NOM's Louis Marinelli: Brian Brown "Trying to Intimidate Me to Stop Talking"

An update to a story about which I've blogged recently:

I wrote yesterday about former NOM activist Louis Marinelli and his break with NOM, after he began to recognize that the gay folks he and NOM bash and use as objects in political games are real human beings.  I noted that Marinelli has begun to disclose insider information about how NOM functions, and is revealing some of the sleazy tactics NOM uses to do its dirty work as it bashes the gays.  I concluded by saying it will be interesting to see just how much Marinelli is willing to reveal, from his years of close association with top NOM leaders.

And now I'm seeing a report by Joe Sudbay at AmericablogGay yesterday, in which he says Marinelli did an interview with Mike Signorile last Friday, where he stated that NOM's president Brian Brown has been threatening him with lawsuits trying to intimidate him into silence.  Marinelli concludes that NOM doesn't want the truth about the organization and how it does its dirty work to be told.  

And here's what's strange about NOM's interest in Marinelli and NOM's attempt to shut him up: after Marinelli broke with NOM, Brown indicated NOM wasn't concerned in the least about this defection, since Marinelli had just been a low-level "bus driver" for the organization.  In fact, Brown found the "tempest in a teapot" about Marinelli's conversion "hilarious."

Brown's not responding to requests for interviews about Marinelli's claim that Brown is seeking to intimidate and shut him up.

Why does NOM insist on pursuing its goals so secretively, I wonder?  Goals it identifies as morally admirable and essential to the moral health of society . . . . Why has NOM fought tooth and nail to prevent disclosure of its donor base, even filing suit in several states to withhold this information from the public when state laws require such disclosure?

Why are those who worked so hard to snatch the right of civil marriage from California's gay citizens with prop 8, telling us all the while that they were doing righteous work with this crusade, now trying in every way possible to keep videotaped coverage of the prop 8 trial under lock and key?

I don't get it.  These anti-gay crusaders have been telling us for years now that they represent the moral high road for the nation, and that they're engaged in a holy battle in which God fights with them.  People confident that they are doing good and right don't try to hide their identities and engage in legal battles to keep information about their donors secret.

Do they?  It's almost as if the insistence on doing their work under cover of darkness signals their awareness that taking human rights away from a minority community, and stirring animosity and prejudice against that community, are not noble pursuits at all.  Rather, shameful ones . . . .