The arrogance and illegality reflected in IRS staffers giving the Human Rights Campaign the donor list of the National Organization for Marriage is pervasive in the Obama administration and its popular fronts, but covered only by the conservative press. It’s a black eye for the cause of gay legal equality, giving some very bigoted people and groups a legitimate platform to express outrage at an out-of-control and hyper-partisan Washington elite.
You know, progressives really aren’t above the law. Really, they aren’t. They just think they are.
The issue isn’t whether donor lists to advocacy groups should legally be made public (and I don’t believe they should). For staffers at the IRS to do so in order to expose donors to conservative groups is deeply corrupting, much like the denial of tax-exempt status and harassment audits unleashed against tea party organizations and limited-government advocates.
More. The argument has been made that I think religiously conservative small business owners are “above the law” because they are fighting against being forced to provide their services to same-sex weddings. The difference is that those business owners are facing litigation by the state; I argue these are bad laws (or badly interpreted laws) if they force people to engage in behavior that violates their religious beliefs, and that the laws should be changed.
In the case of the IRS selectively pursing conservative groups (or, in this case, illegally making their donor list public), the government is assuredly not bringing suit against the law violators, it’s protecting them. And the government is not arguing that the law is bad and should be changed, it’s just sanctioning corrupt partisan violations.
Furthermore. Only someone who gets “news” from MSNBC would fall for the manifestly false canard that liberal groups were equally targeted. Some facts:
Treasury IG: Liberal groups weren’t targeted by IRS like Tea Party
IRS scoreboard: 100 percent of “targeted” liberal groups were approved, conservatives languished
45 Comments for “IRS + HRC = Scandal”
posted by Doug on
It’s an allegation, Stephen. Maybe it’s time to get back on your medication and retire your tinfoil hat.
posted by Houndentenor on
No, Stephen you don’t get to decide what the issue is or isn’t for the rest of us. Yes, donor lists to nonprofit and political organizations should be public. For years my right wing relatives told me that the answer to campaign finance reform was to take off the limits but have full disclosure. The limits are pretty much gone but there’s now less disclosure than ever (even though the internet makes it easier than ever to release such information). I call bullshit on the whole argument. Yes, I have a right to know if businesses that I patronize are donating against my interests. They certainly have a right to donate to whichever causes they choose, but I have just as much right to take my business elsewhere.
If any laws were broken, then there should be investigations, charges filed and appropriate actions taken. If not, this is a lot of hot air and fake outrage.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The matter is, as I understand it, the subject of an internal IRS investigation and a criminal investigation, and both the IRS and the FBI refuse to comment on the matter. So I have no idea what is going on. My guess is that somebody in the IRS broke the law, and should be prosecuted. But it is also possible, if unlikely, that the IRS acted within the law, and was scammed by someone purporting to represent NOM. We’ll probably find out eventually. The truth will out, as they say.
You know, progressives really aren’t above the law. Really, they aren’t. They just think they are.
Gee, I would have guessed it was a question of religious conscience, not thought.
Seriously, though, Stephen, consider using modifiers in your characterizations, such as “some”, “many”, “most” or other qualifiers, as the case warrants. You just sound foolish and hysterical when you make these and prima facia overstatements.
posted by Don on
I guess I don’t get this entirely. So someone in a govt agency handed out a donor list that would be public information anyway and may/probably violated a law giving out the list from his/her office instead of through its publicly-available source.
I just don’t get the outrage. Am I missing it?
posted by Houndentenor on
The outrage is that in many quarters it is now unpopular to be seen as an anti-gay bigot so people want their funding of groups hostile to gay rights to be kept a secret even though the law requires these groups to reveal their funding sources. NOM and other groups have been fighting this issue and playing the victim which is absurd in and of itself. For a gay person to defend this is one of the worst cases of self-loathing I’ve seen in quite some time.
