Monday, April 11, 2011

The National Organization for Marriage owes me an apology for lying about Marinelli

 Editor's note - this post originally inaccurately accused Marinelli of making the offending comment regarding how "gays were never hunted down and murdered like Jews, Blacks, or Christians." It was another administrator who made this offensive comment. However, this doesn't take away from the gist of the story, i.e. NOM falsely claiming that the facebook page was "operated by a private party" which was independent of the organization.

By now, we have all heard the uplifting story of Louis J. Marinelli, the former National Organization for Marriage strategist who defected from the group and now supports marriage equality.

It's a story which demonstrates that actually getting to know lgbts can change one's mind about who we are as a people.

There is also another story involved which demonstrates the duplicity of the NOM, the organization which Marinelli was once affiliated with.

Jeremy Hooper from Goodasyou covered this story but since I am principally involved, I feel the need to comment on it.

When the story of Marinelli's defection broke, Brian Brown, president of NOM, issued this statement:

"Louis worked in a volunteer capacity as a bus driver during our summer marriage tour. Around this time, he started pushing Facebook supporters towards NOM and we paid him as a part-time consultant for helping us expand our internet reach.”

Now during that abysmal Summer Marriage Tour, I wrote a piece in the Huffington Post commenting on an unbelievable comment on NOM's Facebook page (which was run by Marinelli) - National Organization for Marriage: Gays Were Never Hunted Down and Murdered Like 'Jews, Christians, and Blacks'

NOM got furious at my article and sent the following missive (I highlighted the crucial parts):

"The Huffington Post on Wednesday falsely attributed statements to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) about discrimination faced by gays and lesbians. The statements were apparently posted by an unnamed "administrator" of the "Protect Marriage: 1 Man 1 Woman" Facebook account. Huffington Post falsely claims that this is NOM's Facebook page. The Facebook account on which these statements were reportedly made is not NOM's Facebook page and neither NOM nor anyone representing NOM made these statements. The Facebook account in question is operated by a private party and NOM does not control what is allowed to be posted on the account, a fact that could have been easily known to Huffington Post had they reached out to NOM to verify the report

Now at the time, which the help of the webpages Goodasyou and Box Turtle Bulletin, I was able to point out the duplicity of  NOM's  statement:

As this link courtesy of Box Turtle Bulletin and Goodasyou proves, the page "Protect Marriage: 1 Man 1 Woman" is associated with NOM. From its Twitter page, NOM is pushing the page as its own. Furthermore,  Louis J. Marinelli - self identified "NOM strategist" is the general manager of the page.

 But now I guess my proof is unnecessary. That "private party" operating NOM's facebook page was Marinelli, who the organization has just admitted to have paid as a "part-time consultant for helping them expand their internet reach."

NOM clearly owes me an apology for calling into question my journalistic integrity. The organization obviously wasn't telling the truth when it tried to disavow itself from Marinelli back then.

It's okay though. My guess is that right now, NOM is too busy eating and digesting all that crow to make a suitable apology to me.

Related post:

Of course NOM's misrepping Louis' role. It's the one constant of the Brown/Marinelli marriage - Jeremy Hooper goes into more detail regarding Marinelli's Facebook page and NOM.



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1 comment:

Phil Black said...

In order for NOM to issue an apology, they would have to be an organization based on integrity and Christian moral values. Neither of which do they possess.