NOM: National Organization for Marriage

-National anti-gay organization 

-Co-founded by Robert George and Maggie Gallagher; main spokespeople include Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher

Facts

- Internal memos obtained by the Human Rights Campaign reveal that NOM was actively attempting to - in its own words - "drive a wedge between gays and blacks" and "provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing (Black) spokesmen and women as bigots." A 2008-2009 Board Update also revealed that one of NOM's goals was "fanning the hostility" (p.12) between the LGBT community and the Black community.

- Called Supreme Court Chief John Roberts' decision to adopt children the "second-best option": "You're looking at what is the best course societywide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts' family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option." 

- Internal memos obtained by the Human Rights Campaign also reveal NOM's strategy to hire someone to seek out and investigate children of same-sex parents.

- In the public eye for their secretive funding and unwillingness to disclose donors and comply with legal requirements.

- Spokesperson and Former President Maggie Gallagher compared winning the fight to ban marriage for gay couples with the fall of communism and believes that if it is made legal, it will mean "losing American civilization." 

- Recently attempted, via national newsletter, to raise a false link between marriage equality and pedophilia: "Will pedophiles become "minor-attracted persons" in our culture? Will courts which endorse orientation as a protected class decide down the road that therefore laws which discriminate against "minor-attracted persons" must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest?" 

- Spokesperson and Former President Maggie Gallagher believes polygamy is better than marriage equality: "At least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children." 

- Spokesperson and President Brian Brown has advocated for gay people to change their orientation. Said of a faith-based study on self-identified so-called "ex-gays": "Even those who disagree with us about gay marriage (or Christian sexual ethics) should feel good about this this scientific verification of the possibility of free will triumphing over desire. We are all more than our instincts, sexual or otherwise." 

- Spokesperson and Former President Maggie Gallagher sees both gay couples and their supporters as "committing several kinds of various serious sins." (0:44-1:53)

See Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher's profiles for more.