NOM CRATERS: Funding for Anti-LGBT National Organization For Marriage Drops by Over 50%
November 19, 2014 by Stephen Peters
A white-hot spotlight focused on the issue of same-sex marriage over the last few years hasn’t translated into financial success for an organization whose self-proclaimed sole purpose is to “protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.” In a time when virtually every nightly newscast, political debate, even television series delves into discussions about marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples, the beleaguered National Organization for Marriage (NOM) can’t seem to raise enough money to cover its expenses. According to analysis of the organization’s 2013 tax filings done by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), NOM raised $5.1 million in 2013, dropping by over 50% since 2012. Just 2 donors accounted for more than half of the organization’s funding – further evidence that everyday Americans have little interest in furthering NOM’s extremist agenda. In addition, the NOM Education Fund also dropped by nearly $3.5 million in funding -- a drop of almost 70% since the previous year. NOM ended the year more than $2.5 million in debt.
“NOM should start figuring out that people aren’t willing to give their hard-earned money to an extremist agenda that's going nowhere,” said Fred Sainz, HRC Vice President of Communications. “If I were Brian Brown, I’d be worried that my two or three mega-donors are soon going to come to terms with the fact that they’d largely be better off flushing money down the toilet. Americans certainly aren’t buying what NOM is selling, and it’s only a matter of time before the trickle of money keeping the lights on at NOM HQ dries up.”
NOM made their 2013 990s available this morning after repeatedly refusing to make them public following their November 17 deadline – a direct violation of federal law. HRC first made an in-person request for the public financial documents on Monday morning and again Tuesday – both times, NOM was unable to produce the documents. Federal law requires organizations to publicly release their 990s the same day an in-person request is made. As a result, HRC filed a complaint with the IRS in order to compel NOM to abide by the law.
A virtually unending series of losses is at the heart of NOM’s financial woes. Since enduring a staggering defeat on Election Day 2012 when voters at the ballot enacted marriage equality in three states and defeated a discriminatory marriage ban in another, the defeats just keep on coming. Over the last year, nearly three-dozen federal court rulings – from judges appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents – have struck down state bans on marriage equality, while only two federal courts have upheld the bans. In the year since NOM released its last annual financial report, the number of states where same-sex couples can legally marry has jumped from fifteen to thirty-three. Today, sixty-two percent of Americans live in states with marriage equality. And the Supreme Court of the United States has allowed federal court rulings granting marriage rights to same-sex couples to become the law of the land in eleven states over the last two years: California, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Indiana, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
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