On 16 December 2009, the New York Times Magazine ran a piece on the Chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, Robert P George. The Times piece lauded George as the intellectual force behind the Manhattan Declaration, a document signed by scores of radical religious right leaders and Catholic bishops. The Manhattan Declaration was nothing less than a demand for an American theocracy that opposed both women’s and LGBT rights, including marriage equality. Unless that demand was met, the document implied civil disobedience would follow.

Two months later, at a Washington press conference to present the group’s “Manhattan Declaration,” George stepped aside to let Cardinal Rigali sum up just what made the statement, and much of George’s work, distinctive. These principles did not belong to the Christian faith alone, the cardinal declared; they rested on a foundation of universal reason. “They are principles that can be known and honored by men and women of good will even apart from divine revelation,” Rigali said. “They are principles of right reason and natural law.”

Even marriage between a man and a woman, Rigali continued, was grounded not just in religion and tradition but in logic. “The true great goods of marriage — the unitive and the procreative goods — are inextricably bound together such that the complementarity of husband and wife is of the very essence of marital communion,” the cardinal continued, ascending into philosophical abstractions surely lost on most in the room. “Sexual relations outside the marital bond are contrary not only to the will of God but to the good of man. Indeed, they are contrary to the will of God precisely because they are against the good of man.”

George looked on with arms crossed and lips sealed. But he was obviously pleased. To anyone who knew George’s work, the cardinal’s words sounded very much as if George had written them, and when I asked him about it later, he acknowledged providing assistance. Rigali’s remarks were a summation of the distinctive moral philosophy that is the foundation of George’s power.

(emphasis: mine)

The New York Times piece continues:

“If there really is a vast right-wing conspiracy,” the conservative Catholic journal Crisis concluded a few years ago, “its leaders probably meet in George’s kitchen.”

The Times acknowledged that George, for twenty years, “has operated largely out of public view at the intersection of academia, religion and politics. In the past 12 months, however, he has stepped into a more prominent role.”

We’ve seen faint traces of that prominent role in action as the mysteriously-funded and obstinately-secretive National Organization for Marriage, fronted by Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, have rushed into state after state, frequently defying local election laws, to stem the gathering storm of marriage equality.

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The American Principles Project

Deep in the NYT piece is this paragraph:

George instead is plunging deeper into partisan politics. Alarmed at signs that the Republican Party was moving away from cultural issues, he recently founded a new group called the American Principles Project, which aims to build a grass-roots movement around his ideas. “His new venture will make him a major political player,” the conservative writer Fred Barnes predicted in The Weekly Standard. Among the group’s first endeavors has been to call for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an Obama education official who previously founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Jennings, George says, wants to “use our elementary schools in defiance of the wishes of parents, to use our elementary schools to teach pro-sexual-liberationist, pro-homosexualist propaganda.”

(emphasis: mine)

The name, American Principles Project, sounded vaguely familiar.

Back on 22 October 2009, in a post called NOM sues Maine over donor reporting, I wrote:

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

Further investigation revealed:

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.

In that post, I included the script of the malicious, anti-gay ads that APIA wanted to run in Maine.

The first ad was 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

The second ad was called The New Curriculum:

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

An article at Robert George’s American Principles Project reveals that American Principles in Action is, in fact, the “sister organization” of American Principles Project.

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NOM and the Catholics

Much has been written about NOM’s connections with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, including about the presence of Mormon author Orson Scott Card on NOM’s Board of Directors. Card called for civil insurrection if Prop 8 was defeated in California.

The Mormon’s apparent absence in Maine left many NOM critics perplexed — despite some late infusions of cash — and at the same time stunned by the aggressive anti-gay tactics of the Catholic Church first in Maine and later in Washington DC.

Given Robert P George’s collusion with the Catholic bishops, revealed in the New York Times article, a number of other connections begin to make more sense.

San Diego attorney Charles LiMandri contributed $10,000.00 to the National Organization For Marriage California – Yes On 8 on 28 January 2008 — and another $27,000.00 to ProtectMarriage.com. Limandri is affiliated with the Catholic, anti-gay Thomas More Center, served as NOM’s general counsel during the Prop 8 campaign, and sued to fight California’s campaign disclosure laws.

NOM would later employ the same tactic in Maine, with George’s American Principles in Action joining NOM — the organization he chairs, suing to thwart Maine’s campaign disclosure laws.

LiMandri also filed suit on behalf of four San Diego firefighters (1, 2, 3) over a brief ride in San Diego’s 2007 gay pride parade. The National Organization for Marriage sponsored the firefighters defense website.

When NOM cast off the former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, who was featured in a NOM television commercial, Charles LiMandri served as Prejean’s attorney when she sued pageant officials.

Writing at The Huffington Post, Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate noted the shift from Mormon to Catholic backing in the fight against marriage equality:

The Catholic Church has become much more visible as the Mormons have backed off. Maine Bishop Richard J. Malone and his sidekick, Marc Mutty, ran and heavily funded the recent campaign in Maine to take away same-sex marriage in that state. The Roman Catholic Dioceses of Portland (ME) even set up a Political Action Committee (PAC), and gave and raised $553,000 to pass Question #1. That’s a lot of money, especially when they recently closed 5 churches in Maine.

Now, last week in Washington D.C., the Catholic Church there threatened to stop feeding the homeless if the City Council passes a same-sex marriage bill. Yes, the Catholic Church will stop feeding the hungry!

Fourteen Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops signed NOM Chairman Robert George’s Manhattan Declaration. George has apparently succeeded in uniting the Catholics and the forces of the radical religious right.

The conservative Catholic journal Crisis may have been prophetically correct when it suggested, according to The New York Times, that the leaders of this vast conspiracy might have met in George’s kitchen.