NOM's Strategy: "To Drive Wedge Between Gays and Blacks"

Some things must be seen to be believed, so it's time to do some seeing of recent court filings by the National Organization for Marriage, which say the group is essentially trying to "fan" a race war. Via AmericaBlog:

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. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key...

Just incredible... that they'd put it on paper.

This is essentially the same strategy used by Pastor Ken Hutcherson, who has railed for years against comparisons between marriage equality and civil rights, and NOM is obviously hip to the incendiary post-Prop 8 fallout after exit polls showed many African Americans in California voted against same-sex marriage and gays lost their shit.

Washington State may be a something of a case study on the efficacy of this tack in the next seven months. Preserve Marriage Washington—the new group working with NOM and Focus on the Family to overturn marriage equality by getting Referendum 74 on the ballot and then rejecting it—has used stock photos of African American families in heavy rotation on its website. And while that's hardly evidence on its own, let's be real: NOM and Focus on the Family aren't particularly black organizations (and Washington State is a pretty white state). During the campaign, the rabid preachings of Hutcherson could serve to amp up divisions among progressive gays and racial minorities. We'll have to see if gays take the bait.

Since this news broke yesterday—and spread faster than santorum in a cracked pressure cooker—NOM director Brian Brown took a page from the Hutcherson playbook, saying on the group's blog, "Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine. We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage."

You can read the entire court record here.