Robert George

According to Michael Sean Winters of America Magazine, Thomas Peters, Communications Director of Robert P. George's "American Principles Project," recently traveled to Poland to participate in a conference hosted by an organization that was founded by a vicious anti-Semite: 

One of the websites I visit each week is called the "American Papist." It is the online equivalent of "The Wanderer" which is to say that it does not recognize journalistic standards, it trades in nostalgic tirades against modernity, and presents a hate-filled view of anything that smacks of liberalism. If it were only another screeching blog it could easily be ignored, but its proprietor, Thomas Peters, is also now the Communications Director of the American Principles Project, a D.C. advocacy organization founded by Princeton Professor Robert P. George.

In our culture, rightly or wrongly, we accord university professors a status that requires them to be exemplary in their professional associations. We do not pry into their private lives, but most university contracts include a clause about not bringing professional disrepute to the school. Stealing is always bad, for example, but stealing someone else’s ideas if you are a university professor is rightly viewed as especially base because it violates the spirit for which the university exists, the promotion of truth and learning. Men and women like Professor George are entitled to engage the political process by establishing groups like the American Principles Project, but if they lend their name and title and credibility to the organization, then we should expect that organization not to indulge anything that is beyond the pale, such as, say, cavorting with Holocaust deniers.

Yet, according to his website, Professor George’s Communications Director attended, and spoke at, a conference in Poland last week sponsored by the "College of Social and Media Culture." The so-called college was founded by Father Tadeusz Rydsyk who is better known as the founder of the viciously anti-semitic "Radio Marija" which has not only featured Holocaust deniers on its shows, but has been the subject of a report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for its anti-semitism. In 2004, the radio station led a campaign to defend a cleric charged with both anti-semitism and child molestation. One Polish bishop called the radio station "extremely compromising and shameful, sick and dangerous." Former President, Nobel laureate and Solidarity hero Lech Walesa said the station "is lying if it considers itself a Catholic station." The papal nuncio insisted that the Polish bishops’ conference establish an oversight committee.

Perhaps Mr. Peters, who is young, does not realize what a problem anti-semitism remains in Poland, especially in rural Poland where Radio Marija finds most of its listeners. But, even he knows that Ozwieczim is not a French word. And, anyone who fancies himself as the "American Papist" must know something about the life of Pope John Paul II and how he strove to eradicate anti-semitism from both Polish nationalism and Catholicism ... Mr. Peters may not be wise enough to know better, but Professor George has some explaining to do, at least to the contributors to his American Principles Project and to his colleagues at Princeton. This is not a case of guilt by association: Peters is on his payroll, their relationship is not just social but professional. It would be one thing to hire a firebrand who occasionally steps out of bounds, but participating in anything sponsored by ferocious anti-semites is not the typical transgression of truth or even decency that the blogosphere often exhibits. Anti-semitism is the filthiest and most dangerous lie ever produced in Western culture. Peters may not know that, but surely his boss does.

George is also Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.

Yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage and American Principles in Action, the c4 arm of the American Principles Project, which was founded by NOM Chairman of the Board, Robert P. George, filed a lawsuit claiming that they should not have to follow Maine's election laws:

[NOM] has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Bangor alleging that Maine’s financial reporting requirements are unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks a court injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing a law that NOM officials claim is being used to harass and intimidate opponents of gay marriage.

“The reporting requirements become onerous and burdensome, especially when you are working in several states, and are an infringement of free speech,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s executive director.

...

Brown and NOM’s attorneys contend the organization did not violate Maine’s rules because they were soliciting donations for the general fight to protect “traditional marriage,” not for the Maine campaign in particular.

Brown argued in an interview Thursday that the reporting requirements — which include registering as a ballot question committee, appointing a treasurer and keeping detailed records for four years — are an undue burden. He also described Maine’s law as legally unclear and “patently unconstitutional” because it prohibited or discouraged free speech in the form of advocacy on one side of an issue.

As Mike Tidmus reported, one of the complaints made by APIA in the filing [PDF] is that it wants to run two ads on Maine television, but says they are "chilled from doing so, however, by the prospect of having to register as a BQC and meet the reporting and other requirements of sections 1056-B and 1059.”

They even produced transcripts of the two unbelievable ads they want to run - the first is entitled "Bigot":

Girl: Mommy, are you a bigot?

Mother: What?

Girl: At school, we learned that people who are against gay marriage are bigots.

Mother: No, dear. I believe that homosexuals should be treated fairly–but I also believe that marriage should be just for one man and one woman. That doesn’t make me a bigot.

Girl: What about Reverend Jones and Father Diego? Are they bigots?

Mother: Did you learn that at school too?

Girl nods

VO: Think that gay marriage won’t affect your family? Think again.

Vote Yes Graphic

And the second ad, which is amazingly even worse, is entitled "The New Curriculum":

School Administrator (talking to an off-camera mic/reporter–as he talks, we see images of teachers in classrooms reading from blurred-out books, GLSEN-style posters, etc.): No, we’re very proud of the new curriculum. It’s all about teaching kids to embrace different lifestyles and explore their own sexuality.

Switching from images of sex ed classrooms to little boy on a bench in a darkened school hallway. We can see an adult male (not his face, we’re looking from the perspective of the child and the view never includes his head) come out of an office, take the boy’s hand, lead him into the office, and close the door. Freeze on the closed door, which has a sign that says, “Counseling Session: Do Not Disturb”

Reporter (VO) : Yes, but is it appropriate for kindergartners to be receiving counseling about whether they might be gay?

School Admin (VO): Sure, we’ve had a few complaints, but there’s not much parents can do. It’s the law, after all.

VO: Think gay marriage won’t affect your family? Think again.

Vote Yes Graphic

The Religious Right looks to Maggie Gallagher and Robert George for intellectual cover when arguing that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry, but whatever credibility they have as independent scholars will be put to the test by their new venture, the National Organization for Marriage.

Gallagher, president of the low-key Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (and perhaps most famous for taking money from the Bush Administration while promoting its marriage policy), and George, a Princeton professor, started NOM in order to lobby against marriage equality for same-sex couples and to campaign against legislators connected to the issue. The group ran this billboard in Massachusetts before the state’s 2007 election (image via Good As You):

The group is airing a radio ad in New Jersey against a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry, featuring a child saying, “God creating Adam and Eve? That was so old-fashioned.” Although the bill, entitled “Civil Marriage and Religious Protection Act,” explicitly states that no religious group would be required to sanction any marriage (a requirement the First Amendment prohibits anyway) , the NOM ad hits on public fears that marriage equality for same-sex couples would imperil churches, stating, “They also want to penalize traditional New Jersey churches with threats to state tax exemptions and adoption licenses.”