EXPOSED: Internal NOM memos reveal race-baiting campaign

I’m feeling the schadenfreude already. The Human Rights Campaign has just published a number of confidential internal memos from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) revealing an intensive and detailed plot to divide minorities and turn Blacks and Hispanics against gays in order to undermine support for same-sex marriage, among other ethically challenged schemes:

Today HRC got a hold of internal NOM documents that shed light on the anti-LGBT movement’s overall strategy. These documents were just unsealed in Maine mid-afternoon. The docs are part of the ongoing investigation by the State of Maine into the campaign finance activities of NOM in that state. Much more to come but some high (low) lights from PDF page 13 of the “confidential” 2008-09 report to the NOM Board of Directors:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

Another passage:

"The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity - a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation."

On PDF page 12, it talks about “sideswiping Obama,” painting him as a “social radical” and talking about “side issues” like pornography.

Sidenote: Many are already using this revelation to declare that NOM is racist, and while bigots of a feather do tend to hate together, I would disagree in this case. While it’s perfectly possible – and I would even say, probable – that many or most anti-gay activists also share other forms of bigotry, it seems NOM is only utilizing currently existing racial and cultural divides to increase tensions between gays and other minorities; it may well be purely strategic as opposed to actually bigoted (against other minorities than gays, that is). Of course, I’m not saying this as a defense of the (increasingly) odious group; the fact alone that they’ve sunk to resorting to these sorts of tactics – not that it should surprise anyone, mind you – is more than enough to reveal their true colors and further destroy their claims to impartiality.

Either way, this is going to hurt something bad. And that makes me quite happy.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: National Organization for Marriage • NOM • race-baiting • Blacks • Hispanics • gays • gay marriage • same-sex marriage • Human Rights Campaign • HRC