Fred Karger Takes On the National Organization for Marriage in New Hampshire

by Michael Jones · 2011-01-25 16:05:00 UTC
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Fred Karger deserves a whole lotta love. The openly gay former Reagan strategist and founder of Californians Against Hate has formed a Presidential Exploratory Committee, traveling frequently to Iowa and New Hampshire as a potential GOP presidential candidate. His goal? To get the Republican Party to not only deal with LGBT issues in a new capacity, but to actually admit that there are LGBT people in the GOP.

His presence is already making waves. Take, for instance, the fact that the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition singled out Karger as someone whose candidacy they want to "abort." They've refused to invite Karger to a March 2011 candidate forum where potential candidates will dish with Iowa residents and introduce themselves to voters. Karger, for his part, is fighting tooth and nail to participate, and a number of Change.org members have joined him in calling on the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition to truly open their doors and let Iowa voters decide who's a legitimate candidate, and who is not.

But Karger isn't just making waves in Iowa. Head on over east to the equally as frigid New Hampshire scene, and this week you'll find Karger getting ready to take on the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the officially-dubbed hate group that makes it their sole business to take civil rights away from LGBT Americans. This week, Karger is going to release an ad in New Hampshire that will run statewide, and will target NOM for their shady work to repeal the state's marriage equality law.

Last week, NOM actually attacked a Republican lawmaker in the state, State House GOP leader D.J. Bettencourt, for saying that he'd like to focus on fiscal issues instead of discussing a legislative repeal of New Hampshire's marriage equality law. Forget the economy, NOM seems to be saying, there are gays in our midst who need to be knocked down a few pegs. And they're willing to attack their political friends to get that message across.

Not letting NOM go unchallenged, Karger is set to launch an ad, "The Battle of Concord - 2011," where Karger directly calls NOM out for their destructive and bigoted work.

“I’m calling them a hate group,” Karger said, according to the Concord Monitor.

Sounds about right. Check the ad out this coming Thursday, the day the ad buy starts. And if you're in New Hampshire this week, check out Karger on the campaign trail at Dartmouth College, at the University of New Hampshire, and at a town hall in Keene.

Photo credit: Fred Karger

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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