Comments on: NOM Bears False Witness

By: TomTallis

TomTallis — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 02:42:13 +0000

NOM has a long history of telling falsehoods and having them pointed out to them. They coutinue to do it, so I think that it’s completely accurate and absolutely necessary to point out their lies as such.

By: Sammy

Sammy — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 00:06:30 +0000

One need only listen to the radio spots that NOM is broadcasting in Minnesota to know that they willfully distort facts. They reference the Regenerus study as an idictment on same-sex headed households when it didn’t even examine same-sex households.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:41:54 +0000

Michael C,

I’ll keep my weather.com page set to Hell. If it should ever report a snowstorm, I know that your apology will be soon forthcoming.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:30:32 +0000

Oddly enough, NOM somehow read the stories without catching the headlines

“Man charged with damaging Buffalo churches, leaving anti-gay messages”

It sounds to me like this was some nutjob who was inspired by the “Innocence of Muslims” video (which portrayed Mohammad as, among other things, homosexual) and thought he’d do the same thing with Jesus. It seems that he wasn’t defending gay marriage, he was calling Jesus the worst slur he could thing of. But whatever his motivations, he wasn’t part of NOM’s “opposition”.

Fortunately more Minnesota voters read the Star Tribune and watch CBS news than scan the NOMblog.

By: Rob Tisinai

Rob Tisinai — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:44:54 +0000

It's true that people can offer factual misstatement without lying. I accepted that possibility in something I posted about NOM just yesterday. But when NOM displays a pattern of posting false statements that go uncorrected, or are even repeated, after they've been pointed out, NOM loses the benefit of the doubt.

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:42:34 +0000

Wellspoken Michael; I have a feeling we may be waiting for that apology for a long time.

By: Michael C

Michael C — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:34:09 +0000

Blake, I hope your perspective of NOM is more accurate than mine. Re-reading my comments, I am struck by how jaded I come across.

When NOM either posts the actual details of the story or allows the correction to be made in the comment section, you and all BTB readers will get my full apology.

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:19:56 +0000

I have been saying thgis for a while, we need to put NOM’s actions and words against SPCL’s published criteria for naming hate groups. I keep saying it, they are within an inch of meeting most of the criteria and it needs to be put into a nice looking spreadsheet.

By: Michael C

Michael C — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:56:16 +0000

I agree, Blake, that they are as legitimately fallible as any of us. The problem with them is that they don’t care whether they are telling the truth or not. They keenly understand the impact of inciting fear and anger. I follow the NOMBlog and noticed long ago that they don’t actually write most of their articles. They predominately cite portions of existing articles. They have become experts of avoiding culpability.

I recognize that your comments are based on giving the NOM staff the benefit of the doubt, but I think you may be insulting their intelligence.

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:08:27 +0000

Hey Michael,
They may be large but I doubt they have a diversity of worldviews.

Also well run and well funded organizations make mistakes all the time. Have you been watching the Romney Campaign or the NFL lately?

This is how I imagine it happening:

First outrage that churches have been vandalized.
Then outrage that they perceive the media to be burying the connection to teh gehys.
Then their Conservative Worldview makes them assume that the burying is proof of a liberal conspiracy to make “gays look good” because that’s what they perceive to be a goal of the media.

If everyone who vets the post has the same worldview then, well, why are they going to object to the post?

An organization full of folks who are predisposed to seeing gays being hateful might make such a mistake. As would an organization full of people who all think the media purposefully misleads them. The organization in question is full of both.

I remain unconvinced that they were willfully lying. And I think we should all try to place ourselves in their mindset before we try to analyze their actions. A little bit of doubt as to their motivations is at least due to them in this instance. They are not evil incarnate. They are just humans.