National Black Justice Coalition Slams NOM's Racist Wedge Politics

Confidential memos have confirmed that the National Organization for Marriage has pursued a deliberate strategy to "split" the Democratic Party base by pitting Blacks and Latinos against gay-rights groups seeking marriage equality.

The National Black Justice Coalition:

NOM's memos detail its campaign to direct money to a handful of African American clergy in order to attack gay and lesbian couples that have made a lifelong promise to one another. The organization admits their key goal is to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks." The memo also outlines NOM's strategies for targeting Latino communities by "making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity" and "to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of 'Anglo' culture."

"These documents expose NOM for what it really is-a hate group determined to use African American faith leaders as pawns to push their damaging agenda and as mouthpieces to amplify that hatred," says Sharon Lettman-Hicks, NBJC Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. "NOM is fighting a losing battle," adds Lettman-Hicks. "With these memos made public, the black faith community must refuse to be exploited and refuse to deny their fellow brothers and sisters equal protections under the law."

The documents were written by the National Organization for Marriage and were kept from the public until this week when they were unsealed by court officials in Maine. "The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies," says one of the memos.

Internal emails published this week also prove that NOM has placed an emphasis on race. ThinkProgress has posted highlights of emails written by Maggie Gallagher that "repeatedly requests pictures of Black religious leaders participating in" anti-marriage equality protests. Read them HERE.

Comments

[JW, III]

So…now it’s in print that our Black religious right was made a fool. We already knew this. Next.