Savage Responds to Douthat, Minnesota Tries to Make NOM Disclose Donors

Dan Savage's response to Ross Douthat's silly attempt to breathe new life into the gays-made-me-do-it argument about same-sex marriage undermining "real" marriages (re: which I blogged yesterday): 

The real reason gay marriage makes so many social conservatives uncomfortable? Because it forces them to admit that marriage has already changed and that it was straight people who changed it.

Right to the point.  And absolutely correct.

If the religious right and the U.S. Catholic bishops (that is, if the religious right with its official Catholic arm) really cared about the future of marriage, they'd have been spending all the money they've wasted bashing the gays for lo these many years now trying to shore up the waning institution of heterosexual marriage.  Which has been on the rocks for a long, long time prior to the arrival of same-sex marriage on the scene.

And speaking of those huge sums of money spent by leading right-wing Catholic groups on the gay-bashing, about which we never receive any accurate information: Timothy Kincaid reports at Box Turtle Bulletin today that Minnesota has now joined the long list of states that have ruled that the National Organization for Marriage, which functions as an unofficial organ of the USCCB in the gay-bashing crusade, is required by state law to disclose its funding sources, as it dumps huge sums of money on that state in an attempt to pass a constitutional amendment in 2012 banning same-sex marriage.

But, as he also notes, this ruling is entirely futile, since NOM simply ignores these laws in state after state, along with the state rulings that remind NOM of the laws.  And since no state has yet had the courage to try to throw NOM's director Brian Brown in jail for breaking the law, why would this "faith-based" organization behave any differently in Minnesota?  Why would it comply with Minnesota law about disclosure when it has refused to do so in Maine and other states?

Kincaid writes:

So does that mean that NOM is going to comply? Are they going to disclose exactly which mega-wealthy Catholics are funding their efforts to replace civil law with Catholic doctrine?

No way. They haven’t any time in the past and they aren’t going to start now.

And what is Minnesota going to do about it? Nothing.

Until a state is ready and willing to throw Brian Brown in jail for contempt of court and keep him there until the names are disclosed, NOM is going to continue to thwart justice and thumb their noses at the legal system. And they know that actually jailing Brown or freezing NOM’s assets is so politically dangerous and that they have so many friends in powerful places who share their theocratic zeal that enforcing these rulings is impossible.

NOM and the U.S. Catholic bishops have powerful protectors in their anti-gay crusade.  Those paying for the expensive videos, newspaper ads, radio and television spots, and the wining and dining of legislators: they're perfectly capable, as well, of buying protection for NOM when ineffectual state laws demand that this organization disclose its funders.  And perfectly capable of making life hellacious for any state officials that become aggressive about enforcing their disclosure laws.

Government officials know this, and they're not going to risk incurring the wrath of the mega-rich donors who stand in the shadows behind NOM as it does the Lord's work of telling vicious lies about gay and lesbian human beings, poisoning public discourse, inciting violence, and fostering discrimination.  All because, you realize, don't you?, the Catholic leaders on whom NOM has undertaken these redemptive tasks, love the gays to death, though they must sadly deplore the sins of the gays.

P.S. Have you noticed how, after using David Tyree in the campaign against marriage equality in New York, NOM has now dropped him like a hot potato?  The same way they did after they used Carrie Prejean a few years ago.  And then as salacious tidbits about her past began to leak out, the hot potato got conveniently shoved aside.  Wonder what's going on with Tyree . . . .