And I repeat, I will not defend anyone in this matter that has broken the law. The reason no one but the right wing media is covering this is that there aren’t any facts to report until the investigation is finished. Speculation and hysterics are not news except on talk radio and one particular cable “news” channel.
posted by Jorge on
But it is also possible, if unlikely, that the IRS acted within the law, and was scammed by someone purporting to represent NOM. We’ll probably find out eventually.
But the article says, “Both HRC and Huffington Post described the person who leaked the donor list as a ‘whistleblower.'”
There’s no stronger evidence than an admission.
The main issue is not one of law and order, much though this event moves the dial yet even further toward that which makes impeachment the only solution to the blight afflicting Washington at this time. The issue is “giving some very bigoted people and groups [i.e., gay progressives and their allies] a legitimate platform to express outrage” at mainstream Americans.
This kind of bullying has been getting more vicious for years. Hence the continued social production of antibodies in the form of female conservative pundits with balls of steel.
posted by Doug on
Impeachment? Give me a break. There is nothing even remotely close to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ here. You want high crimes and misdemeanors try remembering Dick Cheney and George Bush for authorizing torture.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Impeachment is a longstanding one-size-fits-all Republican remedy, starting with President Johnson, moving on to Chief Justice Warren, President Clinton. If you want to wander into an interesting sidebar of American history, trace the history of federal impeachments, threatened and actual, from 1860 onward.
posted by Jorge on
There is nothing even remotely close to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ here.
And? No. Or? Definitely. High crimes? Maybe not. Misdemeanors? Most definitely.
The only question is, not whether there are high crimes or misdemeanors at play. The question is whether or not the head of the snake is involved. If he is, then that may not activate Congress’s power to try and remove the president for High Crimes, but it certainly activates its power to try and remove the president for Misdemeanors.
posted by Doug on
Try reading up on this, you have no idea what you are taking about. Check with a few constitutional scholars not the no nothing Tea Party.
posted by Jorge on
You are here. You prove it.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Both HRC and Huffington Post described the person who leaked the donor list as a ‘whistleblower.”
I saw that, but “whistleblower” suggests that the culprit was someone within NOM (the standard definition of a “whistleblower” is someone within an organization who exposes wrongdoing in the organization), and that doesn’t seem to be the case.
So that leaves two main possibilities, neither of which fit the understanding of “whistleblower” very well — an IRS employee, as NOM insists, or someone outside the IRS and outside NOM, who obtained a copy of the return by defrauding the IRS, with the intention of getting the information out into the public. There are other possibilities as well.
In any event, the “whistleblower” tag doesn’t help much, and I don’t have clue as to what the facts might turn out to be in this matter. NOM made an allegation, and it is being investigated, and now NOM has sued the IRS (with which it has a long history) and that’s what we know for sure.
I would be careful not to get out ahead the facts, despite the siren call of Fox News.
I certainly wouldn’t hop in NOM’s honeywagon and give much credence to anything they have to say about this.
NOM is bad to the bone. It has a long history of ethical and legal violations in this area, well documented by Fred Karger, a former Republican presidential candidate and seemly a reasonably sound guy, lying right, left and center about gays and lesbians, and Right Wing Watch just published an extensive article tracing Brian Brown’s role in bring Russia’s “Don’t Say Gay” law to the books.
posted by Houndentenor on
You know someone’s in trouble when they have to use Huffpo as a source. They have about the same number of fact-checkers as The Drudge Report (in other words, none).
Is this what we’ve come to?
Get some facts. Actual facts, not just stuff someone said that they may very well have made up. Facts can be verified. Get some real information and get back to us, Stephen. #facepalm
posted by Jorge on
You know someone’s in trouble when they have to use Huffpo as a source. They have about the same number of fact-checkers as The Drudge Report (in other words, none).
