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Last week desmoinesdem blogged about the upcoming special election in Iowa’s 90th legislative district, where the republican candidate will test the mileage of marriage equality as an electoral issue. Well big surprise, look what hit my mailbox today from NOMskull Brian Brown.
Today we take the battle for marriage back to the heartland, as NOM launches its Reclaim Iowa Project.The Reclaim Iowa Project is a multi-year campaign to pass a state constitutional amendment reversing last spring’s same-sex marriage ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court. Iowans overwhelmingly oppose same-sex marriage, but a handful of politicians are determined to block any effort to give the people of Iowa a say in the matter. According to the latest polling, 67% of Iowans favor putting a marriage amendment on the ballot for a decision by all Iowa voters — not just a handful of judges.
“Reclaim Iowa”? Was Iowa ever Mormon property to begin with?
UPDATE: One Iowa, Iowa’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, has responded. Executive Director Carolyn Jenison says: “The Mormon Church and NOM have invested millions of dollars to spread lies and fear in California and now they have their sights set on rural Iowa. This raises the question: Has Burgmeier been bought and paid for by out of state religious extremists? If not, he should reject this divisive ad.” You can find One Iowa’s full press release near the bottom of the post.It’ll have to be a multi-year plan, because the next gubernatorial and legislative elections aren’t until November, 2010. And while NOM’s goal isn’t impossible, it isn’t a certainty either. The Iowan Independent says:
“It’s hard to amend the constitution in Iowa. You can’t do it overnight,” [David Redlawsk, associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa] said. “My prediction is that this will be a lot like Massachusetts, in that there will be a reaction, some people will be unhappy, but over the time it takes to enact a constitutional amendment, people will simply become more accepting, especially as younger people get older.”A new University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll released Thursday shows 60 percent of Iowans under age 30 support same-sex marriage, and three-fourths of Iowans under 30 favor some formal recognition of same-sex relationships. That indicates that passion objection could fade over time.
So NOM is making preparations….
Over the past several months, with the help of Congressman Steve King, NOM has laid the groundwork for its Reclaim Iowa Project, making over a million automated phone calls to Iowa families, and identifying 100,000 new supporters in Iowa.Now it’s time to take the next step.
Will you stand with us today? Your generous support has made it possible for us to launch the Reclaim Iowa Project. But today is just the beginning of a long campaign to take marriage out of the hands of the courts, and give it back to the people of Iowa. We’re looking for 100 new donors to join us as Monthly Sustaining Partners who will help make sure we’re here for the long haul — not just in Iowa, but everywhere that marriage is threatened.
…to test the electoral waters. It’s not clear to me why they still need donors (Maggie needs a new pair of shoes?), since they just said they’ve identified 100,000 new supporters with their staggering 1 million robocalls. But it likely has something to do with them just buying $86,000 worth of tv and radio ad time to try to influence the September 1st special election. This is reportedly a lot of money for an Iowa state legislative race. Hopefully the average voter in the 90th will see it as unseemly meddling by pushy outsiders.
The TV ad for NOM’s hate puppet is at the bottom of the post. But HERE is the add for the good guy, Curt Hanson. A little more on Curt Hanson here and here.
Good Guy Curt Hanson’s ad:
Oh, one parting note about NOM. Get a load of the irony in this closer from their email:
Our opponents have long known that personnel drives policy — and they’ve been working for more than a decade to take out the best and brightest pro-family voices in targeted stealth campaigns. But now we have the ability to fight back! …Best of all, as a 501(c)(4), NOM has the ability to protect donor identities, ensuring that you, your family, and your business are not targeted by gay marriage advocates for harassment.
Can you really have a stealth campaign if it’s been happening for a decade? And who is more stealth than the money-laundering LDS beheamoth NOM sneaking laundered money into your state a week before an election and telling you who to vote for? Unbelievable.
Update: Here’s One Iowa‘s official response:
Press Release: Mormon-backed group seeks to buy Rural Iowa House SeatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2009
515-288-4019 ext. 205
515-333-2525 cell
justin@oneiowa.orgMormon-backed group seeks to buy Rural Iowa House Seat
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a front group for Mormon-funded anti-gay measures, has invested thousands of out-of-state dollars to influence an Iowa House special election.
