Dear Marriage Supporter,
Gay marriage activists are filing lawsuits across this country to strike down marriage laws. Already they have in place lawsuits intended to wipe out the marriage laws of all but twelve states. And that's before they get into the Supreme Court again.
Justice Scalia said, too many judges will do what they think they can get away with.
Now is the time to ACT, and I'm asking you to help marriage hero Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) who has reintroduced a federal Marriage Protection Amendment. Write your representatives and senator today to demand justice for marriage and for kids and for traditional religious believers!
Hero Pastors Standing up in PA
Recently, NOM's founding Chairman Robby George went on BlazeTV to explain the recent court decision and our call to action today!
The corruption from this decision is already spreading to Pennsylvania, where pastors are demanding the Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane defend the state's marriage laws from an ACLU-filed lawsuit in federal court.
This story is not going to just fade away, I promise you. The people of Pennsylvania are about fairness and the rule of law. Kane still has the chance to change her mind, do her job, and defend the laws of the state of Pennsylvania. Or voters will hold her accountable.
A Hero Senator Demanding Justice
Also happening this week, breaking news on the unfolding IRS corruption/scandal — with the scandal now moving from the IRS to the Justice Department.
You know that NOM was the first organization to release hard proof that its confidential tax records were revealed to our political opponent.
J. Russell George testified before Congress on Thursday. He is the inspector general of the IRS, and he has acknowledged in a letter that IRS officials have in at least one instance willfully targeted political candidates for audits or improperly disclosed tax records — and that the Justice Department declined to prosecute!
Is that NOM's case, or some other felony being covered up by the Justice Department?
Another marriage hero, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), has stepped up, writing a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking for details on who made the decision not to prosecute and why. Grassley wrote:
The IRS is required to act with neutrality and professionalism, not political bias. The Justice Department should answer completely and not hide behind taxpayer confidentiality laws to avoid accountability for its decision not to prosecute a violation of taxpayer confidentiality laws. The public needs to know whether the decision not to prosecute these violations was politically motivated and whether the individuals responsible were held accountable in any other way.
So the center of gravity of the IRS investigation is shifting from the IRS's Cincinnati branch office to Washington, and from Washington to the Justice Department.
In the American Thinker this week, Scott Varland makes the case (admittedly speculative at this point) that AG Eric Holder is staying in office to make sure the investigations into corruption in the IRS are never coordinated or pursued with vigor. If so, that would put the corruption at the highest levels of government!
Varland makes mention of our own John Eastman in making his case:
Dr. John Eastman (Chairman of the Board, National Organization for Marriage) makes the most convincing argument for probable cause with regard to the release of tax returns. In his June 4, 2013, testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, he described in detail the criminal activity of IRS employees. On March 30, 2012, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) learned that its confidential 2008 Form 990 Schedule B, containing donors' names, had been published on websites. NOM removed the published document's redaction layer and discovered that the document had originated within the IRS itself. The unredacted original bore two IRS markings. Someone at the IRS had disseminated the unredacted original for publication. On April 11, 2012, NOM filed a written request for investigation with Attorney General Holder's Department of Justice and the Treasury. The latter assigned a complaint number, but Justice and Treasury have done nothing since.
The release of our confidential tax information was and remains a crime, a felony! The IRS refusal to prosecute or investigate would transform an individual criminal act into serious government corruption at the highest levels.
As Varland notes, "The release for publication of confidential tax returns provides the most clear cut example of criminal conduct and the Obama Administration's ongoing cover-up of that conduct."
Another witness testifying before Congress on Thursday is Elizabeth Hofacre, a revenue agent. In June, she disputed the claim that political scrutiny of Tea Party applications was the work of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati. When IRS chief Lois Lerner first blamed it on the Ohio office, Hofacre described it as a "nuclear strike" on that office.
Well, it was a nuclear strike on all of us, too — on the idea of fair government and respect for the law.
