The new leadership change at the National Organization for Marriage announced Thursday has provoked curiosity and speculation as to why Maggie Gallagher was swapped out for constitutional lawyer John Eastman to serve as NOM’s board chairman.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Gallagher, “who often testified at hearings and engaged in public debates on behalf of NOM, became a frequent target of wrath from the gay-rights movement.” In a statement, NOM’s co-founder said she was stepping down to complete her Oxford University Press book “Debating Same-Sex Marriage” but that she would remain on NOM’s board and “continue to work on specific projects for NOM.”

A day after the announcement, NOM introduced a brand-new project, the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance (MarriageADA), for which Gallagher is listed as being among primary staff, along with Damian Goddard.

MarriageADA is described as a ”supportive community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.”

It is a (tax-deductible) nonprofit financed by the NOM’s 501(c)3 arm, the NOM Institute.

The first project Marriage ADA is engaged in is in North Carolina, one of the latest states to introduce a ballot proposal to amend its constitution to restrict marriage to straight couples. MarriageADA is is representing author Frank Turek, who has written three books about religion, public policy and same-sex marriage. The latter — “Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone” – is the subject of a consumer complaint MarriageADA has filed against Bank of America in North Carolina. In a video, Turek claims he lost his leadership-training contract with Cisco and Bank of America because of the book.

“We want to create an America in which people do not fear losing their jobs, or any other threats to their person or property, because they do not agree with gay marriage,” Gallagher said about the new project. “I believe both sides in this debate deserve basic respect for exercising their core civil rights as Americans to engage in an important public debate.”

MarriageADA is an extension of NOM’s never-ending battle to keep its donors secret.

From the MarriageADA website:

The Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is dedicated to one, simple, and profound idea: No American should be afraid to exercise core civil rights: to speak, to donate, to organize, to sign petitions, or to vote for marriage as the union of husband and wife.

[...]

If you have been threatened, harassed, or made to feel afraid because you believe in the great, foundational truth of Genesis –we are born male and female and called to come together in love to give children mothers and fathers—Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is here to help you: you are not alone.

In an email newsletter to supporters, sent Thursday night, NOM President Brian Brown explained the strategy behind the new project:

NOM’s Marriage Anti-Defamation League is fighting back! We’ve reached out, in the first instance, to citizens of North Carolina in the Charlotte area, where Bank of America is headquartered, and let me tell you, in the hundreds and the thousands they have responded: Are you outraged that Frank Turek was fired? Yes!

Will you call the company to complain? More than than 1,400 North Carolinians, out of the 9,000 we called, agreed to phone in their dismay. 37 percent of them are customers of Bank of America.

(I have to pause to give a shout out to the American Family Association, which has also taken up Frank Turek’s cause, God bless them!)

NOM’s Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is not a one-shot. It’s the beginning of something truly big. We need to come together in love to support each other in the threats to our jobs, our families, and our rights that are now clearly laid down by gay-marriage advocates.

In the meantime, Eastman, law professor at Chapman University School of Law, founding director of the conservative Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and contributor for the Claremont Institute, is taking over Gallagher’s post.

In a commprehensive primer on Eastman, Media Matters points out that Gallagher’s anti-gay rhetoric — calling homosexuality “an unfortunate thing” which represents “at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction” and accusing gay men and lesbians of “committing several different kinds of sins” — has been matched by Eastman’s, who has called homosexuality one of ““two new indicia of barbarism” in the 20th Century.

The American Independent’s sister site The Colorado Independent explains Eastman has defended the Boy Scouts’ discrimination against gay and lesbian troop leaders and has been a strong opponent to same-sex parents adopting children.

Last month, Eastman participated in a blog symposium sponsored by the Supreme Court of the United States blog (SCOTUSblog) on the subject of same-sex marriage. In his entry, Eastman defended the ”constitutionality of traditional marriage,” writing: “It is no denigration of one class or the other to acknowledge the biological truth that same-sex and opposite-sex couples are not similarly situated with respect to at least one of the purposes of marriage, namely, procreation.”

Initially, NOM had announced Gallagher would be participating in the symposium, but she never did. In an email, SCOTUSblog told TAI that Gallagher decided not to submit an entry due to “time limitations.”

Boyles writes that if the people who run the Republican Party lost three more IQ points “we would have to water them,” and then turns his ire on Republicans Scott McInnis and Maes, who Boyles says stand little chance in the November election for governor against Democrat John Hickenlooper. McInnis and Maes are in a heated two-way race for the GOP nod in the Aug. 10 primary. Tancredo is running on the American Constitution Party ticket.

“First there’s Scott McInnis, whose act of charity is to give away a dead elk, followed by Dan Maes, who said he’d take the elk. Both of these guys are as good as tapped out,” Boyles wrote.

After railing on Republicans, Boyles sets his sights on a list of usual and unusual suspects that he berates for their opposition to Tancredo’s positions in the past.

According to Boyles, his list consists of those who “hate” former congressman Tancredo. He dismisses those on the list roundly, saying you wouldn’t want to have dinner with any of them anyway. The list includes Media Matters, the Denver Post, (Post columnist) Mike Littwin, the Colorado Republican Party, Progress Now, the Daily Kos, Hickenlooper, Gov. Bill Ritter, Bob Beauprez, the ACLU, Karl Rove and “a bunch of people in Mecca after Tom said he’d like to bomb them if they struck America again.”

