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It鈥檚 been a rocky year so far for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation鈥檚 leading opponent of same-sex marriage.

This March, a series of 2009 NOM documents was released as part of a legal battle the group is fighting in Maine to hide the identities of its donors in the face of state law. The most embarrassing detailed a plan to divide LGBT people from potential black allies. 鈥淭he strategic goal of this project,鈥� NOM said, 鈥渋s to drive a wedge between gays and blacks.鈥� It proposed developing black anti-gay spokesman in the hope of 鈥減rovok[ing] the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots.鈥�

In other words, make supporters of marriage equality look like racists, drawing attention away from the overwhelming support for same-sex marriage among black civil rights leaders. The plan was widely denounced as race baiting.

The same month, NOM launched a boycott of Starbucks because of the company鈥檚 support for same-sex marriage. Although NOM suggested it was having great success, in fact NOM was able to garner only 22,000 signatures in its first week 鈥� a period in which almost 300,000 people signed a petition supporting Starbucks.

The National Organization for Marriage sought to build up black anti-gay voices like that of Rev. Patrick Wooden Sr. of North Carolina as part of a race-baiting plan to make supporters of same-sex marriage look like anti-black racists.

Despite its claim to keep its criticisms of homosexuality both factual and civil 鈥� an assertion repeated this spring by NOM Culture Director Thomas Peters 鈥� NOM recently showcased a particularly hard-line North Carolina pastor. NOM posted a video featuring Patrick Wooden Sr., who advocates 鈥渨hooping鈥� boys who don鈥檛 dress in a sufficiently masculine manner and who falsely claims that older gay men must wear diapers or 鈥渂utt plugs鈥� as a result of anal sex.

In the same vein, the Ruth Institute, a NOM project, has scheduled several virulent speakers for its July 鈥淚t Takes a Family鈥� conference. Robert Gagnon, a theology professor and proponent of 鈥渆x-gay鈥� therapy, has railed on about the 鈥渟ignificant pathological side鈥� to homosexuality, which he falsely claims is linked to pedophilia. British barrister Paul Diamond, who claims that LGBT rights activists are creating a 鈥渢otalitarian atmosphere鈥� that is costing Christians their rights, is another slated speaker.