The secretive New Jersey-based group, known for its multi-million dollar investment to pass California’s Proposition 8, reported making an $86,080 independent expenditure on behalf of candidate Steven Burgmeier, a vocal opponent of civil marriage equality. A special election is set for September 1 in Iowa’s House District 90.
NOM refers to their Iowa campaign as the “Reclaim Iowa Project,” calling it a “targeted intervention” into the politics of the state.
“The Mormon Church and NOM have invested millions of dollars to spread lies and fear in California and now they have their sights set on rural Iowa,” said Carolyn Jenison, Executive Director of One Iowa. “This raises the question: Has Burgmeier been bought and paid for by out of state religious extremists? If not, he should reject this divisive ad.”
“NOM has a history of funneling money from the Mormon Church into anti-gay measures, while refusing to disclose the source of their funds. NOM should release the list of those contributing to the ads airing in Iowa,” said Jenison.
“This is about out-of-state extremists attempting to buy an Iowa election, plain and simple,” said State Senator Pam Jochum (D) of Dubuque, a long-standing proponent of campaign finance reform.
“Iowa has always been a welcoming place where people are treated fairly and with respect,” said Jenison. “We believe Iowa voters will reject attempts from outsiders to divide us.”
The ad can be seen on One Iowa’s YouTube account here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
###
One Iowa is the state’s largest LGBT advocacy organization, working for full equality for LGBT Iowans. Find out more at www.oneiowa.org
Here is NOM’s hate ad, preceeded by explanatory text from the LGBT advocacy organization One Iowa.
26 Comments
Well if they are getting the same airtime its pretty easy to see who could winMarriage equality is a big deal but not as big as jobs and taxes. However I think the bigger issue is that NOM seems to have too much freedom to rig elections in such a focused manor while we seem scattered and caught off guard by this kind of stuff.
There are indeed Mormons in IowaOur next-door neighbors when I was a kid in Racine WI had come from Bettendorf IA, and they drove up to Milwaukee every Sunday to one of the only (if not THE only) LDS church(es) in SE Wisconsin.
They and their kids weren’t particularly “observant” (or whatever it is you call Mormons) but yes, Iowa sure has ‘em too.
It strikes me like this approach is bestDon’t engage the gay marriage issue, if you can talk about jobs, economy, healthcare. Culture warriors are finding their battle cries increasingly aren’t motivating voters: see McCain/Palin 2008.
They won’t being achieving their goal anytime soonbut we need to keep a watchful eye so as not to be blindsided if they do manage to get it on the ballot down the road.
sure, but last i checkedthe deed to iowa didnt’ say “owned by homobigoted theocrats”.
We should take such threats seriously, BUT…even if they were to get their candidates elected, and even if the issue were placed on the ballot, and even if the whole amendment process were completed (three big ifs!), they still would not have defeated marriage in Iowa, since it is unlikely that it would affect the many existing marriages. As with California, I expect that the Iowa supreme court (which, remember, voted unanimously for marriage in the first place), would find, first, that married couples acted appropriately in reliance on fully adjudicated law and the constitution as it existed at the time and, second, that individual marriage contracts, with the rights and responsibilities they entail, cannot be invalidated without due process. What does this mean? It means that now that gay marriages are being performed in Iowa, such marriages will exist in the state for decades at minimum, and consequently our opponents have ALREADY LOST.
Annex Iowa or Theocracy Iowa would be more appropriateThe Mormons are Coming; The Mormons are Coming! Lock up your daughters, they are always looking for more wives!!!!
GracelandNOT the Elvis one! LOL
But Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa is LDS.
I spoke with them a few times while college shopping, and talk about having a babysitter for 20-year-olds! You could be punished even for smoking a cigarette on school property. What is this, HIGH SCHOOL?
Fuck THAT…..and fuck them!
The only good I seecoming from all the involvement in these elections by the LDS, NOM and other pseudo religious organizations is reformed finance laws for campaigns and referendums to stop the religious tax-exempt money laundering!
Yes! Drive home the message!
In every single press release, news article, LTE, and interview, we need to refer to NOM as “the Mormon front group NOM.” Karl Rove taught us well that if you repeat a mantra often enough, people believe it. At least in our case, it IS the truth. We just need to repeat it often enough so enough people hear it, and believe.
