Group Wants Next President to ‘Investigate’ LGBT Opponents
No particular surprises there. But there is one especially sinister provision: the NOM pledge promises that signers, upon election, will “appoint a presidential commission to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters.”
NOM has a history of raising the specter of “harassment” by LGBT people against them and their supporters. Most recently, the group condemned “intolerable gay activist harassment” against Florida congressman Allen West, who does not support same-sex marriage. The harassment in question? The state’s Democratic LGBT caucus called for a boycott of businesses associated with members of the Wilton Manors Business Association in Broward County. West was scheduled to address the association, but the threat of a boycott caused the association to withdraw its invitation.
At the same time, NOM has been under fire for refusing to disclose its donors, which, the group claims, would lead to “harassment” of its funders, again from LGBT people and their supporters. Already, the group has lost campaign disclosure court cases in Maine and Rhode Island; in Minnesota, a state board that oversees campaign financial disclosures also rejected NOM’s bid. But the group has yet to release its donor list as it appeals the rulings against it.
The reality is that there’s little to suggest that religious-right organizations are being subjected to any substantial harassment by members of the LGBT community, outside of the occasional boycott. In fact, it is the LGBT community that is targeted for real harassment — criminal hate violence — far more than any other minority in America. A Southern Poverty Law Center analysis of hate crime data found that LGBT people were, on average, 8.3 times more likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime than would be expected on a per capita basis.
