I imagine we could all use some good news this morning. (Also helping for me: A seven-year-old Mary J. Blige album I never paid full attention to before. Go figure.) So thank God for Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern's deeply heartening roundup of the rise and fall of the National Organization for Marriage. A sample (bolds mine):

[T]he exact same factors that led to NOM’s success have helped to hasten its decline and fall. From the get-go, the group has simply refused to play by the rules, displaying a brash disregard of both law and custom. For years, NOM refused to release various financial reports, instead electing to challenge disclosure laws in court—a costly and quixotic quest that the Supreme Court clearly doomed to failure. At every turn, NOM has played dirty, illegally keeping its donor lists secret and actively hiding its fundraising reports from ethics commissions. Its unprecedented campaigns against equality-minded judges represent a shocking encroachment upon judicial independence. And its constant barrage of ad hominem attacks against LGBTQ Americans turned a political campaign into a vicious assault on gay people’s dignity.

I'm tempted to credit Stern's piece with inspiring schadenfreude, but there can be no shame in enjoying the downfall of a group as vile as NOM. Go read the whole thing.