Maine gay marriage campaigns report donations
(Augusta, Maine) Supporters of Maine’s gay marriage law said Tuesday they’ve collected $2.7 million for their campaign against a ballot proposal to repeal it, more than double the amount the measure’s supporters said they raised.
The group, called NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality, also reported that it has spent $2.2 million …
Tags: Augusta Maine, Ballot Proposal, Campaigns, Donations, Equality, Gay Maine, gay marriage, Maine Law, Maine Marriage, marriage, Marriage LawLutherans don’t want donations to stop
A bishop said stopping donations because of Lutherans’ pro-gay stances would be “devastating.”
Tags: Donations, LutheransLutherans don’t want donations to stop
A bishop said stopping donations because of Lutherans’ pro-gay stances would be “devastating.”
Tags: Donations, LutheransBackers of Gay Marriage Rethink California Push
LOS ANGELES — Discouraged by stubborn poll numbers and pessimistic political consultants, major financial backers of same-sex marriage are cautioning gay rights groups to delay a campaign to overturn California’s ban on such unions until at least 2012.
Earlier this year, many supporters of same-sex marriage seemed eager to mount a 2010 campaign to overturn Proposition 8, which was passed by California voters in November and defined marriage as “between a man and a woman.”
But the timing of another campaign has since been questioned by several of the movement’s big donors, including David Bohnett, a millionaire philanthropist and technology entrepreneur who gave more than $1 million to the unsuccessful campaign to defeat Proposition 8.
“In conversations with a number of my fellow major No on 8 donors,” Mr. Bohnett said in an e-mail message, “I find that they share my sentiment: namely, that we will step up to the plate — with resources and talent — when the time is right.”
“The only thing worse than losing in 2008,” he added, “would be to lose again in 2010.”
The issue of when to go back to the polls was also the central topic at a contentious “leadership summit” held Saturday at a church in San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles, where about 200 gay rights advocates gathered to discuss their next step. It was the second large meeting of gay leaders since late May when the California Supreme Court ruled against a legal challenge to Proposition 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote.
Shortly after the court’s decision, officials at Equality California, one of the largest gay rights groups in California, issued an online plea for donations for a possible 2010 campaign, citing a need to capitalize on anger over the decision and on the seeming momentum from the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in several other states.
But that thinking has apparently evolved.
Marc Solomon, marriage director for Equality California, said he spent June and early July asking the opinions of nearly two dozen California political consultants and pollsters and had been surprised by the almost unanimous opinion that a 2010 race was a bad idea.
“I expected having watched the protests and the real pain that the L.G.B.T. community had experienced that there would be some real measurable remorse in the electorate,” Mr. Solomon said, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “But if you look at the poll numbers since November, they really haven’t moved at all.”
A major factor in any California balloting, of course, is money; campaigns here are remarkably expensive, with a number of costly media markets. The Proposition 8 campaign, for example, cost more than $80 million, with opponents spending some $43 million.
Sarah Callahan, ch
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Gay Montclair University Student Protests Ban on Donating Blood
A 20-year-old sophomore at Montclair State University, Weinstein signed up to donate blood last November at a Red Cross blood drive on campus because, he said, “I thought it would be a nice thing to do.”
But when Weinstein, who is gay, answered “yes” on a questionnaire asking whether or not he had had sexual relations with another man since 1977, American Red Cross volunteers running the drive told him that he was ineligible to be a donor.
“My initial reaction was absolute shock. I thought, there’s no way,” Weinstein, a Randolph native, said last week.
For the past several months, blood supplies around New Jersey have hit critically low levels. Karen Ferriday, a spokeswoman for Community Blood Services in Oradell, said blood stores, which optimally provide three to five days worth of blood, have fallen to half-day supplies for the past several months.
Still, donors like Weinstein have found themselves turned away from donating because a Food and Drug Administration regulation born at the height of the AIDS scare in 1983 still places a lifetime ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men.
Women who have had sex with a gay or bisexual partner are out, too.
See
Gay Montclair University Student Protests Ban on Donating Blood
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Missed chance at grant a blow for The Center
HILLCREST — British poet Alexander Pope famously noted 300 years ago that to err is human, to forgive divine.
San Diego publisher Michael Portantino might not have been pondering “An Essay on Criticism” when he learned San Diego’s main community center for gays and lesbians missed a deadline to apply for a major grant.
But Portantino surely adopted Pope’s way of thinking when he wrote about the blunder in the Gay & Lesbian Times.
