During the 2010 election, both the Minnesota Family Council (MFC) and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) ran an advertising blitz in Minnesota attacking the freedom to marry. The ads, which were supportive of losing GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, urged Minnesotans to get behind a vehemently anti-gay initiative that would have put forward a statewide constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. In these ads, NOM and MFC directly reference a piece of legislation, SF120, that dealt with the issue of same-sex marriage.

The MFC and NOM never reported expenditures for these ads, something they are required to do under Minnesota lobbying regulations. Now a group, Common Cause, is out with a formal complaint submitted to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, urging this Board to hold NOM and MFC accountable for violating Minnesota law.

“Minnesota’s lobbyist disclosure laws are designed to shine some sunlight on how special interests attempt to influence decisions at the capitol,” Mike Dean, Executive Director of Common Cause Minnesota, said in a statement. “Both organizations have attempted to operate in the shadows by failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars spent influencing legislators at the capitol.”

Common Cause is calling for the MN Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to financially penalize both the MFC and NOM for violating Minnesota law. They are also calling on the Board to audit NOM's expenditures in the state, since NOM never registered as an official lobbying group.

Send the MN Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board a message, urging them to hold both the MFC and NOM accountable. NOM and the MFC should not be allowed to skirt Minnesota lobbying laws to peddle their message of extreme anti-gay discrimination.  Check out the Common Cause complaints against MFCand NOM.

(Photo credit: Alice Hoenigman and Wilson Allen, posted originally on The Bilerico Project.)