The past two years or so the Huffington Post has always seemed to me to be level-headed in its sorties. Its articles usually combine a fair reporting of the context with progressive ideological assumptions. You know what happens when you assume, but there, the assumptions typically are ideological, less often partisan, rarely if ever serious unverified assumptions of fact. Never outright deception.
posted by Houndentenor on
Considering the many stories Huffpo distributes repeating anti-vaxer nonsense, I find there to have been many assumptions of facts and evidence that don’t stand up to any scrutiny. Obviously some stories are better than others. I just don’t find it to be a terribly trustworthy source.
posted by Jorge on
(the standard definition of a “whistleblower” is someone within an organization who exposes wrongdoing in the organization)
I took the term as having a strong connotation of someone working in the government. So be it. The lawsuit will decide.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
This kind of bullying has been getting more vicious for years.
Oh, give me a break. My name and telephone number were on 6,000 door handouts distributed in my county during the 2006 anti-marriage amendment fight. I took some heat from the morons, as expected, but it wasn’t anything that anyone with a normal pair couldn’t handle.
Anti-gay social conservatives seem to have very delicate skins and/or limp loins when it comes to having anyone know that they stand up for their “Christian principles”. I’m reminded of Justice Scalia’s closing remarks in Doe v. Reed, the Washington state “Nooooo, don’t let the state publish our names …” case:
Nope. It resembles the Home of the Wimps.
posted by JohnInCA on
Call me a skeptic, but if Brian Brown had any *real* evidence that the IRS is responsible (which wasn’t their story a year ago) then I kinda think we’d have heard about it by now. The fact that it took them so long to sue is also kinda suspicious… NOM kinda has a rep for suing states to stop disclosure laws from applying, so that they’d suddenly balk at legal means for so long… doesn’t pass my smell test.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The issue isn’t whether donor lists to advocacy groups should legally be made public (and I don’t believe they should).
Why not?
Donations to public advocacy groups are a form of public speech, a political act, no different than standing up in a township meeting and making your views about township matters known to your neighbors.
As Justice Scalia pointed out in Doe v. Reed, public political speech and public political acts are essential to self-governance, and when personal accountability is separated from political acts, democracy suffers.
I would put it this way: The essence of democracy is that citizens are willing to engage in public debate, to stand up for what they believe and be counted. Donations to political advocacy groups are a form of engaging in public debate. Being willing to be held accountable for taking part in the debate — in person or by proxy — is a necessary burden of citizenship.
posted by Jorge on
As Justice Scalia pointed out in Doe v. Reed, public political speech and public political acts are essential to self-governance, and when personal accountability is separated from political acts, democracy suffers.
That was such a fun opinion to read. My mother doesn’t like it much. “I don’t want anyone knowing who I’m voting for. It’s nobody’s business! Privacy! Why do you need to know? I don’t trust those people. This is how discrimination happens.” I’m content just to sue anyone for harassment. Scalia thinks we should just shoot ’em dead.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think privacy of the ballot is essential to democracy, and I think that people (like your mom) have a right to keep their political opinions to themselves (or share them only with family and a friends) if that is what they want to do.
But the minute a person enters the public debate, trying to persuade the public-at-large either by direct speech or by proxy speech (as in donating to an advocacy group), the situation changes. It is the latter situation that Justice Scalia is discussing, and I think he’s right.
posted by Jorge on
It is the latter situation that Justice Scalia is discussing, and I think he’s right.
I remember a discussion on public ballots in that opinion.
“Legislating was not the only governmental act that was
public in America. Voting was public until 1888 when the
States began to adopt the Australian secret ballot…
“Initially, the Colonies mostly continued the English
traditions of voting by a show of hands or by voice–vica voce voting…”
And so on, although the reason Scalia cites for the rise of secret balloting accords with what you say.
Anyway, I don’t see much of a distinction between publishing who votes for what and campaign donor lists, but then, that was a Scalia opinion.
posted by Houndentenor on
There is a difference between knowing how people voted (no one does unless you tell them) and knowing where the money came from to fund particular political candidates and causes. As it is our system now allows for open bribery of candidates. Should even that be kept secret from the voters? What kind of democracy is this going to be when millions of dollars change hands to influence elections and the priorities of politicians and institutions without any transparency. I rarely agree with Scalia, but on this one he is right.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
1. IF someone in the IRS illegally gave information to someone in the HRC, then they would be held accountable in a criminal/civil court as the law dictates. Again, much of what I hear about these “accusations” has all of the professionalism as a blog post about who is going out with so-and-so to the high school prom.
