Court documents prove NOM's plan to divide black, gay communities

Maggie Gallagher of NOM

The National Organization for Marriage's unsuccessful fight to skirt Maine's financial disclosure laws just backfired majorly on the group by revealing a  distasteful part of its game plan to stop marriage equality.

According to a court document that was uploaded online, NOM specifically worked to drive a wedge between the black and gay community on the subject of marriage equality:

According to page 11 of this document called Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory:

3. Not a Civil Right Project 

The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.

NOM has portrayed whatever African-American opposition to marriage equality its spotlighted as spontaneous attempts by leaders and members of the black community to keep its civil rights legacy from supposedly being "tainted" by a comparison to gay equality.

But now we see that there was nothing spontaneous about this. It was a cynically planned effort by NOM - which the organization continues to exploit - in order to drive a wedge between blacks and gays.

And notice how NOM says that one of the purposes of creating this division was to create a negative reaction from gay equality supporters against the African-Americans speaking out against marriage equality.

One doesn't have to spell out how this benefits NOM's efforts. The two sides attack each other with extreme anger causing magazine articles to be written about the division, news programs to focus on the division, and venomous chats to occur on places like Facebook and Twitter.

Some heterosexual African-Americans will let loose with homophobia against the gay community.  And some white lgbtqs will express racist comments about the black community. Both communities will be at each other's throats. There will be no intelligent conversations on the matter and neither community will benefit an iota.

And NOM will sit back and reap the benefits of causing this chaos.

It reminds me of an Aesop fable I once posted:

An Eagle had made her nest at the top of a lofty oak. A Fox, having found a convenient hole, lived with her young in the middle of the trunk; and a Wild Sow with her young had taken shelter in a hollow at its foot. The Fox resolved to destroy by her arts this chance-made colony. She climbed to the nest of the Eagle, and said: "Destruction is preparing for you, and for me too. The Wild Sow, whom you may see daily digging up the earth, wishes to uproot the oak, that she may, on its fall, seize our families as food." Then she crept down to the cave of the Sow and said: "Your children are in great danger; for as soon as you shall go out with your litter to find food, the Eagle is prepared to pounce upon one of your little pigs." When night came, she went forth with silent foot and obtained food for herself and her young; but, feigning to be afraid, she kept a look-out all through the day. Meanwhile, the Eagle, full of fear of the Sow, sat still on the branches, and the Sow, terrified by the Eagle, did not dare to go out from her cave; and thus they each, with their families, perished from hunger.

Moral - Gay folks and black folks can argue all day as to who gets to be the  "sow" and who gets to be the "eagle." But both groups better damn well recognize who the hell the fox is.

Editor's note - There are a lot of court documents and I'm sure that in the coming days, we will learn more about NOM's exploits. Stay tuned not only to this blog but several others.