Interesting news about the National Organization for Marriage, which is staging the "March for (Some People's) Marriage" in Washington, DC, today: Jeremy Hooper of the Good as You blog site has obtained a copy of an invitation to a meeting of what Hooper calls "some sort of secret, shadowy version of NOM (Super NOM?)" called the Princeton Group hosted on June 13 by NOM dignitaries. These include NOM president Brian Brown, co-founder Maggie Gallagher, board chair emeritus Robert George, founding board member Luis Tellez and, oh — surprise! — none other than the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, whose determination to attend NOM's "March for (Some People's) Marriage" today has proven so controversial.
To anyone who has spent much time observing NOM's activities since its foundation, what leaps out in the list of names (predictable names long associated with NOM) is the ongoing clearly evident links of NOM to the secret, shadowy, very powerful and wealthy Catholic group Opus Dei. Luis Tellez is an Opus Dei numerary and president of the Witherspoon Institute, which is located at Princeton — that is, where the meeting of the secret, shadowy version of NOM called the Princeton Group occurred.
Witherspoon, of course, commissioned and largely paid for the failed Regnerus study, which was rushed to publication before the Supreme Court heard its case about the Defense of Marriage Act, and which made bogus claims of having proven that gay parents are inferior parents — though the study did not study any gay parents. Interestingly enough, ODAN, the Opus Dei Awareness Network group set up by people once affiliated with the Opus Dei, who want to warn others of the dangers of this powerful, secretive, cultic group, lists Witherspoon as an "Opus Dei-affiliated" foundation.
As Jeremy Hooper also notes, the group domain name for the new Princeton Group is owned by Matthew Haas. Matthew Haas is the son of John Haas, president of the National Catholics Bioethics Center and international banker, who is, according to Opus Dei member Scott Hahn, an Opus Dei member.
I could go on at length here parsing the many ties of NOM to Witherspoon to Opus Dei, and noting the many ways in which NOM's secrecy, its behind-the-scenes attempts to influence the political process, and its refusal to disclose information about its funding sources parallel the behavior of Opus Dei. Suffice it to say that the connections between NOM, Witherspoon, and Opus Dei are exceptionally thick, and that if NOM ever does accede to court rulings to disclose its donor base, it is very likely that Opus Dei-connected individuals will turn out to be at the head of NOM's donor list.
For those who want to read more about all of this, here are some valuable links (some replicate links used above):
David Badash, "Bombshell: NOM, in Secret Partnership with Catholic Archbishop, Other Elites, Forms New Group," The New Civil Rights Movement
Neal Broverman, "APA Blasts Allegedly Biased Report on Gay Parents," The Advocate
Betty Clermont, "Opus Dei Influences Rises to the Top in the Vatican," Daily Kos
Betty Clermont, "Opus Dei — Step by Step," The Open Tabernacle
David Hart, "NOM Ties to Opus Dei," The Constantine Report
David Cary Hart, "Dear NOM: That Ship Has Sailed," The Slowly Boiled Frog
David Cary Hart, "Regnerus Opus Dei," The Slowly Boiled Frog
Jeremy Hooper, "Major Regnerus Ally Is Opus Dei, Admits She Finds Marriage Equality Problematic," Good As You
HRC, "NOM Exposed: Luis Tellez"
HRC, "NOM Exposed: Religious Ties"
HRC, "The Regnerus Fallout"
Deborah Kovach, "Opus Dei Priest Loses Campus Job," Trenton Times by way of ODAN
Danielle Truskovsky, "Deception, Denial, and Opus Dei: Are Religious Groups Illegally Funding Anti-Gay Political Battles in America?" South Florida Blade at Latter-Day Chino site.
Deborah Yaffe, "A Conservative Think Tank with Many Princeton Ties," Princeton Alumni Weekly
The photo of Opus Dei's U.S. headquarters, the 17-story Murray Hill Place, at 34th and Lexington in New York City, is from Wikimedia Commons. See the New York Times on the building, whose projected cost of construction was $47 million in 1999, and see SkyscraperPage on the "city within a city" with its seven chapels and separate entrances for men and women, in keeping with Opus Dei's "doctrines" about gender.
