Same-sex marriage foes: 'Drive a wedge' between gays and blacks

Gov. Chris Gregoire signs into law legislation making Washington the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage. It faces a fall referendum if repeal advocates collect enough signatures by June 6. Gov. Chris Gregoire signs into law legislation making Washington the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage. It faces a fall referendum if repeal advocates collect enough signatures by June 6. Photo: SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Same-sex marriage foes: 'Drive a wedge' between gays and blacks 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

The National Organization for Marriage, likely to spearhead the referendum drive to repeal marriage equality in Washington, is -- in its own words -- pursuing a strategy to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" and to make opposition to same-sex marriage "an identity marker" for young Latinos.

A series of four internal NOM memos, outed as part of an investigation in Maine, talks of such goals as "Sideswiping Obama". The memos reveal a manipulative, brazenly cynical strategy for winning America's cultural wars by diving Americans.

Gay and straight, Evergreen State residents should wake up to the outfit that will be trying to manipulate our thinking and embed code phrases (e.g. "redefine marriage"). The NOM is also behind the "Dump Starbucks" boycott campaign launched in reaction to the company's support for marriage equality.

Let the NOM's memos speak for themselves. The tactics:

--The Race Card: "The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks -- two key Democratic constituencies," says the most explosive of NOM's internal memos.

" We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African-American spokespeople for marriage, to develop a media campaign around their objections to marriage as a civil right, and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots."

The newly formed National Organization for Marriage worked this strategy in California four years ago. President Obama won in the state, but a large number of African-American voters were persuaded to Prop. 8 -- a measure that rolled back marriage equality in the Golden State.

--The Latino Card: Under the heading "Internationalizing the Marriage Issue: A Pan-American Strategy," the NOM talks about negotiations with a former Miss New Mexico and actor Eduardo Verastegui to serve as spokespeople, and hiring the PR firm Schubert Flint to develop Spanish-language TV and radio spots and "popular spongs."

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy. Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

"Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of 'Anglo' culture," says the NOM's strategy memo.

--The Global Goal: The Catholic hierarchy and religious right have played the persecution card, arguing that "religious freedom" is threatened by such marriage equality and health insurance coverage for contraception.

The NOM memos reveal a today-the-United States, tomorrow-the-world strategy to reverse gains made by gays and lesbians. "Our goal is to use a victory in the U.S. to launch a global movement to reverse the tide on cultural and legal respect for core family values like marriage," said the NOM. It stressed importance of the "religious liberties" argument.

--The children: The NOM memos speak of "documenting the victims" of same-sex marriage, budgeting $120,000 for an outreach coordinator who would "identify the children of gay parents willing to speak on camera."

Several such children offered powerful testimony FOR marriage equality in Olympia earlier this year. As Michelle Goldberg noted in The Daily Beast, "Thus an organization ostensibly devoted to family values is going to start encouraging people to publicly denounce their closest relatives."

--The President: Not surprisingly, the National Organization for Marriage has the goal of toppling the 44th President, no matter his happy traditional marriage or solid family example. The NOM speaks of a need to "expose Obama as a social radical."

NOM supporters will "raise issues such as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty at the federal level." The heading is, appropriately, "Sideswiping Obama."

Again, this outfit will be operating here, and in Maine, Marland and Minnesota -- all states likely to vote on same-sex marriage in the November election. The memos, released by a U.S. District Court, flow out of a 2009 marriage equality referendum in Maine.

The NOM has sued to overturn Maine ethics laws that would require it to disclose donors who financed a successful campaign against same-sex marriage. "One key advantage we now have is the capacity to protect identity of our donors," boasts one of the group's memos.

One of America's premier civil rights leaders, NAACP chairman-emeritus Julian Bond, said it best Tuesday: "Pitting bigotry's victims against other victims is reprehensible. The defenders of justice must stand together."

A final thought: Our state's three Catholic dioceses stood boldly for civil rights in the 1960's, and for racial justice ever since. The Washington State Catholic Conference has forcefully defended Latino families against draconian (and racist) anti-immigrant legislation proposed in Congress and the Legislature.

The National Organization for Marriage speaks, as part of its strategy, of fostering closer relationships with Roman Catholic bishops to "equip, energize and moralize Catholic priests on the marriage issue."

In response, I would suggest that Washington's Catholic laypersons -- and their priests -- should stand equipped, emergized and moralized to resist those who walketh about fostering racial division and discrimination in our state. Our bishops should have neither truck nor trade with the National Organization for Marriage.

And decent Americans, of all faiths, should recoil at the strategy outlined in these memos.