Instead of lambasting the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center for failing to seek a city grant worth tens of thousands of dollars, the publisher urged readers to forgive the mistake and make up the difference with their own donations.
“There’s not a CEO of a company that hasn’t made a mistake,” Portantino said. “Anybody who doesn’t reach in their pocket and write out a check for $5, $10, $15 or $20 right now should be ashamed of themselves.”
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San Diego Union Tribune, CA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/missed-chance…
“Will of the Voters” must be obeyed - unless it embarrasses those thin skinned Marriage Ban Donors
SAN FRANCISCO — In many ways it is a typical map, showing states, highways, cities and streets.
But also dotting the online display are thousands of red arrows, marking spots from Bryn Mawr, Pa., to Jamacha, Calif., identifying the addresses of donors who supported Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California.
It is exactly those arrows that concern supporters of the measure, who say they have been regularly harassed since the election — with threatening e-mail messages and sometimes boycotts of their businesses.
“Some gay activists have organized Web sites to actively encourage people to go after supporters of Proposition 8,” said Frank Schubert, the campaign manager for Protect Marriage, the leading group behind the proposition. “And giving these people a map to your home or office leaves supporters of Proposition 8 feeling especially vulnerable. Really, it is chilling.”
So chilling, apparently, that supporters have filed suit in Federal District Court in Sacramento seeking a preliminary injunction of a state election law that requires donors of $100 or more to disclose their names, addresses, occupations and other personal information. In particular, the suit seeks to stop the final filing for the 2008 election, which is due Jan. 31. That filing includes donations made in the closing days of the campaign, when the proposition surged to victory.
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer from Indiana who filed the lawsuit on the behalf of Protect Marriage, said the harassment of Proposition 8 supporters violated their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly.
“The cost of transparency cannot be discouragement of people’s participation in the process,” said Mr. Bopp, who has argued several prominent cases challenging campaign-finance laws in California and other states. “The highest value in the First Amendment is speech, and some amorphous idea about transparency cannot be used to subvert those rights.”
The election law in question, the Political Reform Act of 1974, was approved by California voters as Proposition 9, and gay rights advocates say there is rich irony in supporters of Proposition 8 opposing the earlier ballot measure.
“They believe in the will of the people if it’s in tune with what they believe,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, marriage project director with Lambda Legal, the gay rights legal organization, in Los Angeles.
Opponents of Proposition 8 are also suspicious of the intent of trying to prevent donors from being identified. “Do they want to hide something?” said Shannon P. Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. See Marriage Ban Donors Feel Exposed by List New York Times
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Craig gets thousands for ‘defense’
About half of former Senator’s expenses from fighting sex sting plea covered by donations.
Tags: Craig, Donations, Plea, Sex StingEquality California Calls Prop 8 Proponents’ New Lawsuit Hypocritical
Sacramento — Proponents of Proposition 8 today filed a lawsuit in federal court asking that a California campaign finance disclosure law passed by the voters be invalidated.
Statement from Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors in response to the lawsuit:
“This lawsuit could not be more hypocritical. During the Proposition 8 campaign, the very same groups who filed this legal challenge sent menacing letters to Equality California’s donors, as well as corporations, labor unions, and individuals who stood up to discrimination and supported the NO on 8 Campaign. Now they are calling themselves the victims. What’s more, these groups are arguing on the one hand that voter initiatives like Prop 8 should never be overturned by courts. On the other, they are asking a federal court to void a campaign reform law that was passed by voter initiative in California. They are asking that donations to Yes on 8 and only Yes on 8, even if illegal, be hidden from the public. This leads us to wonder what they have to hide?”
EQCA works to achieve equality and secure legal protections for LGBT people. To improve the lives of LGBT Californians, EQCA sponsors legislation and coordinates efforts to ensure its passage, lobbies legislators and other policy makers, builds coalitions, develops community strength and empowers individuals and other organizations to engage in the political process. www.eqca.org
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/equality-cali…
North Texas LGBT community split over post-Proposition 8 tactics
Gay groups in north Texas are mixed in their response to plans to protest the Cinemark theater chain over donations made by company CEO Alan Stock in support of California’s marriage ban, Proposition 8. Morris Garcia, president of the Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance, which reportedly has two members who are corporate employees of Cinemark, said the group preferred to set up a dialogue with the movie chain. A gay filmmaker in Dallas organized a protest against Cinemark, but the city’s chapter of the Stonewall Democrats is not backing the event, in deference to local concerns. Dallas Voice
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/north-texas-l…
