Editor's Note: This email went out to Congressman Camp's district in Michigan, but the issues surrounding the IRS scandal are of national importance. Please look over the blog post below and then call Congressman Camp at 989-631-2552 to demand that he use his power as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee to resolve this egregious violation of NOM's (and all Americans') rights. And if you have family or friends in Rep. Camp's district, please use the social sharing buttons in the post to share this information with them.

Dear Marriage Supporter,

You have a special opportunity to strike a blow for the rule-of-law and the defense of marriage this month. Your Congressman, Dave Camp, is the Chairman of the very important House Ways and Means Committee. This is the Congressional Committee that has been holding hearings on the IRS scandal in Washington, DC.

As you know, NOM has been the victim of a felony crime in that someone within the IRS leaked NOM's confidential tax return in 2012. This criminal provided our tax documents, with the names of several donors, to the Human Rights Campaign and the Huffington Post. It is a felony to have provided this information and to have revealed the confidential names of NOM's donors.

Since learning about this, NOM has filed numerous "Freedom of Information Requests" and demanded that the IRS take action against the perpetrator. To this point NOM has received no satisfactory answer from the IRS as to the status of the investigation or even if one is under way.

The scandal made national news when it was also revealed that the IRS inappropriately targeted conservative organizations for particular scrutiny in the applications for tax-exempt status. However, what happened to NOM goes beyond targeting to a felony crime.

Chairman Camp is holding Town Hall meetings in your district this month to hear from you, his constituents. This is an opportunity for you to go and ask your Congressman, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, what exactly is being done to get to the bottom of the IRS Scandal and restore the rule of law in Washington.

Friday, August 23, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
James Wickson Library
359 South Franklin Street
Frankenmuth, MI 48734

Friday, August 23, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Isabella County Building - Room 225
200 North Main Street, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48850

Thursday, August 29, 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Owosso City Hall - Conference Room
301 West Main Street, Owosso, MI 48867

Thursday, August 29, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Clinton County Courthouse
100 Michigan 21
St. Johns, MI 48879

Friday, August 30, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Gratiot County Courthouse - County Board of Commissioners Room
214 East Center Street, Ithaca, MI 48847

Friday, August 30, 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Roscommon County Building - Commissioners Room
500 Lake Street, Roscommon, MI 48853

I urge you to make the time to attend one of the Town Hall meetings the Congressman has scheduled and ask him for an explanation and demand the Ways and Means Committee use its power of subpoena to resolve these issues.

Here are several talking points about the scandal; followed by action items NOM has demanded the Ways and Means Committee take to resolve this issue. We urge you also, as his constituent, to respectfully demand the Ways and Means Committee use all its powers to restore credibility in Washington.

• In March, 2012, someone at the IRS leaked the National Organization for Marriage's confidential tax return — a felony — to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which posted the document on its website. HRC is NOM's principal opponent in the marriage battle and has waged a war of intimidation and harassment against NOM and those active in the effort to preserve marriage. In early 2012, HRC president, Joseph Solmonese, was appointed a national co-chair of the Obama reelection campaign. A few months later, the publication of NOM's tax return occurred.

• NOM's published Form 990 Schedule B from 2008 contained the identity of dozens of major NOM donors. NOM knows the document was from internal IRS because under a mask that was applied to the document to hide the origin, which computer programs were able to remove, revealed the internal IRS stamp on the document, on every single page in the same location.

• In early April 2012 after the publication of their tax returns, NOM asked both the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for investigations. NOM knows TIGTA conducted an investigation, but they never identified the perpetrator of this crime. If charges are brought, federal law requires that the taxpayer be advised.

• Beginning last August 2012, NOM began filing a series of FOIA and Privacy Act requests with TIGTA and the IRS to try to ascertain the status of the investigation, the identity of the perpetrator, and any information relating to where the decision was made to commit this felony against NOM for obvious political purposes. Those requests have been stonewalled, with the latest non-response response, dated May 3, 2013, claiming that the very same statute that was violated by disclosing our returns shields the identity of the perpetrator as the "subject" of an IRS investigation.

• The IRS, the DOJ, and TIGTA have not brought charges against the individuals who committed these felonies in over a year, and they are using a convoluted interpretation of the statute prohibiting disclosure to shield the identity of those same individuals from NOM.

