Gay Marriage Foe NOM Charged With 'Propagating Known Falsehoods' About Gays

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has been charged with “propagating known falsehoods” about gay people.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) chides NOM, the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage, in the Summer 2012 edition of its Intelligence Report.

In a story titled National Organization for Marriage Continues to Spread Lies About Gays, SPLC's Mark Potok and Evelyn Schlatter make their allegations.

“For more than a year now, gay rights activists have alleged that NOM is playing a shell game, avoiding the most egregiously false defamations of gay people on its own website, but linking directly to others who don’t. The charge had enough impact that Maggie Gallagher — who co-founded NOM in 2007, is past chairwoman of the board, and remains a key NOM spokeswoman — felt forced to respond.”

“Maggie Gallagher and [NOM president] Brian Brown have repeatedly claimed that they are simply trying to protect marriage, that they bear no animus toward LGBT people or their sexual orientations. But again and again, signs of such animus have crept into the material issued by NOM: scary warnings about pedophilia, 'addictive behavior,' 'jihads' against Christians and so on. Now, as pressure ratchets up on opponents of same-sex marriage — Maryland this year became the eighth state to approve such unions, even as a federal judge found the anti-same-sex-marriage Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional — it remains to be seen whether NOM can avoid following other religious-right groups into a world of untrammeled hate.”

Several sites, including EqualityMatters.org and GLAAD's Commentator Accountability Project (CAP), have kept close tabs on NOM's rhetoric.

According to these sources, NOM has promoted the claims that gay marriage leads to polygamy, normalizes pedophilia and legitimizes child abuse. NOM has also touted a documentary which suggests that gay people can – and should – be “cured.”