According to the Bangor Daily News, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and a second group, the Washington, DC-based American Principles in Action (AIPA), are suing the State of Maine over its campaign contribution disclosure laws:
The state ethics commission voted Oct. 1 to take a closer look at contributions by the National Organization for Marriage after it was accused of circumventing Maine law by not reporting the names of many donors. The group responded with a constitutional challenge filed Wednesday in federal court in Bangor.
The National Organization for Marriage is the biggest contributor to Stand for Marriage, which is leading a referendum drive to overturn Maine’s gay marriage law. Joining in the lawsuit is a second group, American Principles in Action.
Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, filed allegations of impropriety on NOM’s part with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices back on 24 August 2009.
On 21 September 2009, in a written response to Karger’s charges, NOM’s attorney Barry A Bostrom, of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom, stated their opinion that portions of Maine’s campaign reporting laws (specifically Section 1056-B) are unconstitutional. Consequently, there are few revelations in today’s court filings.
In a surprise decision on 1 October 2009, the ethics commission, during a public hearing attended by Karger and NOM’s Executive Director Brian Brown, decided to disregard its staff’s recommendation and proceed with an investigation into election improprieties on the part of both the National Organization for Marriage and Stand for Marriage Maine PAC.
In addition to the primary complaint, NOM and AIPA have filed for a temporary restraining order that will allow them to circumvent Maine’s election laws for the time being — at least through the upcoming election.
I contacted Fred Karger for a reaction to the filing of the lawsuit. Karger said, “These people come into Maine from Washington, DC fully aware of the state election laws, pay $350,000 to professional signature gatherers to qualify their referendum to take away the rights of a minority, and then have the audacity to then sue the state to change its years old election laws.”
Karger continued, “They did the identical thing in California after the state’s ethics commission, the California Fair Political Practices Commission, launched an investigation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and the very same National Organization for Marriage, whom many feel was created by the Mormon Church.”
American Principles in Action is the new kid on the block here.
Topping the AIPA’s Hot Issues page is Expel Jennings. Kevin Jennings is an openly gay man appointed by President Obama to the office of Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Education’s Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools. Jennings’ appointment, needless to say, has the extreme right’s collective knickers in a nasty knot.
The organization’s website provides little background or history, but their first blog entry is dated last May. In the complaint, the group is described as: “Plaintiff APIA is a nonprofit 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(4) organization dedicated to promoting equality of opportunity and ordered liberty.”
In the complaint, APIA states, under penalty of perjury, that it “does not have as its major purpose the promotion or defeat of any Maine referendum or ballot question,” but in the next paragraph announces its intention to to create a series of videos “relating to same-sex marriage in Maine” and place them on its website.
Here is the script for their video called Bigot:
Girl: Mommy, are you a bigot?
Mother: What?
Girl: At school, we learned that people who are against gay marriage are bigots.
Mother: No, dear. I believe that homosexuals should be treated fairly–but I also believe that marriage should be just for one man and one woman. That doesn’t make me a bigot.
Girl: What about Reverend Jones and Father Diego? Are they bigots?
Mother: Did you learn that at school too?
Girl nods
VO: Think that gay marriage won’t affect your family? Think again.
Vote Yes Graphic
Pure. Unadulterated. Fiction. The sole intent of this little teleplay is to raise unwarranted fears among Maine’s parents that their children will come to regard them as bigots should same-gender couples be allowed to marry. The scenario for the second commercial, The New Curriculum, is far worse:
School Administrator (talking to an off-camera mic/reporter–as he talks, we see images of teachers in classrooms reading from blurred-out books, GLSEN-style posters, etc.): No, we’re very proud of the new curriculum. It’s all about teaching kids to embrace different lifestyles and explore their own sexuality.
Switching from images of sex ed classrooms to little boy on a bench in a darkened school hallway. We can see an adult male (not his face, we’re looking from the perspective of the child and the view never includes his head) come out of an office, take the boy’s hand, lead him into the office, and close the door. Freeze on the closed door, which has a sign that says, “Counseling Session: Do Not Disturb”
Reporter (VO) : Yes, but is it appropriate for kindergartners to be receiving counseling about whether they might be gay?
School Admin (VO): Sure, we’ve had a few complaints, but there’s not much parents can do. It’s the law, after all.
VO: Think gay marriage won’t affect your family? Think again.
Vote Yes Graphic
The message contained it that spot is outrageously clear and panders to every parent’s worst fears: Oppose marriage equality or your little boys will end up behind closed doors with shadowy older gentlemen doing or saying who-knows-what? in private.
In the complaint, AIPA announced its intention to run these ads on Maine television, but indicated, “APIA is chilled from doing so, however, by the prospect of having to register as a BQC and meet the reporting and other requirements of sections 1056-B and 1059.”
Both groups consider these sections of Maine law to be violations of their rights as delineated in the US Constitution:
Immediate and irreparable injury, loss, and damage will result to Plaintiffs by reason of the regulation’s chilling effect on Plaintiffs’ free speech and associational rights and by the potential for enforcement of Section 1056-B against NOM and APIA.
It appears neither organization is interested in complying with Maine’s election laws. After Proposition 8, did anyone really expect the opponents of marriage equality to suddenly start obeying the law?
Click for Printable Version
And YES – Mommy is a bigot if she believes different laws should be made for different groups of people and one group doesn’t get the same rights the other group has. Mommy can believe whatever she wants about gays, but mommy can not make laws to demand the law take away rights from one group, because of her religion. Yes, indeed mommy is a bigot, because she believes one group should have more rights than another group. Shame on mommy!