The Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board on Thursday voted
unanimously to investigate the National Organization for Marriage
(NOM).
The decision was in response to a complaint filed by Fred Karger of
the gay rights group Rights Equal Rights on June 13.
Karger's complaint charges that NOM, the nation's most vociferous
opponent of gay marriage, failed to disclose donors behind two
campaigns aimed at ousting four Iowa Supreme Court justices who
joined the court's unanimous 2009 ruling which struck down the
state's laws limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. Three
justices were removed from the bench in 2010, but an attempt to
unseat a fourth justice in 2012 failed.
NOM has gone to great lengths in other states to avoid disclosing
its donors. In May, Maine's highest court ruled that NOM must reveal
the names of donors to its 2009 campaign to repeal a marriage
equality law.
Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry,
responded in a statement: βFor years, NOM has taken huge
contributions from a few anti-gay donors in exchange for shielding
their names from campaign finance authorities, whether or not that
required flouting the law. Those days are quickly coming to an end.
NOM's desperate appeals to the US Supreme Court have been rejected,
and soon the public will see who bankrolls NOM's anti-gay campaigns,
which β according to NOM internal documents β include a goal 'to
drive a wedge between gays and blacks.'β
Karger has also filed a second complaint against NOM with the
Federal Election Commission.