“The out-of-state mormon front group NOM”
“The mormon church, which is being investigated for campaign law violations in California, sent its front group, NOM”
“The mormon church continues its persecution of law-abiding gay citizens by sending its front group, NOM”
“The mormon church’s attempts to hurt gay families through funding ballot measures via its front group, NOM”
Drive home the message.
That makes me uneasyIt looks like you are shading into religious bigotry to drive home your point. Among other things, not all Mormons are part of the LDS church, and there are a lot of LDS Mormons who oppose — some quite vocally and at risk of excommunication — their church’s actions and intolerance.
Your brush is a bit too broad, methinks, and the color of your paint isn’t very pretty.
Has anyone sent in a complaint to the IRS about NOM?If not, I will be glad to send it in.
Stop trying to play nice with these creepsIt never worked and it never will. They’re determined to to wage their “cuszades” against the community and we need to fight back — by whatever means we can.
Oops, I meant “crusades”.
Get over it, TechbearI live in Hawaii, ground zero for the mormon “church’s” 199os million dollar campaign – the first one ever – to rip apart gay families for spite. My mormon parents donated to Prop 8. I’m going to call a spade a spade, and if you don’t like it, best get out of the toolshed.
You think I’m shading into religious bigotry? From where, pray tell, do you think those billions of dollars to keep us second-class citizens keeps coming from? The Underpants Gnomes? Scrooge McDuck’s cash vault? It repeatedly comes from christian hate voters, at the instructions of their church leadership. The catholic and mormon “churches” are at the center of these hate campaigns, and if we can use popular anti-mormon and anti-catholic sentiment in Protestant and evangelical circles to break the money alliances and defeat the hate campaigns, that’s just one more weapon in our arsenal.
Stop being an apologist for christian hate voters. The reality is that mormon anti-gay bigotry, dictated from the top down, is what’s driving NOM’s gravy train. If members disagree with it, they can speak out against it in Sacarament Meeting, or priesthood or relief society meetings, or they can resign their membership in protest.
OH Yeah….Sent off ALL OVER… Love the comment KEORI added it to my fb post.
Probably – Need More Time To Commit Fraud, ThoughBut they need 3 more weeks to commit fraud.
At least that’s what I gathered from what Brian Brown said: NOM will turn over their most recent info, after a “3 week processing period” – a “processing period” which doesn’t exist.
In other words, something’s fishy – and it’s NOT all those empty Long John Silver’s boxes in Maggie’s office.
I don’t need that, the FCCP investigation into their fraudulent activity is enough to get the IRS involved. I am sending the 3949a out today asking them to look into NOMs False Exemption, False/Altered Documents, Unreported Income, and Failure to withhold Tax.
Identifying an evil and dangerous organisation is not bigotryso pointing out the Mormon connection caannot be considered such. Many Americans are uneasy about the theocracy of Utah and attempts by the LDS church to control the legislative agendas of other states.
Excellent post, Lurleenand sharing this with my Maine contacts, to show what NOM is doing in other states.
LolHeh, it’s too bad he’s such a bigot. I’d do him.
Pretty simple decision.Stephen Burgmeier looks like someone I’d be afraid to be in a room alone with. Case closed.
Then identify the organization specifically. This can be done without a broad brush attackThe “Mormon connection” is very specifically with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its affiliated congregations. Not all Mormons are part of the LDS church, and there are many members of the LDS church who, at considerable risk, have been outspoken in their opposition what their church is doing with regards to Proposition 8 and equal marriage.
Blame the LDS church; as far as I’m concerned, they deserve all the condemnation that can be heaped on them. But to blame “Mormons” is no different than blaming Jews for the actions of the Israeli government.
I am not playing nice with anyoneI am pointing out prejudice. We cannot claim the high ground and scream “Bigotry!” when we engage in the same discriminatory tactics. The “they” you are talking about is the LDS Church specifically, NOT all Mormons everywhere, and I think it is very important to make that distinction.
So blame the church, not the adherentsWhile many members of the LDS church support these discriminatory policies, there are many who do not. It does us no credit to lump what allies we have — ever hear of Affirmation? — in with the bigots.
Man, fuck being nice to the Mormons.