WSJ: Gays now a threat to the secret ballot

Two Wall Street Journal op-ed contributors are floating a new idea from the resurgent right: ride the Prop 8 backlash to a repeal of campaign finance laws and make contributions secret again (h/t The Hill's most excellent Morning Briefing).

It's a smart move, given the anticipation that repeal of Prop 8 may be on the ballot two years hence, a blog commenter quoted by Open Left observes:

By erasing the true victims - 18,000 same sex couples and the innumerable other couples who wished to follow them to full equality - folks like Steve Lopez have constructed a situation where the far right can use those supposed victims as a battering ram against campaign finance disclosure rules they've long opposed.

Lott's and Smith's argument is pernicious. They argue that mandatory disclosure limits freedom of speech and of political action, that anonymous donations have protected groups like the NAACP (from government harassment, not public accountability, as the columnists neatly ignore), and that public pressure to disclose donors will accomplish what regulations currently provide (yeah right).

This is not just a wingnut attempt to protect their wealthy allies. It's an effort to lay the groundwork to undermine California's disclosure laws in the event we return to the ballot to repeal Prop 8 in the near future. Without disclosure rules, it is highly likely that we will see much larger sums of money donated to the anti-gay cause.

And who knows? It may provide new arguments for SC GOP leaders irked by persistent public demands for public, traceable, roll call votes in the legislature.

Somewhere, Richard Nixon is laughing.