NOMblog: The Official Blog of the National Organization for Marriage

Category Archives: Federal

Chairman Camp Speaks Up for NOM and All Victims of IRS Abuse

October 8, 2013 – 4:30 pm

Representative Dave Camp (R-Mi.), the Chairman of the House of Representatives powerful Committee on Ways and Means, issued the following statement in response to the filing of NOM's lawsuit against the IRS:

The unauthorized release of confidential information is a crime and those affected deserve answers, not the runaround. What makes the situation even worse is that the law, intended to protect taxpayers, is being used as a shield for those that perpetrate this wrongdoing. Just last year, the IRS released the confidential taxpayer information of the National Organization of Marriage. These organizations and the American people deserve the truth and the IRS must take serious action to stop the illegal leaking of confidential information.

Chairman Camp and all of our allies in the Congress understand that, no matter our differences, no one should be the target of harassment and abuse of power by government agencies. That is simply not how we do things in America.

NOM thanks Representative Camp for his courageous and steadfast leadership in holding the IRS accountable for abuses of power and identifying those responsible for leaking NOM's confidential donor information.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Congress, Federal, IRS | Comments Off

"The IRS Needs to Pay" - NOM to File Suit Today

October 3, 2013 – 7:30 am

At The Washington Times, Stephen Dinan reports that "The National Organization for Marriage will sue the IRS on Thursday, saying it has evidence that someone within the agency leaked the organization’s private donor list to its political enemies in 2012 but that nobody has been held responsible" [emphasis added].

IRS

Dinan spoke to attorney Cleta Mitchell of ActRight Legal Foundation which is handling NOM's case. She said:

Somebody did this deliberately and it was planned, and we need to know who it was. The IRS needs to pay. Ultimately, the IRS is responsible for the damages.

Dinan also quotes NOM's chairman, Dr. John Eastman, explaining how the fact that the leaked documents had internal IRS markings on that that had been hidden makes for a compelling case:

It suggests to me that this thing was deliberate and at high levels — head of the division, a political appointee, somebody. And darn it, we’re going to find out who did it, and we’re going to wrap it up with a bow and send it over to the Justice Department and keep the pressure on.

You can read Dinan's entire piece here.

And don't forget that you can hear John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell both speaking today at The Heritage Foundation as part of their ongoing series, Preserve the Constitution.

The event will be live-streamed from 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT, and you can sign up for an email reminder here.

Oh, and the topic of the event? "Political Speech and the IRS: Protecting the First Amendment." Surely, this one is not to be missed!

By NOM Staff | Posted in Events, Featured, Federal, Free Speech, Human Rights Campaign, IRS, News | Comments Off

House Oversight to Investigate "Apparently Politically Driven Leak"

September 30, 2013 – 12:00 pm

At NRO's The Corner, Eliana Johnson reports that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, headed by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Ca.), will be investigating the politically-motivated targeting of conservative groups by the I.R.S., and particularly the leak of NOM's confidential tax documents to Human Rights Campaign:

Issa and subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan notified Treasury Department inspector general Russell George and Internal Revenue Service acting administrator Danny Werfel in letters dated September 26 that the National Organization for Marriage, the conservative group founded in opposition to the legalization of gay marriage, and a handful of tea-party groups have signed waivers allowing senior stafff on the committee to access their tax return information. “With the authority granted by these waivers,” they write, “we request that you produce all documents and communications referring or relating” to the applications and their review within the agency.

Johnson quotes a statement from Representative Issa that explains the scope of the investigation. According to Issa, "This information will give us a better sense of why these groups faced delays, what questions they were asked, and what sort of communications were occurring within the IRS in regards to the inappropriate delays and the apparently politically driven leak."

We look forward to the Committee's findings.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Congress, Federal, Human Rights Campaign, IRS, News, Politics | Comments Off

Undoing the Myth of Inevitability

September 27, 2013 – 10:25 am

Kellie Fiedorek at the Alliance Defending Freedom has a great piece in American Thinker this morning as to why states’ laws and constitutional amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman are completely constitutional and should not be overturned by the US Supreme Court despite efforts by those who would redefine marriage. She writes…

Myth of Inevitability Proponents of redefining marriage again have set their sights on the U.S. Supreme Court to force a new definition of marriage on every state in the country -- this time by 2015…
But the problem for those behind this plan is that the state marriage laws they are challenging do not violate the Constitution. Maintaining the gendered definition of marriage that these states have always known falls squarely into what both the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent approve…
Some assume that the Supreme Court found a new right to same-sex marriage when it issued the Windsor decision at the end of June, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Politico: NOM Plans to Step Up Pro-Marriage Federal Lobbying in 2013

January 10, 2013 – 2:30 pm

Politico reports on NOM's plans to expand our pro-marriage advocacy on The Hill this coming year:

"...To challenge advocates of same-sex marriage, members of the National Organization for Marriage, which spent $60,000 on lobbying the federal government through September, will walk the halls of Capitol Hill day in and day out, said Brian Brown, president of the group.

“The fact that they are claiming victory because they won in four deep-blue states is absurd,” Brown said. “Congress is not going to repeal DOMA. That’s just not going to happen. You can say all you want that the nation is at a turning point, but that’s just an exercise in myth-making.”