Tag Archives: 2009 elections

NOM has finally handed over its donors list in Maine and as we all suspected, the hate group only has a handful of supporters. The Bangor Daily News reports: Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Maine Ethics Commission, said in a written statement Monday morning that the list had been filed at the commission’s website and that the organization has …

Via the Bangor Daily News: The Maine Ethics Commission gave the National Organization for Marriage a reprieve Wednesday on disclosing the donor list from its 2009 campaign against same-sex marriage in Maine. But the five-person commission did not back down on its demand for the national organization to pay a $50,250 fine for violating the state’s campaign finance and disclosure …

Via the Portland Press Herald: The National Organization for Marriage, the nation’s leading opponent of gay marriage, has filed two retaliatory complaints claiming that its adversaries violated Maine election laws more than four years ago. The complaints against the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force stem from campaign activity in the 2009 referendum over Maine’s …

“NOM vigorously denies that it violated any disclosure laws during the 2009 campaign opposing same-sex marriage. We worked with legal counsel to understand the law, and we followed that advice. The Commission staff has drawn improper inferences from the circumstances of the campaign environment that they wrongly interpret as meaning that if someone gave to NOM somehow they designated their …

UPDATE: The Portland Press Herald reports. NOM executives, two of whom were present for the hearing, vowed to fight the ruling and protect the anonymity of the organization’s donors. John Eastman, the attorney and board chairman for NOM, said revealing the donors would put them at risk of threats and harassment while hindering the organization’s ability to raise money. Eastman …

“NOM strongly denies the findings of the staff report in Maine. We did not raise funds designated for the Maine campaign and fully complied with Maine law. The staff has ignored uncontested sworn evidence from donors that we did not designate any contributions for the referendum effort and instead has focused on circumstantial evidence to support its conclusion when a …

Poor NOM. After being practically laughed out of the courthouse for requesting a last minute stay, they learned yesterday that Maine will proceed with an investigation into their violations of the state’s campaign finance laws. Barry Bostrom, an attorney for the group that contributed $1.9 million to a campaign to repeal the state’s gay marriage law, told the commission that …

Atlanta, according to one survey, is the third-gayest city in the nation. That may be why both candidates in the city’s mayoral runoff election are battling to win the LGBT vote. “I cannot recall a mayor’s race when there’s been so much attention placed on the gay and lesbian vote,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, the state’s …

Openly lesbian Houston mayoral candidate Annise Parker, who faces a runoff election next month, is the target of an anti-gay campaign by conservatives and Christians who say they fear a “gay takeover” at Houston City Hall. A cluster of socially conservative Houstonians is planning a campaign to discourage voters from choosing City Controller Annise Parker in the December mayoral runoff …

Final results have not yet been certified, but things continue to look good, if very close, for the Approve R-71 side in Washington state. In fact, the other side has all but conceded. As tends to go with these things, the green, more urban counties above are where the support for domestic partnerships is in the majority. Don’t exhale yet, …

Among last night’s good news, and there was a lot folks, really, was the election of Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s openly gay mayor, Mark Kleinschmidt. Here’s a great recounting of the final moments from Indy Week. Supporters erupted. His mother burst into tears. His sister shouted. Mark Kleinschmidt just smiled contently, arms crossed but giving the kind of ear-to-ear grin …

Thanks to everybody who dropped in and who stayed with me for the past seven hours. Despite Maine, it was in general a fantastic night for LGBT politics, with great results seen in Kalamazoo, Chapel Hill, Detroit, Houston, and in Washington state, where Approve 71 continues to lead, with a final result possibly not coming for a few days. Let’s …

Maine’s polling places are busier than forecast today, lending hope to the No On 1 side, who are depending on a strong turnout to win. Maine’s Secretary of State says that the turnout could exceed his prediction of 35% of eligible voters, provided midday volumes hold through the day. My gut is in knots.

Openly gay Annapolis city council candidate Scott Bowling, a Republican, is being smeared as a child molester by an anonymous group urging support for his Democratic opponent. A flier circulated by an anonymous group called ‘Friends and Supporters of Black Annapolis’ attacked Scott Bowling, a Republican running for the Ward 3 City Council seat who is openly gay. It is …

Yesterday’s “red alert” from No On 1 yielded another $68K for last minute ads. Below, campaign head Jesse Connelly sends his appreciation.

“You have to be totally operating on blind faith if you believe that President Obama and his team cannot make a difference. Tragically if we lose closely, that defeat almost can be laid at the steps of the White House for their refusal to stand by our side in the battle for freedom. The Holder remark basically gave those Obama …

I’ll be live-blogging election results this evening. In the meantime use this space to talk about your experiences at the polls today. Mainers, New Yorkers, Washington state residents – we want to hear from you in particular. Kalamazoomians (?) too! Drop in any links to exit polls, please. UPDATE: I left off Houston, where open lesbian Anise Parker is running …

The Bilerico Project reports that GOP New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, who is in a tight race with incumbent Jon Corzine, has sent voters a last-minute anti-gay mailer in order to push him over the top with the state’s bigots. Adam Bink: Not only does stuff like this make me furious, but there’s another wrinkle to this race. We …

“Homosexual acts are intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to …