Former Republican presidential candidate, Fred Karger, is declaring it a triumph that the Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board has opened an investigation against NOM based on his complaint filed last June. At issue is the $635,000 the group spent in 2010 and an additional $100,000 in 2012 in their successful quest to oust four of the justices who ruled unanimously in 2009 to allow same-sex marriage in Iowa. Iowa law dictates that the list of donors solicited by NOM for this activity be made public.
The Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board voted unanimously to investigate the National Organization for Marriage, saying that if the allegations against it are proven true, the marriage group’s actions would violate state law.
No representative from the National Organization for Marriage was present at today’s ethics board meeting, but the Act Right Legal Foundation submitted a written response to Karger’s complaint, saying the marriage group hasn’t violated any Iowa laws.
Karger erroneously thinks NOM “must always and everywhere disclose all of its activities and donors. This is not the law in any state or of the United States,” the statement, written by Joseph Vanderhulst, says.
The executive director and lawyer for the Ethics Board, Megan Tooker begged to differ with Vanderhulst, declaring that NOM has it “absolutely wrong”.
NOM has had a long and storied history of ignoring state laws that clearly demonstrate that they must disclose their donor list. The Human Rights Campaign has a detalied list of NOM's delicious string of defeats in the states whose laws they have tried to circumvent.
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) argues aggressively that, despite widely-supported public disclosure laws on the books, it does not have to reveal its donors and that marriage equality opponents don’t have to be publicly known. NOM stands firmly on the side of nondisclosure and secrecy.
Yet multiple federal judges and state boards have thrown out NOM-backed cases, concluding the reasons NOM cites for needing such secrecy — LGBT people are bullies and will harass NOM supporters — is bogus and without sufficient evidence. NOM has unsuccessfully challenged disclosure laws in Washington, Maine, Minnesota, New York, California, Rhode Island, and Iowa. In fact, in every jurisdiction that NOM and its allies have tried to undermine public disclosure they have lost.
Right. It is the folks in the LGBT community who are the bullies and who harass people. What a ridiculous excuse. It is clear that the real reason they refuse to make their donor list public is they fear a huge loss of bigot money if those donors names are given the light of day. Being a bigot has become very unfashionable. It is much safer for your reputation to donate quietly to a haters clearinghouse without worrying your name will be associated with them. Obeying disclosure laws would see their donor base dwindle significantly.
So far, NOM has been successful in just simply ignoring directives by state and federal courts to divulge these lists, but their luck won't hold out forever. At some point, some judge is bound to get fed up with being ignored and issue a contempt ruling leading to a Brian Brown perp walk. A gay fella can dream, can't he?