Newly released documents show US anti-marriage equality campaigners plotted to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” in an attempt to split the Democratic Party base. Confidential strategy memos have been made public by court officials in Maine and circulated by Human Rights Watch. "The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies," says one of the memos from the National Organization for Marriage. It also suggests "interrupting" the process of cultural assimilation for Hispanics in hopes of limiting support for same-sex marriage. Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese says it shows the ugly politics the group trafficks in every day, "While loving gay and lesbian couples seek to make lifelong commitments, NOM plays racial politics, tries to hide donors and makes up lies about people of faith,” he says. Veteran civil rights leader Julian Bond has also condemned the strategy. "NOM's underhanded attempts to divide will not succeed if Black Americans remember their own history of discrimination," says the former chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "Pitting bigotry's victims against other victims is reprehensible; the defenders of justice must stand together."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 28th March 2012 - 2:16pm