The leading US anti-gay hate group focusing on outlawing marriage equality, the National Organization for Man/Lady-only Marriage, has claimed credit for the selection of millionaire Carly Fiorina, who was fired as CEO of HP, as the far-right Republican nominee for US Senator from California.
The organisation’s spokesphobe declared that his group “was the first on the air with TV ads highlighting Tom Campbell's liberal record on gay marriage and taxes.” In reality, it was more of a smear campaign. He also gushed over their “wildly successful” robo-calls to 600,000 Republican voters in California. At the risk of stating the bloody obvious, what on earth makes him think that those voters all voted as the bigots demanded?
Evidence against the influence of the hate group includes the fact that prominent anti-abortion activist groups endorsed Fiorina, as did that wacky Sarah Palin. Fiorina’s poll ratings reportedly soared after the Palin endorsement (Republican primary voters in California are pretty rightwing). So, it’s a bit rich—and a hulluva lot of hubris—for the hate group to claim credit.
And it wasn’t exactly a landslide: According to the semi-official results I saw, Fiorina had 56.4% of the vote—a clear majority, but hardly a thumping. The biggest loser arguably wasn’t the moderate Tom Campbell, but the even more far-right Chuck DeVore, who came in third.
The selection of Fiorina will prove interesting. A hard-right conservative who opposes both abortion rights and the right of same-sex couples to marry will be pitted against a Democrat who supports both. And, Fiorina’s disastrous leadership of HP will become a campaign issue.
In related news, a federal appeals court rejected the anti-gay hate group’s attempt to keep its donor lists secret, in violation of Maine law (the group spent some $2 million of secretly-raised money to get Maine voters to take away same-sex marriage rights). The hate group plans to take their appeal to the US Supreme Court. They argue that if their lists are made public, their donors will be “victimised” by gay people and their supporters—even though there’s not one single documented case of violence or any other significant act of retaliation against the group’s anti-gay supporters, nor opponents of same-sex marriage rights generally.
The obvious question is, what’s the group trying to hide? In California, the Prop 8 campaign to take away same-sex marriage rights featured collusion between the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches, supported by fundamentalist protestant Christians. Mormons in particular donated far more money than their numbers would seem likely without active involvement by their church. In Maine, Roman Catholic churches urged financial and voting support for the repeal effort. So, will the hate group’s donor list reveal attempts by particular churches to force their religious agenda in secret? Are there prominent Americans who’d be embarrassed if their support for the hate group became known?
The hate group has ignored all previous orders to reveal their donor lists. I wouldn’t be surprised if they refused to comply with a Supreme Court ruling, should that court side with democracy and against the hate group.
The hate group can bluff and bluster all it wants, but it doesn’t change two things: First, they’re not as important as they think they are, and second, they’re on the wrong side of history. Ultimately, they will fail and one day we’ll wonder why they were ever taken seriously.
No comments:
Post a Comment