Last Friday U.S. District Judge Morrison England told ProtectMarriage.com and the National Organization for Marriage that they can’t skirt California campaign-finance law by keeping the names of their Prop 8 donors secret.
The two anti-gay groups argued that their donors would face threats and harassment if their names were made public. It was an argument made by the NAACP in the 1950s—one which allowed the civil-rights group to keep its membership rolls sealed.
Wait, you mean that NOM isn’t just like the NAACP?
Judge England also pointed out that the names on the contributors list were actually disclosed in 2009 and yet NOM and ProtectMarriage.com haven’t been able to show any negative ramification. “It makes no sense to buy in to the argument that disclosure may result in repercussions when there is simply no real evidence in the record that such repercussions actually did occur in the past three years,” England said in his ruling. “Plaintiffs’ evidence is, quite simply, stale.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Snap!
NOM plans to appeal, of course, because no one should be allowed to stick their noses into other people’s private business. Unless those other people are homosexuals, that is.
Little Kiwi
we have to “Come Out” to claim our rights – it’s only fitting that they should have to “Come Out” if they want to take them away.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
Just imagine who is on that list, if they’re fighting this hard to keep it quite. Maybe they know Americans would not be happy to see how much Catholic church money was diverted towards this campaign, and away from people who need it.
Shannon1981
Of course they will appeal. And they will lose and have to release the names or go to jail. And donors will lose big. Win Win for us!
Wait, what?
@Shannon1981:
Of course, saying that “donors will lose big” would be an argument that the court is wrong, and that the donors *will* face persecution and harassment if the names are released — which is to say that you are providing evidence that the names should *not* be released.
Steve
I expect there are really only two names on the list:
1. The Catholic Church
2. The Church of Latter Day Saints
Each has, of course, a number of different corporations, and those different corporations may appear as separate entries. But, in the end, those are the donors.
Shortly after the list is revealed, all of those corporations should receive letters from the IRS, informing them that their tax-exempt status has been revoked.
geoff
@ What, wait (sic)
“And donors will lose big.” because their names and affiliations will be made known. Nothing more. You should try literacy as a FIRST language.
Jurlesia
@Wait, what?:
I understood Shannon’s comments to mean they would “lose big” in their court case. Since when does “lose” mean “*will* face persecution and harassment” as you are insinuating?
Robert in NYC
What is the point of these court orders? NOM appeals to delay disclosure and gets away with it in the meantime. This now brings the total of court orders to 4 and still it hasn’t been prosecuted. What a farce. These orders are merely symbolic, no substance or teeth.
Cam
NOM’s only goal is to shelter the Mormon Church and the Catholic church from getting into trouble with the IRS for completely involving themselves in the political process.
The other part of that goal is that it will expose the fact that most of their money comes from a few huge donors and not the large numbers of donors that they lie about and pretend to have.
kawneekwa
Is the Moormunz gonna air some laundry. Yessah!
Jim Hlavac
First of all, because we don’t know who is on the list it is impossible to say that it is the Mormons or the Catholics in their official church rolls that were the only, or even primary donors. It might well be individual Mormons and Catholics, or any other religion. Many African-American Protestant denominations were against Prop 8 — perhaps they donated too. Indeed, it might be five people, might be five million, might be politicians might not, might be PACs and other lobbyists, might not — and we won’t know until the information is released.
But then, we see that the judge said that the names already were released — back in 2009 — so why then don’t we know yet what those names are? Surely if the info was released to someone somewhere it must be available to any to analyze, right? So which is it? Released or not released? Beats me. To whom was it released? It’s not said.
And then, as to why court orders to release info like this are not followed right away is that there is an appeals process — and many such court decisions usually provide a provision that the order is stayed until the appeal is made. And the District Judge doesn’t have the last word, and perhaps the case will wind up in the Supreme Court yet. Sometimes the law just moves slowly — there’s no remote control.
SiouxCityBoy
Full Disclosure is important because it will allow all voters to make an informed judgment as to the supporters behind the NOM movement. If it turns out that any backer was prohibited from such backing because of the separation of Church and State provisions within The Constitution of the United States then those who violated provisions of The Constitution need to be punished.
Dallas David
Here in Texas, such appeals are considered as “Frivolous Lawsuits” that serve only to bog down the courts, and are discouraged by conservative Republicans.
I guess Conservative Republicans don’t mind so much about such things in California.
Benjamin
Hey, idiot writers of Queerty, this case does NOT deal with the identities of NOM’s donors. It deals with the identities of the donors to Prop 8. Those donors are already known and they can be found in several searchable databases on the internet. The plaintiffs here were trying to force the CA Secretary of State to remove those names from its website, but even if they had won, we would still know all of these names.
What we do not know and what this case does not deal with, is the names of those who donate to NOM itself. We know that we are talking about 5 or 6 major donors and we know that one of those major donors is the Catholic-affiliated insurance organization, the Knights of Columbus. The identities of the other 5 or so donors likely will remain a secret for perhaps another year or so.
Emerald Driessen
@Little Kiwi: Amen!
Tom
It’s interesting that many businesses that donated to the anti Prop 8 campaign demanded those business make donations to pass Prop 8. And now they want to hide and have protection?
Chris
@Benjamin: Thanks for clarifying which list this is. A lot of us missing it.
Schlukitz
@Jim Hlavac:
I asked myself these very same questions.
Sounds like a little bit of slight of hand.
First you see it. Then you don’t.
Shannon1981
@Wait, what?: Personally I think there should be hell to pay for anyone donating to an organization devoted to bigotry.
Shannon1981
@Jurlesia: But yes, for the record, I meant in court.