A Hero Lawyer Defending Our Rights
On Friday my friend and hero Chuck LiMandri (who was one of the first to help us get Prop 8 on the ballot!) will be in court in New Jersey, taking on the goliath Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its new militant attempt to misuse consumer fraud laws to attack a small Jewish nonprofit named JONAH that helps observant Jews with same-sex attraction live according to the Bible's laws.
This is one of the hugest stories you've never been told by the media: the SPLC wants to use its $250 million budget and 7 full-time staff lawyers to bankrupt therapists, counselors, and religious nonprofits that offer help to people with unwanted same-sex attraction. And they are misusing "consumer fraud" statutes to do it.
I suspect SPLC picked a Jewish service organization first because they were hoping many of us in the Christian community would ignore it. But whatever you think about sexual orientation, it's wrong to tell people they can't ask for help to live their sexual lives as they choose, not as the SPLC's lawyers want them to do.
This is a test case, in other words: if the SPLC wins, they hope to use it to unleash bankrupting civil lawsuits against 70 or more pro-family groups. They were hoping no one would take the case on and that JONAH would be left to fluster with little or no legal help.
The SPLC wasn't counting on the courage of Chuck LiMandri. He's a fantastic, first-class trial lawyer with a successful law practice in San Diego. For years he worked pro-bono winning cases like the Mt. Soldedad Cross case and the San Diego Firefighters case (where the government tried to force firefighters to appear in a gay pride gay against their will).
Chuck has just started up a public interest law firm, so he can defend us all from the mounting attacks that are coming from those well-heeled gay rights groups that want to shut down and threaten groups they disagree with. Chuck's new nonprofit law firm the Conscience Defense Fund adds wonderful resources to the fight to protect traditional believers in this country.
If you want to learn more about this amazing man, and his amazing work, go to ConscienceDefense.org.
A Hero Friend in Need of Prayers
Finally, I'd like to ask you for your prayers for our young, valiant marriage champion Thomas Peters. He is in the hospital in stable but critical condition due to a spinal injury following a swimming accident.
He is aware of the prayers that have been offered all over the world, from those who both agree and disagree with Thomas' pro-marriage convictions.
He and his wife Natalie and their families are grateful for your prayerful support, and so am I. Please continue to keep Thomas in mind and we will do our best to update you on his condition as we know more.
As always, thank you for all your support and prayers, for standing with us in so many ways. Together, thanks to you, and by the grace of God, we will not falter, we will not fail, we will stand with love for the truth about marriage.
The bill had the full support of Prime Minister David Cameron, despite strong opposition by his Conservative Party. Cameron’s support appears to have come at a high political price with the article noting that, “some political commentators predict Cameron’s gay-friendly attitudes will cost him at the next election in 2015.”
“The military is trying to make examples of people who have religious beliefs that homosexual conduct in the military is wrong,” said John Wells, an attorney representing TSgt. Layne Wilson. “The end game is to force conservative Christians out of the military.”
Who is most harmed by these realities? Common sense and social science agree: It’s the children. Children who grow up without the particular gifts and influences only a father can provide; children to whom mom and dad never truly commit because mom and dad have never truly committed to one another; children who feel like pawns in a legal chess match—these are the victims of the social pathologies that ail our families.
"Opponents of a lawsuit challenging Illinois' gay marriage ban say the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act won't change their legal strategy.
Thank you, Alliance Defending Freedom, for your heroic work defending life, marriage, and liberty. During the past year it has been a blessing to work together on marriage. It’s been a source of encouragement. Thank you Austin Nimocks, Kellie Fiedorek, and Greg Scott for your friendship over the past year.
Outrage over political targeting on tax-exempt applications from conservative groups, as well as selective leaking of confidential tax information of the National Organization for Marriage to its political foes, has given the GOP a chance to express its fundamental antipathy toward taxes and the intrusive manner in which they are collected. If one is inclined to enjoy karma in the political sense, then prepare to get cheered by House Republicans in their latest response to the IRS scandals.
