They focus particularly on such society-destroying groups as same-sex couples, unmarried couples with children, divorced and/or remarried couples, and single mothers (there seems to be some real resentment against single mothers being cultivated there, for some reason).
Aside from the fact that not everyone is as interested as their supporters seem to be in interfering with the lives of large groups of strangers, what does the National Organization for Marriage have to complain about?
Originally it was established to help pass California’s Proposition 8, which prohibited same-sex marriage in that state. Proposition 8 was finally declared unconstitutional after various (most likely NOM-funded) appeals on June 28th 2013. Judging from their blog, which I turn to in times of great moral struggle (usually along the lines of “do I laugh at the misuse of statistics and blatantly wrong facts or do I cry? Let’s find out which it is today!”) NOM’s reaction to the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling was basically the multi-million dollar corporation equivalent of what happens when you tell a young child that Santa wasn't actually the one delivering the presents: disappointment, paranoia, anger, and generally pretending it wasn't true.
They even went so far as to claim (in their Proposition 8 category) that the rejection of the appeal “is a travesty of justice and undermines the rule of law and the democratic process itself", and that by rejecting a bill because the state officials that were necessary to stand and defend it had been voted out of office and the current state officials actually weren’t really feeling the whole “one man one woman” gig, the judges were somehow disenfranchising over seven million voters – NOM’s blog is very specific that those seven million voters were being stepped on by the judges for not giving them their way, yet they seemed completely fine with the nearly six and a half million who voted no to the proposition originally being pushed aside. Not that I’m accusing them of being hypocritical, oh no, I would definitely never do that.
Speaking of hypocrisy (in a manner that is totally not me reminding everyone that NOM may or may not be hypocrites), NOM states that it has widespread grassroots support – meaning that their ideals are theoretically driven by the politics of the community. Despite this, 68% of their funding in 2009 came from just three anonymous donors (source article) – to the tune of $2.4 million, $1.2 million, and $1.1 million. Another two donations bring the total up to around $5.3 million of the just-over-$7.1 million contributions and grants income that NOM declared to the authorities. Grassroots? With five donors providing 75% of their donations income, I don’t think the wider community is really behind them.
And, for all that NOM likes to scream about miscarriages of justice, they don’t seem to be above twisting a few rules in their favour. In 2010, a Washington Independent reporter called Jesse Zwick said he found a donation from 2009 of $1.43 million from the Knights of Columbus (source article) – a fraternal Catholic organisation. Some investigative journalism later, another WI reporter – Luke Johnson – found that, while NOM is not required to disclose the name of its donors, no donation of that amount could be found on their 2009 financial declaration form that NOM sent to the IRS - while NOM is not legally required to disclose who its donors are, it is required to tell the IRS exactly how much they have received in donations.
With such a large donation from the Knights of Columbus, and even larger donations from anonymous sources, it’s hard not to wonder if other large entities – religious or otherwise – that should really stay out of politics are also involved. There are various schools of thought on this matter – including the theory that NOM was set up by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (better known as the Mormons) in order to direct church funds towards passing Proposition 8. Churches and non-profits are not allowed to directly influence legislation, unless they want to risk their tax-exempt status. Both NOM and the church itself have denied these allegations, and aside from the fact that a few Mormons have been high up in NOM and some of their campaigns have heavy involvement from that church, nothing can really be proved.
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| John Eastman, leader of NOM, looking a bit surprised (S) |
The opportunity for that pun wasn't even the best part, however. On April 8th 2009, NOM began an initiative intending to organise two million activists nationwide – titled “2 Million for Marriage”, and continually referred to by NOM as “2M4M”. Now, I don’t know how familiar anyone is with the various jargon involved in gay male-oriented personal ads (not exactly my area of expertise, I'll admit), but 2M4M happens (in a beautiful coincidence) to be a code for two men seeking a third male partner for a threesome, a fact that many media outlets were delighted to point out. NOM was unable to secure the various internet resources they were hoping for, in part due to the efforts of Christopher Ambler (who characterizes himself as a "happily married straight guy") after he bought the domain “2M4M.org” and re-branded it as “Two Men For Marriage”. Unfortunately, when I went looking for it, the site is no longer active.
So, there you have a quick summary of the National Organisation for Marriage. Its blog is a strange and fact-devoid place, its campaign names aren’t thought through, it apparently has a terrible allergy to giving out its legally required financial declarations, and its “grassroots” membership is 75% funded by five donors. Hopefully as time goes on they’ll realise they don’t have as much support as they think they do (much like One Million Moms) and put their money to better use than anti-same-sex marriage campaigns.
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