One day after The American Independent released an analysis of the National Organization for Marriage’s recently reported finances from 2010, which reveal that last year the organization spent more than $1 million more than it earned, NOM President Brian Brown emailed supporters asking for help covering what he terms a “looming shortfall.”
In 2010, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a tax-exempt nonprofit fighting legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., reported the highest individual donations it has received since its inception in 2007, according to NOM’s most recent income disclosures to the Internal Revenue Service. Just two individuals contributed more than $6 million to the organization’s political arm, accounting for about two-thirds of NOM’s 2010 revenue. Single donations less than $5,000 covered only 8 percent of reported revenue.
The weekend before thanksgiving, Colorado Springs-based evangelical group Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage will host a Republican presidential candidate forum in Des Moines centered on social issues. Focus on the Family staffer Tom Minnery said the hosts of the event don’t plan to “get into theology as such” because there wouldn’t be enough time for the candidates to “solve theological questions.” Primary campaign frontrunner Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, has yet to commit to the event.
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.
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said last weekend he is the victim of a holy war by supporters of LGBT rights. Calling it a “jihad,” Santorum said he has been unfairly criticized over his statements comparing gays and lesbians to pedophiles and people who commit incest. The National Organization for Marriage also picked up on the holy-war language, claiming that a Florida school teacher has become a victim of the “jihad.”
Fresh off a Denver fundraiser, Texas governor Rick Perry today became the fourth GOP candidate to sign the National Organization for Marriage’s anti marriage equality pledge. Thursday night Perry hosted a fundraiser in suburban Denver. Admission was said to be $5,000 a pop.
Religious conservatives reacted sharply to a vote Friday night in the New York Senate to legalize gay marriage. The National Organization for Marriage pledged to spend $2 million to defeat four Republicans who voted for the bill. And religious right leaders warned that God would punish New York for passing the bill and accused Republicans of taking bribes in exchange for their vote.
Despite the National Organization for Marriage declaring preemptive victory Wednesday, the battle over legalizing same-sex marriage wages on in New York, with many indicators pointing to a vote any minute now. New York’s 2011 legislative session had been originally scheduled to end on Monday, but as The Washington Post reports, negotiations continue over the wording of religious exemptions within the bill.
Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage was recently a guest on the radio program Religion, Politics, and the Culture to talk about her organization’s strategy to prevent states from legalizing same-sex marriage and to pass anti-gay marriage amendments in states that don’t already have them.
In wake of news that major Republican donors are funding the push to legalize gay marriage in New York, Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family is touting efforts to “save traditional marriage” there led by the National Organization for Marriage and the New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation. NOM has reportedly raised a million dollars to spend on its anti-gay marriage campaign and Family Research Foundation leader Reverend Jason McGuire is riding around the state on a “Mayday for Marriage” bus tour rallying supporters. “Where were you when they tried to redefine marriage?” he reportedly asks the people who turn up at tour stops. “What will you say to future generations?”
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