WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, released never-before-seen financial documents Friday from the National Organization for Marriage showing a $10,000 donation from Mitt Romney’s PAC in 2008. HRC called on Mitt Romney to disavow the racially divisive tactics of the National Organization for Marriage, which HRC this week revealed to be engaging in a plan to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and manipulate the Latino community.
“Mitt Romney’s funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “Not only has Romney signed NOM’s radical marriage pledge, now we know he’s one of the donors that NOM has been so desperate to keep secret all these years.”
The contribution from Romney’s “Free and Strong America” PAC, donated while NOM was engaged in passing California’s Proposition 8, was revealed in NOM’s 2008 IRS 990 report, which HRC obtained from a whistleblower. The document (the public version of which normally has the donor names redacted) is available at: http://www.scribd.com/nomexposed/d/87361789-NOMSched2008PDF.
HRC reviewed copies of Romney’s “Free and Strong America” PAC’s filings with the Federal Election Commission and no contribution to NOM was disclosed in 2008. However, knowing that oftentimes federal leadership PACs create state PAC entities in places where contribution limits do not exist or disclosure laws are lax, HRC did discover an Alabama-based “Free and Strong America” PAC that in 2008 does disclose the $10,000 contribution to NOM.
In an October 28, 2008 article in Utah’s Deseret News, Romney’s spokesperson claims they have made a contribution to Prop. 8, but there is no evidence of disclosure of a contribution to the effort. If Romney’s spokesperson is accurate, then both Romney’s PAC and NOM may have violated California disclosure laws.
“For what other purpose would you contribute $10,000 to NOM three weeks before the election other than Prop 8?” said Solmonese. “The question that now remains is whether this whole thing was an attempt for Mitt Romney to fund the Prop 8 battle without his own fingerprints.”
HRC exposed NOM’s divisive strategy this week in documents that were disclosed by a court in Maine as part of an ongoing campaign finance investigation into the organization. NAACP Chairman Emeritus Julian Bond called NOM’s tactics “one of the most cynical things I’ve ever heard.”
“Mitt Romney must be held to account. You can’t at one point say you’ll be better for gays than Ted Kennedy and then turn around and fund one of the most divisive, far-right strategies ever devised to deny rights to gay people,” said Solmonese.
Additionally, HRC launched an online action encouraging fair-minded Americans to contact Mitt Romney and tell him to disavow NOM’s divisive strategy.
First of all at the time of Romney’s donation the group just started! It was an anti gay marriage group that I too supported. They became worse as time went on and if you noticed Romney did not give them any more money after that.