HRC Blog

Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner appointed Robert George, co-founder and chairman emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage, to the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, which, according to the Commission's chairman, addresses “the challenges of religious extremism, intolerance, and repression throughout the world.”

The appointment came on the same day HRC released previously sealed documents detailing how NOM is pursuing a divisive, intolerant and racially-charged strategy to stop marriage equality in the United States.

George co-authored the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2001, which would have written discrimination into the U.S. Constitution. And in 2004, he helped draft another discriminatory amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He wrote the “Manhattan Declaration,” a 4,700-word document denouncing not just same-sex marriage, but civil unions or any relationship recognition measure.

HRC questions the judgment of Speaker Boehner for appointing a figure characterized by his extremism and intolerance to a federal commission aimed at combatting those very forces.