We aren't allowed to know who's funding conservative ballot campaigns.
Don't ask, Jesus hates transparency in politics.
In their wake of the stunning failure to "defend marriage" in four states, National Organization for Marriage has whined that their were outspent, which is absolutely true.
Human Rights Campaign has obtained a copy of the organization's publicly available tax filings, and it gives us insight into exactly how they got outspent.
First of all, there's a dwindling bottom line. HRC reports NOM "saw a steep decline in the amount of money it raised in 2011 – dropping to $6.2 million from the $9.1 million it raised the previous year."
Ouch. Nearly a third less than the year before. And oddly, there weren't even any ballot measures for National Organization for Marriage to fundraise off of in 2011. In a sense, 2012 should have been a better fundraising environment as it's probably easier to excite voters to donate to ballot campaigns than the legislative battles that were waged in New York and New Hampshire in 2011.
Well, at least they still have their broad, nationwide coalition of many supporters to fall back on. They can start sending countless and incessant pleas to regular folks asking for money. What's that? They did that every single day of the 2012 cycle?
And it turns out it's mostly just two people who heard NOM's call to "defend marriage"?
HRC reports:
"Just two donors were responsible for funding 75 percent of the anti-gay group – the organization reported two donations of approximately $2.4 million each."
“The National Organization for Marriage continues to push the notion that there is some sort of grassroots support for their discriminatory anti-gay agenda... NOM is nothing more than a conduit channeling the anti-gay agenda of a few secretive, wealthy donors,” says HRC Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz.
If just two donors make of 75 percent of your organization's budget, it sounds like your organization is less a grassroots movement and more of a boutique special interest.
NOM is notoriously secret with their donor's identities, and I guess you can see why. There aren't that many people for marriage equality supporters to "persuade" into finding another hobby or cause to support other than fighting LGBT civil rights.
If the identity of those two donors are ever made known, you can guess they will probably be on the receiving end of some very powerful feedback. Chances are excellent someone who has $2.4M to drop on a single-issue endeavor may well be dependent on profiting off the good will of the people.
These donors should also consider that secrets of this magnitude are notoriously hard to keep in politics. I would bet serious money their names will come out sooner or later.
The tea leaves do not look good for the future of this anti-gay organization.
