Conservative Group Spends $1.3 Million Ad Deluge To Overturn Marriage Equality
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A conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, is allegedly spending $1.3 million on an ad campaign over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to fund an anti-gay advertisement on television and online seeking to turn public sentiment against The Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would require U.S. states to legally recognize same-sex marriage.
The ad is called “The U.S. Senate’s Attack on People of Faith: The (Dis)Respect for Marriage Act.”
The conservative Heritage Foundation think tank will reportedly air ads during NFL and college football games on Thanksgiving Day and through the weekend that attack the same-sex marriage bill moving through Congress with misleading claims the “far left” legislation will “expose religious schools and nonprofits to lawsuits,” falsehoods that parrot misinformation shared on social media in recent days.
The ads, first reported on by Fox News, claim “liberals are hurrying to cram through their far-left agenda” by “sneaking in” the same-sex marriage bill that would codify rights of same-sex married couples.
Democrats, and the 12 Republican senators who voted in favor of the bill last week, have been vocal about their plans, which have been in the works since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested in an opinion that rulings granting rights to same-sex marriage and access to birth control should come under review.
Heritage alleges the legislation would subject religious organizations and schools to “attacks from the IRS” and potentially force them to “close their doors,” repeating false claims spread on social media that the legislation would threaten the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that don’t believe in same-sex marriage.
But the “Respect for Marriage Act” was amended to include language that states religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage will not lose their tax-exempt status.
The ads will air during the Thanksgiving Day NFL games between the New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings on NBC, New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys on Fox, and Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions on CBS, Fox reported.
The ads will also air during college games over the weekend in Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming, and throughout the next five days on Fox News, according to a Heritage Foundation press release.
Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Jay Richards, in a statement to Forbes, said the bill is not written to protect “say, a religious adoption agency or religious employees in the workplace.”
The bill, however, explicitly states it only applies to “those acting under color of state law,” a legal term used to refer to government officials.
Similar claims to the ones the Heritage Foundation makes in the ads were widely shared on social media in recent days, the Associated Press reported. One tweet, that garnered 23,000 likes as of Monday, stated that the bill “will allow the IRS to revoke the tax exempt status of churches that hold fast to traditional marriage,” force “religiously affiliated adoption centers and foster care providers . . . to close down,” and expose small business owners who “choose to only support traditional marriage” to lawsuits.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“There was never even any reason to believe that this would result in loss of tax status, charitable status, or tax exemption for religious groups,” Dale Carpenter, a constitutional law professor at Southern Methodist University told the Associated Press. “But now with the Senate amendments, it is a belt and suspenders approach that there’s like a double lock on the door.”
Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee recently introduced an amendment to the bill that would specifically provide an exception for religious groups and individuals to discriminate. He and 20 other Republican senators signed a letter asking the 12 Republicans who supported the law to withdraw their support.
We still have time to protect religious liberty. We’re asking our colleagues to support my amendment. pic.twitter.com/y7JXkxNXTZ
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) November 19, 2022
Last week, the Senate cleared the Respect for Marriage Act through a key procedural hurdle in a bipartisan vote of 62-37, and a handful of Republicans gave the measure enough votes to clear the filibuster.
