circuit Court
of Appeals sided with the Maine Ethics Commission and ruled that the group
needed to disclose its donors.
"These [disclosure] provisions neither erect a barrier to political speech
nor limit its quantity," the appeals court opinion stated. "Rather, they
promote the dissemination of information about those who deliver and finance
political speech, thereby encouraging efficient operation of the
marketplace of ideas."
In Minnesota, the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board
rejected NOM's request to keep its donors secret, following a court ruling
finding the same.
NOM wanted to run ads in support of Republican Carl Paladino's failed bid
for New York governor in 2010, but it didn't want to register as a political
action committee and therefore be required to disclose its donors. In 2010,
a federal judge rejected NOM's argument.
The First Circuit Court upheld a ruling by a Rhode Island court, which
upheld the application of the state's disclosure laws to NOM's anti-gay
marriage campaign spending in 2011.
A state board in Iowa informed NOM in 2009 that it would have to disclose
its donors after the group sent a nationwide email to supporters asking for
donations to be used in a ballot campaign against gay marriage in the state
with a helpful reminder: "best of all, NOM has the ability to protect donor
identities." |
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