When Proposition 8 passed, gay activists didn't just get mad; they went about getting even. To do so, same-sex marriage advocates exploited California's campaign finance laws to discover the names of all donors to the "Yes on Proposition 8" campaign and have not only posted their names, addresses and other personal information online, but used Google's Map application to supply directions to whoever wishes to track down the donors and target them for intimidation, harassment or possibly, violence. The Nuremberg Files was the creation of a lone crank in Georgia. In this case, the world's largest search engine has lent itself as a facilitator for intimidation and will share moral, if not legal, complicity when one or more of Proposition 8's supporters come to harm/Michael Costello, Lewiston Tribune. Full column below.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with Costello -- that Proposition 8 opponents & Google's Map are using the same tactics as anti-abortion Nuremberg Files in publishing the names and other vital information of individuals to punish them?

Michael Costello

Saturday, January 24, 2009

A decade ago, it was big news on these pages when a pro-life Web site posted the names, addresses and photographs of abortionists and their enablers in the form of wanted posters. The Nuremberg Files encouraged viewers to communicate with the abortionists in a non-threatening manner to encourage them to stop. Nevertheless, in 1999, a federal jury awarded $107 million to Northwest abortionists whose names and personal information had been posted on the Web site.

The presiding judge, perhaps correctly, found that the postings were clearly and illegally threatening: "I totally reject the defendants' attempts to justify their actions as an expression of opinion or as a legitimate and lawful exercise of free speech." He described the postings as "blatant and illegal communication of true threats to kill."

OK, fair enough, especially considering that people highlighted on that Web site had been killed. But fast forward almost exactly 10 years and we have an eerily similar campaign of intimidation and the very same indignant elitists who recoiled in horror back then seem untroubled today.

Last November, Californians reinstated traditional marriage after an imaginative state Supreme Court suddenly discovered in that state's constitution a right to same-sex marriage. Amazing! California's constitution was more than a century and a half old before anyone noticed that.

California's great unwashed put Proposition 8 on the states ballot to amend the state's constitution to define marriage as a traditional union between one man and one woman. Considering that's how marriage has been defined by western civilizations for many centuries, Californians can be forgiven for believing the sacrament worthy of preservation. But advocates of homosexual marriage are not the forgiving type. When Proposition 8 passed, gay activists didn't just get mad; they went about getting even.

To do so, same-sex marriage advocates exploited California's campaign finance laws to discover the names of all donors to the "Yes on Proposition 8" campaign and have not only posted their names, addresses and other personal information online, but used Google's Map application to supply directions to whoever wishes to track down the donors and target them for intimidation, harassment or possibly, violence. The Nuremberg Files was the creation of a lone crank in Georgia. In this case, the world's largest search engine has lent itself as a facilitator for intimidation and will share moral, if not legal, complicity when one or more of Proposition 8's supporters come to harm.

But for some reason, the voices of reason and moderation who condemned the Nuremberg Files Web site have been struck dumb. The voices of sanctimony from 1999 have little to say when the targets of the threats are those whom they disagree with.

I do not often read The Atlantic Monthly, but when I did last read it, it struck me as a serious, sober magazine that expected to be taken seriously. One of its columnists is a man named Andrew Sullivan. On the Atlantic's Web site, Sullivan argued that he saw nothing wrong with posting the personal information of donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign: "If Prop 8 supporters truly feel that barring equality for gay couples is vital for saving civilization, shouldn't they be proud of their financial support? Why don't they actually have posters advertising their support for discriminating against gay people - as a matter of pride?" Further he stated that possessing such information "helps one see whom to engage."

By that argument, abortionists should have been proud to have their names publicized and their addresses published on the Nuremberg Files. And engagement of abortionists was precisely what the Nuremberg Files advocated. The site even had a model, perfectly non-threatening letter for activists to send to abortionists.

But of course, Andrew Sullivan is being disingenuous and he knows it. The entire point of posting the personal information of Proposition 8 donors is to punish, harass and silence them. The only difference between the Nuremberg Files case of a decade ago and this episode is that elite opinion is in sympathy with the harassers. The measure of whether or not a particular tactic is right or wrong depends upon which side of the debate elite opinion resides and not upon any principle of civilized discourse.

And when someone identified as a Proposition 8 donor does come to harm, Google, The Atlantic Monthly and the entirety of the mainstream will absolve themselves of blame. He will be found to have brought it upon himself.

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Costello is a research technician at Washington State University. His e-mail address is kozmocostello@hotmail.com.

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