Brody's Notes... Romney's PAC Funded Anti-Gay NOM On The Sly

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

By Brody Levesque | WASHINGTON -- Documents sent to the Human Rights Campaign and released Friday show that Republican presidential front runner Mitt Romney confidentially gave the National Organizational for Marriage a ten thousand dollar donation via the Alabama chapter of Romney's political action committee, “Free and Strong America.” Diverting contributions by federal leadership PACs which create state PAC entities in places where contribution limits do not exist or disclosure laws are lax is common practice. Romney is not the only national politician to take advantage of Alabama's lax campaign finance and disclosure laws. Numerous other individuals and campaigns have set up PACs in the state as Alabama does not limit the amount an individual can contribute to a PAC.

At issue with former Governor Romney's donation is that the timing was three weeks prior to the Prop 8 ballot drive in California that ultimately stripped same-sex couples of the legal ability to get married. The National Organisation for Marriage along with the LDS (Mormon) Church and the Catholic Church had been at the forefront of the campaign to repeal same-sex marriage in the state.

“For what other purpose would you contribute $10,000 to NOM three weeks before the election other than Prop 8?” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign on Friday. “The question that now remains is whether this whole thing was an attempt for Mitt Romney to fund the Prop 8 battle without his own fingerprints.”

The contribution from Romney’s PAC, donated while NOM was engaged in passing California’s Proposition 8, was revealed in NOM’s 2008 IRS 990 report, which HRC obtained from a whistleblower.
[The document (the public version of which normally has the donor names redacted) is available here.]

The HRC also called on Romney to disavow the racially divisive tactics of the National Organization for Marriage, which the organisation revealed this week to be engaging in a plan to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and manipulate the Latino community.

“Mitt Romney’s funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Not only has Romney signed NOM’s radical marriage pledge, now we know he’s one of the donors that NOM has been so desperate to keep secret all these years.”

HRC exposed NOM’s divisive strategy this week in documents that were disclosed by a court in Maine as part of an ongoing campaign finance investigation into the organization. NAACP Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond called NOM’s tactics “one of the most cynical things I've ever heard.”

“Mitt Romney must be held to account. You can’t at one point say you’ll be better for gays than Ted Kennedy and then turn around and fund one of the most divisive, far-right strategies ever devised to deny rights to gay people,” said Solmonese.