From Canyon To Cove: NOM calls out Karger

Fred Karger’s battle with the National Organization for Marriage has heated up considerably.

The anti same-sex marriage organization, which purports to be a 501(c) (4) “social welfare organization” for tax purposes but is actually a high-powered political organization — more on that later — has demanded that Karger appear for a deposition with all of the correspondence and financial records for his group, Californians Against Hate, from January to date.

NOM is suing the state of California and many state officials over public disclosure laws, and NOM apparently thinks Karger’s e-mails, faxes, correspondence, financial records and all information pertaining to Californians Against Hate will prove that adhering to state law opened up its donors to retaliation, because Karger launched several successful boycotts of donors’ businesses.

Now NOM on its website “calls out” Karger by name: “NOM to Fred Karger: NOM will not be intimidated by politically motivated harassment.” So this is obviously a punitive retaliatory action designed to “intimidate” Karger through legal means. Back at’cha.

Karger is fighting back, hiring an attorney to represent him in the subpoena issue, and asking supporters for “Five for Fred” — $5 donations to help defray legal costs.

Karger started out years ago campaigning to keep the Boom Boom Room gay bar open in Laguna Beach, but he didn’t hesitate to take on Proposition 8, and now he’s fighting for same sex marriage rights across the country, wherever the battle goes.

NOM has also been fighting to keep its petition-signers’ names anonymous and to otherwise obscure the real origins of its well-heeled national fight to turn the clock back on gay rights.

Poor little NOM! The Princeton-based group raised nearly $3 million in 2008 — the year it helped campaign for Proposition 8, which took away marriage rights for same sex couples in our state. Now they are part of an anti-rights movement targeting Maine, New Hampshire, Iowa and their home state of New Jersey.

In Maine, where NOM and other groups — including the Roman Catholic Church — are going after the state’s recent same sex marriage rights law, Karger’s complaint to the state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices about money laundering has generated an investigation of NOM.

The Proposition 8-like ballot measure will be voted on Tuesday, and no one is predicting the outcome.

In the meantime, the court has apparently sided with Karger that NOM can’t hide its contributors forever.

In the wake of Karger’s continued questions about just who is behind this effort — hint: look no further than the Mormon Church — NOM posted its 2008 IRS return on its website. See, they’re not hiding anything.

Indeed, this tax return is very revealing — up to a point.

It reveals an organization whose stated mission is “to educate the general public on the importance of marriage between one man and one woman in law and society.” Well, not exactly. Its actual mission is to seek out and destroy same sex marriage rights wherever they may be found. But let’s not quibble over semantics.

The return reveals that NOM raised $518,667 in 2007, and $2,968,880 in 2008. That buys a lot of signatures and TV ads.

But if you want to know who the major donors were, you’ll have to look elsewhere, because page after page of donor reports are blank. There are spaces for the names, but they’re not filled in. This group is certainly consistent in its refusal to be above-board and open with the public which it seeks to influence.

I was curious about what a 501 (c) (4) organization is, as opposed to a 501 (c) (3), the more familiar form of nonprofit that is strictly prohibited from political activities. According to the IRS, “a section 501 (c) (4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.” Well, that would seem to make NOM ineligible for the tax exemption.

But the IRS is contradictory on this issue. It also states: “Seeking legislation germane to the organization’s programs is a permissible means of attaining social welfare purposes. Thus, a section 501 (c) (4) social welfare organization may further its exempt purposes through lobbying as its primary activity without jeopardizing its exempt status.”

Just what are it’s “exempt purposes,” anyway?

Perhaps the IRS never envisioned a group whose “social welfare purposes” involved attacking the welfare of a specific group of people and working against the betterment of society as a whole. Social welfare, indeed. Since when is the general social welfare promoted by relentlessly attacking hard-won civil rights of a minority group?

For more information on Karger’s most recent battle, visit www.californiansagainsthate.com/fiveforfred/.

CINDY FRAZIER is city editor of the Coastline Pilot. She can be contacted at (949) 494-2087 or cindy.frazier@latimes.com.