2. IMHO voting, running for public office, creating an interest group or a political party and competing in the political process should (generally) be protected by the First Amendment. The fact that I may think the Tea Party is run by loonies, is beside the point in terms of Constitutional law. However, IF an interest group or charity wants to get special privileges from the government (which is basically what non-profit status is all about) then they need to follow the specific rules and regulations involved.
Their are very specific, detailed rules and regulations for non-profits largely because they are suppose to (a) be a non-profit (as opposed to a for-profit enterprise) and (b) designed primarily for social welfare purposes (although the law has been modified to allow for political activities).
That is why the IRS has to ask say, the Tea Party interest group certain specific questions about where their money is coming from and what sort of activities that they do.
3. I seem to recall that when Bush was president — not too long ago — certain progressive/anti-war interest groups were put on “do not admit” lists and other such measures. Their were similar accusations that the government was somehow playing footsie with the First Amendment. How much of these accusations were true, I am not sure. However, I do not recall too many conservatives rushing to defend the civil liberties of liberal interest groups.
posted by Mark on
On Stephen’s update: it’s remarkable to see an allegedly pro-gay rights site arguing that public accommodations laws are “bad laws.” I assume that Stephen is taking an overall libertarian view–that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should be repealed, and that public accommodations laws applied to race are also “bad laws.” Or could he be saying that it’s wrong to discriminate on basis of race but OK for businesses to discriminate on basis of sexual orientation?
posted by Doug on
Stephen appears to be logically challenged. In the previous post How Change Happens he argues there was a place for those pesky ‘judicial activist’ judges to bring about change, ie marriage equality, and now he argues that it’s ok for business to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In Stephen’s world you can be married but unable to shop or be employed.
posted by Lori Heine on
It is somewhat antithetical to the entire concept of free enterprise to diminish one’s own business by refusing to serve certain people. I’m surprised more libertarians don’t bring this up. Do business owners have a “right” not to serve certain customers — thereby damaging their own businesses by driving customers away? Of course they do. Only a few real loons would want to.
There are, of course, instances where hard-core religious zealots may believe they’re following in the footsteps of the martyrs by refusing to serve people. That’s a sort of idiocy probably best dealt with by other Christians — saner ones — who might be able to reason with them about this. In small towns or rural areas, some sort of public accommodation law may need to be enacted — especially if the good or service sold is deemed a necessity.
As a Christian, it’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around the concept that refusing to serve other human beings, for whatever reason, might be considered a virtue. Perhaps left-leaning libertarians might take up this perspective and at least consider it more thoroughly.
posted by Jorge on
As a Christian, it’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around the concept that refusing to serve other human beings, for whatever reason, might be considered a virtue.
………
Did not Jesus himself demolish the merchant stands in the Temple of Jerusalem?
How many times in the Bible does Jesus tell people to go away. “You’re going to gehenna!” “Get behind me, Satan!” “Follow me right now or not at all!”
Forgiveness, charity, and faith are one thing on a personal level. It is quite another thing to refuse to act on one’s conscience. If one does not possess and act on strong beliefs on what is right and what is wrong, then such concepts as Christian charity and forgiveness have no meaning. “Go now and sin no more” and “Let he who is without sin cast the first strong” would be meaningless statements if there was no such thing as sin.
The question is not one of refusing to serve gays in any way whatsoever. All people must be served. In every single one of these situations what we have are people who do not want to endorse gay weddings. None of these are examples of people refusing to serve gay people, or people who possess even a fraction of anti-gay sentiment. They all choose to serve gays. But where they have a conscience that says “this is wrong”, then the obligation on them becomes, first, to turn down what is wrong, and second, to find another way to serve gays.
