Defector says anti-gay group is harassing him

A former staffer who defected from the National Organization for Marriage says the group is harassing and threatening to sue him.

Louis Marinelli, who created the organization’s anti-gay 2010 tour and served as administrator of its Facebook page, came out in favor of marriage equality in early April. Initially, NOM officials sought to distance themselves from him, claiming he’d played an insignificant role with the group.

But Marinelli told blogger Michelangelo Signorile that NOM president Brian Brown has been trying to intimidate him with legal threats since he left.

“I’ve received a message or two from Brian, who basically has – he’s trying to intimidate me to stop talking,” Marinelli said. “He’s saying that if I don’t remove the posts I’ve posted on my site and I don’t stop telling the truth about who they are he may pursue legal action. … I considered it an intimidation tactic. … On two occasions he wrote me a message saying if I don’t comply with his wish that I remove certain posts from the site … that he would have no option but to pass it on to his attorneys and pursue legal action.”

In the interview with Signorile, Marinelli also discussed NOM’s “propaganda teams,” which smear opponents. He said the group is driven by religious bigotry, even though it claims otherwise.

In early April, Marinelli called marriage equality a “civil right” and disavowed his previous support for anti-gay “researcher” Paul Cameron and Peter LaBarbera, founder of the gay-obsessed group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. Marinelli told Signorile that LaBarbera “is just a hateful man.”