• Insist that the House Ways and Means Committee subpoena Joseph Solmonese, and other HRC staff, to determine exactly by what means HRC obtained NOM's confidential donor information

• Pursue full disclosure from former Acting IRS Commission Steven Miller. Mr. Miller was unable to provide satisfactory answers to the Committee on May 17th. The Committee should subpoena Mr. Miller and require him to give a full account under oath.

• Some Congressmen are arguing that the IRS scandal should result in broad based tax reform.

• Tax reform, though a laudable future goal does not help with the immediate problem before us of the criminal theft of confidential donor information.

• Left unsolved, the theft of donor data is now perpetuating donor intimidation, further eroding public confidence in the ability to Congress to the people's business and emboldening political opponents to engage in more criminal acts and intimidation.

• Tax reform will not hold those responsible accountable for their actions. We are looking to Congressman Camp, as Chairman of Ways and Means, to aggressively investigate the theft and publication of donor data by the staff of the IRS and the Human Rights Campaign.

Thank you for taking the time to make your voice heard Chairman Camp, and to move this investigation forward. All Americans should be able to engage in the public discourse about marriage without fear of reprisal or harassment.

You can keep up to date on the latest regarding NOM and the IRS scandal here.

Dear Marriage Supporter,

Ever since the US Supreme Court invalidated the federal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, we've expected lawsuits would be filed in federal court challenging state laws that also define marriage in the traditional way. Our expectations have certainly been met; over a dozen such lawsuits have now been filed.

What saddens me most about these lawsuits is that some of our elected officials entrusted with defending the laws of the land have chosen to abandon their oaths of office and state law on marriage. In fact, the Attorneys General of both Illinois and Pennsylvania have declared that they will not defend marriage in federal court. They are following the disgraceful path of Attorney General Eric Holder, who refused to defend our federal definition of marriage, and Jerry Brown in California, whose refusal to defend Proposition 8 led to the measure being invalidated by a single judge in San Francisco. The votes of over seven million citizens were eradicated by the view of one man — a homosexual judge involved in a long term gay relationship.

Who will hold these derelict politicians accountable for abandoning the law of marriage in order to curry favor with wealthy homosexual activists?

The only people who can make these politicians pay a price for abandoning marriage is us. Will you give us an immediate contribution of $50, $150, or $250 so that we can send a message to politicians everywhere that if they abandon their duty to defend marriage against attack, they will pay a price. They will be held accountable to their constituents who elected them to defend our state laws, including the law of marriage.

The constitution does not give state politicians the power to pick and choose which laws they will follow and which they will abandon. They are responsible for maintaining the rule of law by defending all the laws of the land. Yet somehow with gay marriage, they are able to get away with it.

Please help us make sure they don't get away with abandoning marriage by donating today.

But it's not just ambitious Attorneys General who have decided to take the law into their own hands. Now some local officials are getting into the act. The Register of Wills in Montgomery County Pennsylvania has decided the he will ignore state law limiting marriage to one man and one woman, and he's openly invited gay couples to seek marriage licenses in his county. He bases his decision on his own personal interpretation of the law after reading Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in the Windsor case concerning the federal definition of marriage.

If some local official were to take the law into his own hands and decide to rewrite a state environmental law, the left would scream in protest. But because this is about same-sex marriage, this utter lawlessness is in fact being celebrated in some quarters and the local official is being called a "hero!" No doubt many ambitious local politicians are waiting to see how this all turns out, so that they might be able to write their own marriage law for their own jurisdiction.

Who will hold these people accountable, if not you and I? Please help us do so.

As we've discussed, NOM is a lean organization with a small staff. Almost everything we raise goes into supporting critical programs to preserve marriage. We are stretched very thin. When new challenges arise like having state Attorneys General and local marriage officials openly defy the law on marriage, we are limited in what we can do to respond unless we are able to raise additional resources. With resources in hand, we can communicate directly with constituents of these elected officials, and ensure that they hear from the people of their jurisdiction. But without added resources, it's entirely possible that politicians who conspire to leave marriage defenseless may get away with it.

Please give today so that we can continue to fight for marriage and hold state and local politicians accountable for their actions in defending laws that define marriage as God created it — the union of one man and one woman.

Faithfully,

Brian S. Brown