I think you are not as well-versed in Christianity as you think you are.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I do not wish to enter into what seems to be turning into yet another an intra-Christian dispute, but I would like to point out that whatever scope religious and personal conscience objections are given in our legal system, the exemption should (a) protect all personal conscientious objection, both religious and non-religious in origin, (b) apply to all laws, whatever the subject matter, and (c) should apply equally to, and equally protect, the conscientious objection of all citizens, regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof.
The so-called “religious conscience” laws under discussion in the country right now are, for the most part, bogus exercises intended less to protect conscientious objection than to carve out a special case affecting gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians alone.
posted by Houndentenor on
I have worked for people who were doing things I found horribly immoral (but perfectly legal). I can’t discuss them even now. At no point would I have raised a moral objection. The very idea is absurd. Am I less moral than the fundamentalist Christian who think they have a right to be assholes to a gay couple who just wants to buy a cake? I can’t express in words how deeply I resent the special exception that is being asked on behalf of Catholics and Fundamentalist Christians. The very same Catholics who continue to cover up to shield child rapists from criminal prosecution and the self-righteous hypocritical Fundamentalists who I know very well almost all do things that their Bible explicitly tells them not to but act all high and mighty about homosexuality. I note that some of my old high school and college friends weren’t so anti-abortion during that pregnancy scare back in the day. Hypocrites. How dare they.
This isn’t about anyone’s conscience. We all have one and we all have to do things we don’t like at some point because it’s our job. This is a special carve out for religious hypocrites over the issue of gay marriage and that is an outrage. If we’re going to get exceptions we should all get them. All of us. Otherwise this is nothing but a special right for a lunatic fringe. Hell no.
posted by Jorge on
I do not wish to enter into what seems to be turning into yet another an intra-Christian dispute, but I would like to point out that whatever scope religious and personal conscience objections are given in our legal system, the exemption should (a) protect all personal conscientious objection, both religious and non-religious in origin
Yeah, no. First Amendment jurisprudence has long since diverged freedom of religion and freedom of speech. What you suggest would cause freedom of religion to lose all meaning.
(c) I agree with. (b) I agree with only insofar as I think “subject matter” is not the relevant criterion.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Well, Jorge, you seem to be retrenching.
When I discussed Wisconsin’s proposed constitutional amendment (“The right of conscience, which includes the right to engage in activity or refrain from activity based on a sincerely held religious belief, shall not be burdened …” in another thread, your response was:
The amendment met all three criteria, and in particular protected to personal conscientious objection, both religious and non-religious in origin.
So what changed in your thinking between last week and this week to lead you to reject personal conscience of a non-religious nature? Are not the deeply held moral convictions of a non-religious person to be treated on the same basis as the deeply held moral convictions of a religious person?
posted by Wilberforce on
You may not wish to enter an intra-christian dispute, but I will.
Jorge is cherry picking scripture, as all fundys do, and pretending a few minor verses are the norm. They aren’t.
Jesus and the prophets true focus is elsewhere, in the nonstop demands for kindness and fairness. And they explain that over and over again.
But of course, fundamentalists have been ignoring that focus for two thousand years, so there’s no reason to think they’ll backtrack now.
posted by Lori Heine on
Jorge, if you voted for Rick Santorum, then you aren’t terribly well-versed in Christianity yourself.
posted by Doug on
Only a few ‘loons’ murder or rob people but that’s why we have laws against it. And who appointed you god to decide what is a ‘necessity’ that you cannot discriminate in the sale of and what is not a ‘necessity’ that you can discriminate.