“How can you hate a guy that people on this list hate?” Boyles reflects. “Are you kidding me?”

Editor’s note: Due to an editing error the original version of this post incorrectly stated Tancredo was seeking the GOP nod in the governor’s race.

Florida U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio, Tea Party favorite, is the latest example– a man with a cause, a twitter account and really bad research staff, apparently. Rubio actually believes that half of the country’s doctors are saying they’ll quit medicine if health reform passes.

According to Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent, Rubio writes his own tweets.

Got a tip? Freelance story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

According to a release, the donations that paid for the campaign came from thousands of Americans “fed up with CNN’s coddling of a primetime anchor notorious for demonizing immigrants and distorting the immigration debate.”

The ad will air during the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C.

The release quotes Executive Director of America’s Voice Frank Sharry going hard after CNN.

“It seems that CNN’s President Jonathan Klein actually believes CNN can perform a sleight of hand and no one will notice: court Latinos with one hand, while spreading misinformation and vilifying them with the other. They can’t. The shadow cast by Dobbs undermines the network’s credibility every day he remains on the air. Now it’s up to CNN to choose between standing up for Dobbs or living up to its slogan as ‘the most trusted name in news.’”

Two weeks ago, national advocacy group Presente and an increasing number of regional groups, including the Colorado Latino Forum, sent out emails and posted a website and a YouTube that call for supporters to force Dobbs “out of the mainstream and onto the Fox Business Channel!”

Please watch the video and then add your name to the 50,000 others who are sending a message to CNN that they cannot counterbalance Dobbs’ hate, fear and misinformation with one series.

Last month we asked you to sign on to a petition targeted at Dobbs’ advertisers to tell them to stop sponsoring hate, and your efforts are making an impact: the New York Times reports that Dobbs is considering an exit from CNN to join FOX Business Channel. Now it’s time to keep the pressure on.

Will you help push Dobbs out of the mainstream and onto Fox Business Channel? Watch the video and sign the petition, then share this action with your friends and family.

Stand up to Dobbs’ efforts to paint immigrants as dangerous “others” who aren’t like “us”. Tell CNN’s Jon Klein that FOX can have him — and his hateful ideas.

The video:

challenges CNN for providing Lou Dobbs with a prestigious platform to practice his unique brand of dog whistle demagoguery.

But have you noticed something? Aren’t there a lot of white middle-aged conservative Republican men on these shows like Sen. Lindsey Graham or George Will? Where are the Democrats, let alone the Progressives and where are the women? They are all still a minority on Sunday political talk shows.

“If It’s Sunday, It’s Still Conservative” is a report by Media Matters for America that has been tracking the guests on Sunday political shows. The findings are Republicans have been guests on these talk shows 62 percent of the time in the past two years. Even though the Democrats took over Congress and the U.S. Senate, they are still the minority party on Sunday at 37 percent face time.

From the study by Media Matters for America:

The report analyzed ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and Fox Broadcasting Co.’s Fox News Sunday, classifying each of the more than 2,000 guests in 2005 and 2006 as well as guests since the 2006 midterm elections by party and/or ideology.

It follows on last year’s report, “If It’s Sunday, It’s Conservative,” which analyzed more than 7,000 guests on the Sunday shows during the Clinton and Bush presidencies and found a Republican-conservative tilt during both administrations. As the new findings demonstrate, despite some improvement, considered as a whole the Sunday shows still don’t offer a full range of diverse view to the public.

Speaking of Tim Russert, a newsman whose reputation was severely impacted by the Scooter Libby Trial, his Meet the Press program was given the worst review:

Meet the Press made no improvement in the balance of total guest appearances during the 109th congress (2005-2006) and after the 2006 elections. During those periods, the show granted the vast majority of its solo interviews to Republicans and conservatives at a rate of nearly 2 to 1 and has provided less balance between Republican and Democratic officials than Fox New Sunday.

And where are women guests, regardless of their political leanings? Only 11% of the Sunday talk show guests are women the non-profit organization, The White House Project, noted.

Although women represent half the population, apparently they are not part of the political structure according to Sunday political talk shows.

From the The White House Project report:

Our comprehensive review of these programs suggests that while the topics and areas of expertise of the guests may differ, one factor remains constant: the vast majority of guests are white and male….

1. Women represented only 11% of all guest appearances on the Sunday shows – only 10% of guest appearances when presidential and vice-presidential candidates are included in the data calculus;

2. Women guests are even less often repeat guests than men. Of all the repeat guests, only 7% are women (6% including presidential and vice presidential candidates);

3. Added cumulatively, there were 245 repeat guest appearances by male U.S. Senators and 8 by female U.S. Senators;

4. Women guests spoke fewer words than men by 10%, and were slightly more likely to be in less prominent later segments of the shows;

5. In every category of speaker and on every topic, women were under-represented in terms of the available pool of speakers, experts, and elected officials.

What’s the solution to homogenizing the guest list on Sunday talk shows beyond throwing Nerf balls at the TV screen? To start, try writing to MSNBC to suggest replacing Tim Russert with Donna Brazille.

Sunday morning political groupies–what are your suggestions?