Act Now to Stop Congress From Limiting Political Speech

Folks, I received this from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today. Please, act now:

Please read below and take action right now. Congress will likely be voting today on a bill that would force NOM and other 501(c)(4) to publicly disclose our donors and satisfy onerous new reporting requirements.

The bill is being pushed by Congressional Democrats hoping to silence groups like NOM before this November's election.

Our opponents know that we have a powerful message -- a message about marriage that resonates with the American people.  So instead of debating marriage, they try to silence us instead.

They have failed time and time again. Just yesterday, the New Hampshire Attorney General dismissed a complaint seeking to ban NOM from running our TV ad campaign in New Hampshire.

But now Congress is considering a bill that has potential to silence NOM's work throughout the entire country.

Our opponents want to use donor disclosure as one of their most powerful weapons to stop our message.

After the Prop 8 campaign in California, we got a taste of what happens when marriage supporters are publicly identified . . . Radical gay marriage activists target them individually -- threatening their businesses, their employment, their property and in some cases even their lives. In California, individuals who had donated as little as $100 lost their jobs after protesters targeted their employers with an ongoing harassment campaign.

Just a few weeks ago, the DISCLOSE Act was considered dead . . . unlikely to move in Congress due to opposition from powerful advocacy organizations. But on Monday, House Democrats made a backroom deal with the NRA, the most influential of the lobbying organizations opposed to the bill, exempting the NRA from the bill's donor disclosure requirements in exchange for the NRA's agreement to drop its opposition to the bill.

This sort of unseemly quid pro quo has even the liberal supporters of the bill crying foul. And yet, with the NRA now neutral on the bill, the House leadership hopes to hold enough Democratic votes for passage, despite strong opposition from Republicans and a number of moderate Democrats, some of whom are involved in close reelection races.

Last year, NOM filed lawsuits in California and Maine, seeking to protect our donors from harassment and strike down unconstitutional state campaign finance regulations similar to the disclosure provisions in the federal DISCLOSE Act.

Americans have a core civil right to participate in the political process without fear of violence or intimidation. We need your help to protect that right today. Take action now! Click here to help stop the DISCLOSE Act today!

Let me add my personal comment that the NRA’s maneuver to stand neutral on this bill has been particularly hideous and corrosive of the right to free speech of its own members, many of whom support traditional marriage against its many cultural enemies. I hope their membership take note of the NRA’s betrayal of free speech rights for the rest of us.