If you are a business open to ‘the public’ then you have to be open to everyone, not just a chosen few. Can a doctor refuse to treat a patient for the flu, not a necessity, but be forced to treat the same patient for cancer, life threating? Should there be some kind of logical consistency? If you refuse to deal with all sins or just some sins? That’s a bazaar way of thinking not to mention trying to run the economy that way.
posted by Jim Michaud on
Doug, I think you meant “bizarre”. A bazaar is a church related festivity (some are secular). Or, as Mainers (like myself) put it: that’s a wicked biz-ah way of thinking. 🙂
posted by Doug on
Thank you, yes I did : )
posted by Lori Heine on
Doug, some might find it “bazaar” that you manage to pick a fight over statements as innocuous as mine. Who peed in your Wheaties?
My point — since you missed it — is that for the most part, the laws you’re utterly convinced are necessary probably are not. Unless hordes and legions of businesspeople are turning gays away, where is your proof that the incidents we hear about in the news happen frequently?
You think there must be a law for everything. Obviously you think our argument for equality is so tenuous you don’t trust it to prevail.
posted by Doug on
In a country of over 300 million people, those ‘for the most part’ can affect a hell of a lot of people and discrimination doesn’t just apply just to selling something it also applies to housing, medical treatment, employment, transportation almost every economic activity.
posted by Lori Heine on
You are being deliberately obtuse. I don’t believe you’re stupid.
Necessary services would obviously include housing, medical treatment and transportation at the very least.
As to other goods and services provided by businesses, your argument is patently false. It presupposes that many people are so evil they must be forced — by violence, or the threat of it — to treat others decently. The overwhelming evidence of events suggests otherwise. At great speed, hearts and minds are changing toward us — without violence having been necessary.
Your argument is weak. The argument for equality, on the other hand, is proving strong enough that it doesn’t need to be propped up with threats to others.
I have great faith in that argument. All too evidently, you don’t.
posted by Doug on
All I know is that as a young man being gay was still a diagnosable mental illness and that 99% of the advancement of LGBT rights has come through legislation and/or the judicial system and not from the general decency of the people.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
In the case of the IRS selectively pursing conservative groups …
Really? It seems to me that the IRS took a close look at similar progressive groups, too, Stephen, to see if they were actually 501(c)(4) organizations, as claimed:
I know that the idea that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups exclusively is an unshakeable conservative conviction, but the facts don’t bear that out.
… (or, in this case, illegally making their donor list public) …
Do you have any hard facts to back up that assertion? If so, you are unique. The rest of us don’t, yet.
posted by Houndentenor on
What a bizarre bit of trivia to be fixated on in a week when a faction of one party in one half of one branch of government is doing its damnedest to send our economy and our country over the cliff.
Nothing illegal happened. There’s not even any evidence that anything illegal happened. If you have any, then turn it over to the authorities. I’m so sick of faux-outrage over faux-scandals. This country has real problems. Try dealing with reality for a change.
posted by Jorge on
What a bizarre bit of trivia to be fixated on in a week when a faction of one party in one half of one branch of government is doing its damnedest to send our economy and our country over the cliff.
That’s our “Extraordinarily Fabulous Outrageous You Go Girl! No wonder people think we’re nuts, GAY NEWS” fix for the week (cr: steveyuhas.com)
What *is* the opposite of a “You Go Girl!” gay person, again? I think it’s some combination of motorcycles, beards, cocktails, and the Wall St. Journal.
But since you mentioned Republican party factions, I saw this article on Yahoo! News that said people in the Republican party miss George W. Bush and compassionate conservatism. It’s too good to be true! I have not forgotten that you have no use for any faction of the Republican party, Houndentenor.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
I think that minor political parties probably have the best case — in terms of unfair treatment by the government.
Most of these conservative (leans GOP) and liberal (leans DNC) interest groups generally seem to face some hassle and waiting but in the end were able to become non-profits. They also have support from one or both of the major parties (who have some people elected to office).
Minor political parties or third political parties often do have have representative in government and the burdens they have in participation are much more severe then what I have seen with these non-profit interest groups.
So, it was interesting to see Republicans and Democrats raise these allegations about how a conservative-GOP or liberael-DNC non profit was treated, when the treatment of minor parties in this country is frankly an embarassment.