The Becket Fund has filed the first legal challenge to the Obama administration’s regulations requiring insurers and employers to cover reproductive health care services — including contraception — without additional cost sharing. The group has extensive ties to the anti-gay industry and is supported by GOP presidential front runner Mitt Romney, who, incidentally has also attacked President Obama for waging a war against religion and allegedly undermining the conscience protections of religious organizations.

On May 8, 2008 — upon suspending his first campaign for the White House — Romney received the Fund’s prestigious Canterbury Medal for “Courage in the Defense of Religious Liberty” and delivered a speech titled, “Freedom Requires Religion.” He began his talk by joking about his Mormon faith and questioning his own religious convictions:

ROMNEY: I can tell you, I’m not an enormously religious person. I try to be a religious person and I’m a lot more religious by virtue of having married her, she keeps me on the straight and narrow. And any reward I get in regards to religious liberty is associated of her having taught me the power of faith in my life and the lives of my sons and daughters and law and grandchildren. [...]

Mormonism says you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t have coffee and you can’t have sex outside of marriage and they tell us that that gives us a longer life. I don’t believe it. It just makes it feel like it’s a longer life.

Watch it:

The clip reveals the depths of Romney’s connection to the Fund — to which he subsequently donated at least $25,000 — its efforts to defend those who wish to discriminate against gays and lesbians and the questionable foundations that continue to fund it.

But his comments about his faith undermine his biographical details. Romney, after all, presents himself as a religious man who spent part of his youth in France as a missionary and served as a Mormon stake president for eight years. Since entering public life, Romney has stated that he still believes in and lives by Mormon doctrine. His wife Ann, meanwhile, was converted into Mormonism by George Romney.

Earlier this week, 14-year-old Sarah Crank lit up the Internet — and sparked a contentious debate — for asking Maryland lawmakers to defeat a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying “would be the best birthday present ever if you would vote no on gay marriage,” Crank said in her testimony and explained, “I really feel bad for the kids who have two parents of the same gender, they have no idea what kind of wonderful experiences they miss out on.”

Well this morning, 15-year-old Madison Galluccio, who is being raised by same-sex parents, effectively countered Crank’s claim as she testified before New Jersey’s House Judiciary Committee in favor of marriage equality. “New Jersey has made me feel discriminated, like I’m some sort of outcast,” she told the committee. “But guess what New Jersey, I’m no outcast. I’m Madison Galluccio and I’m part of the Galluccio family. My parents will be married. And I’ll make sure that this happens ’til the day that I die.” She added:

So please, will you help me? Help me feel equal. We’re no different. I’m no different. And I shouldn’t have to be forced to feel I’m different. This is my family. And I want us to be able to have the same rights as you. So New Jersey, please give me my freedom. Thank you.

Listen (via Jeremy Hooper):

The New Jersey legislature is considering legislation extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians, which Gov. Chris Christie (R) has pledged to veto. (HT: OnTopMagazine)

Anti-gay forces are backing a lawsuit challenging new regulations that require insurers and employers to offer reproductive health care services — including contraception — without additional cost sharing. The rule, part of the Affordable Care Act, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith. But religious groups contend that its conscience protections are too narrow.

Vocal LGBT equality opponents the Conference of Catholic Bishops are leading the charge against the requirement, but on Tuesday the Becket Fund became “the first and only law firm to legally challenge the Obama Administration’s contraceptive mandate.” The group filed the suit on behalf of both Belmont Abbey College and Colorado Christian University.

The Becket Fund describes itself as a “public interest law firm protecting the free expression of all religious traditions,” but it regularly represents clients who wish to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The organization received $100,000 from The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which also supports groups like The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Eagle Forum, and the Institute for American Values, and is at least partly responsible for developing many of today’s anti-gay arguments and the hysteria surrounding the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

Becket and Bradley are also home to Robert George, the so-called “intellectual leader” of the anti-gay movement. George sits on the Board of Directors at both Becket and Bradley and is a co-author of the 2009 Manhattan Declaration, a manifesto that “promises resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same sex marriage.” George has previously described homosexual behavior as “beneath the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures” and argued that same-sex relationships have “no intelligible basis in them for the norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence.” George is the founder and director of the anti-gay group National Organization for Marriage or NOM.

Mary Ann Glendon is another member of Becket’s esteemed Board. The Harvard Law Professor is a staunch anti-abortion Catholic who refused to receive an award from Notre Dame after the school invited President Obama to speak at its commencement ceremony. She has contested the use of condoms for the prevention of HIV and AIDS, claiming in 1995, “The Holy See in no way endorses contraception or the use of condoms, either as a family planning measure or in HIV/AIDS prevention programs.”

Interestingly, the Romney may agree with this strain of thinking. Financial documents released by the Romney campaign last month show that the former Massachusetts governor donated $25,000 to the Becket Fund in 2009 and has touted Glendon’s endorsement of his candidacy.

The National Organization for Marriage has raised more than $284,000 to promote Minnesota’s marriage inequality amendment, but listed zero donors as the source of the cash. The organization explained that the contributions came from “membership dues,” which allows it to avoid disclosing donors under a loophole in Minnesota law. The only problem is that NOM does not have a membership structure nor has it ever collected dues in any form — at least not publicly. NOM’s website offers only one method for contributing to its efforts, and that is to donate:

In fact, in its 2010 tax returns, NOM did not claim any revenue from “Membership Dues”:

It seems that NOM is attempting to justify that it hasn’t specifically asked for money in Minnesota, even though it regularly highlights its own work there. Then, it is spinning the idea that its regular donations come from “members” who are paying “dues,” even though its structure is devoid of such language. This is bogus manipulation that is clearly designed to circumvent the state’s disclosure laws, as the organization has tried to do in countless other states. Though NOM continues to lose these fights in states like Maine, California, and Washington, the tactic allows its supporters to stay hidden for years after the campaigns for which they should have been disclosed.

NOM’s partners in the “Minnesota for Marriage” anti-gay coalition seem to be in on the scheme. The Minnesota Family Council gave $346,994.05 to the coalition in 2011 — more than twice its revenue in 2010 — without disclosing any sources for the extra cashflow. The Minnesota Catholic Conference similarly contributed $350,000 from “business interest accounts,” which also have no donors. It is telling that Minnesota for Marriage’s filing was only eight pages long while Minnesotans United for All Families — the organization fighting the anti-gay amendment — offered a 348-page report highlighting its donors.

The Human Rights Campaign has called on the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board to investigate NOM’s financial activity. HRC President Joe Solmonese outright suggested that “NOM and others may be secretly telling people to contribute to them instead of directly to the campaign so that they can avoid public disclosure.” Given how consolidated NOM’s financiers seem to be, Solmonese’s implication makes a lot of sense.