Subject: [big campaign] RELEASE: Courage Campaign and HRC unmask Secretive Anti-Gay Financier at NOMexposed.com
From: Aniello Alioto <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:21:26 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

FYI - this release JUST went out seconds ago...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Todd Stenhouse, Courage Campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 1:18 PM
Subject: RELEASE: Courage Campaign and HRC unmask Secretive Anti-Gay
Financier at NOMexposed.com
To: Aniello Alioto <[email-masked]>

 [image: Courage
Campaign]<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22b5/3705726527/VEsH/>

* PRESS RELEASE
* *FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
September 28, 2010

Human Rights Campaign: Paul Guequierre, [email-masked], (202)
423-2860
Courage Campaign: Todd Stenhouse, [email-masked], (916) 397-1131

 *HRC & Courage Campaign Reveal the Real National Organization for Marriage*

 *"NOM Exposed" Website Launched as Fall Elections Loom**
*

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM,
embarks on a fall election campaign to defeat candidates who support full
marriage equality, the Human Rights Campaign, in collaboration with the
Courage Campaign, unveiled "NOM Exposed," a live, interactive website which
reveals NOM's deep anti-gay affiliations, its long connections to the Mormon
and Catholic churches and its quest to keep voters in the dark about its
financing. The site is at
*www.NOMexposed.org*<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22b4/3705726527/VEsE/>
.

At the same time, HRC announced the formation of the NOM Project to follow
the ongoing political work and propaganda of NOM as it attempts to influence
elections and legislative campaigns across the country. The project will be
led by Kevin Nix, a longtime LGBT advocate and political and media
consultant. A former communications director at both Servicemembers Legal
Defense Network and the Family Equality Council, Nix also worked at Media
Matters in the 2004 presidential cycle.

"NOM and its leaders project a message of tolerance yet NOM Exposed shows
that behind the well-trained talking points is an anti-gay animus and
moneyed connections that it is loath to reveal," said HRC president Joe
Solmonese. "This website is not static. Working with the Courage Campaign,
we will be watching the campaign trail and documenting NOM's political buys
and bedfellows. We will connect the dots for voters."

NOM Exposed builds off the success of Courage Campaign's NOM Tour Tracker -
a blog of first-hand accounts, photos and videos chronicling NOM's "2010
Summer for Marriage--One Man, One Woman" bus tour of 17 states. The Courage
Campaign deployed three staffers to follow NOM's tour and file reports from
the road, generating more than one-million page views and more than 15,000
comments. During the course of the tour, federal courts declared two of
NOM's top policy priorities - California's Proposition 8 and the Federal
Defense of Marriage Act - unconstitutional.

The NOM Tour Tracker showed NOM's summer tour consistently outnumbered
three-to-one by pro-equality counter rally participants organized by Freedom
to Marry and state LGBT organizations. It also showed NOM staff attempting
to limit public access to their
events<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22bb/3705726527/VEsF/>,
and NOM's sparse supporters doing everything from speaking in
tongues<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22ba/3705726527/VEsC/>,
to comparing marriage equality to
genocide<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22b9/3705726527/VEsD/>and
advocating the murder
of LGBT families<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22b8/3705726527/VEsA/>
.

"The NOM Tour Tracker unmasked the so-called 'National Organization for
Marriage' as a small and secretive fringe group devoted to attacking
families, spreading lies, and sowing fear," said Courage Campaign Founder
and Chairman Rick Jacobs. "With a majority of Americans and a growing number
of conservatives now standing up for equality, NOM Exposed takes this
important work a step further by bringing to light the nefarious
connections, shadowy finances, and dubious ethics at the heart of NOM's
brand of political extremism. We are proud to work with the Human Rights
Campaign on this important initiative."

NOM Exposed, the result of several months of research and collaboration,
reveals the following:

   - At a time of the country's greatest economic crisis since the Great
   Depression, NOM's financial growth has been explosive. NOM has amassed huge
   resources - estimated to reach or exceed $10M in 2010 - from modest
   beginnings in 2007.

   - NOM is a highly secretive organization that tries to not only hide the
   identity of its political donors from the voting public in state after
   state, but operates in a way to discourage people from knowing who its key
   players and associates are.

   - NOM has deep connections to the Catholic Church hierarchy, to the
   Mormon Church, to evangelical right-wing pastors and churches and to those
   who have a long history of anti-gay rhetoric and activity. These are
   individuals and organizations which not only oppose same-sex marriage, but
   oppose domestic partnerships, civil unions, hate crimes protections and even
   fertility treatments for women because some of those women could be
   lesbians.

   - Since 2008, NOM and its allies have engaged in a radical, nationwide
   plan to flout long-established campaign finance disclosure laws. This is
   nothing short of a strategic, coordinated plan to hide NOM's political
   activities from voters. This effort has prompted several state
   investigations and resounding legal defeats for NOM.

In addition to the rich archive of information, NOM Exposed features a blog
where the latest on NOM's activities will be tracked. LGBT leaders will also
contribute guest posts to the blog with their own research and experiences
with NOM. Freedom to Marry which organized the Summer For Marriage tour in
response to NOM has the inaugural guest post up today.

"NOM Exposed gives voters a comprehensive look at an organization that
operates largely in secret, yet plays a super-sized role in campaigns from
California to Maine," added Solmonese. "By releasing this site and
dedicating resources to NOM Project, we will confront this web of secrets
and lies wherever NOM seeks to spread its political propaganda."

###

*The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization
working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By
inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination
against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental
fairness and equality for all.*

*The Courage Campaign is a multi-issue online organizing network that
empowers more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots supporters to push for
progressive change and full equality in California and across America. Its
ongoing equality initiatives include "Testimony" **(
http://www.couragecampaign.org/Testimony<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22bf/3705726527/VEsB/>
)**, a nationwide public education campaign that's bringing the Prop 8 trial
and the stories of affected families into the lives of everyday Americans
and the Prop 8 Trial Tracker
(http://Prop8TrialTracker.com)<http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/m/4b660f2c/1ba66777/e6161d8/40ba22be/3705726527/VEsO/>,
a courtroom live-blog, news and commentary site which has generated more
than 3 million visits and 60,000 comments to date.   *

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-- 
Aniello Alioto
National Political Director
[email-masked]
502.664.2420

CA: Courage Campaign
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