Capital Weekly, a newspaper on governement affairs in California, is predicting that spending by the two sides in the battle over the California inititive to amend the California constitution to ban gay marriage may top $30,000,000.00. Even though nationwide the Christianist organizations have vastly more money that all the gay rights organizations combined, I'm sure the disingenuous blowhards at Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Alliance Defense Fund, et al, who live off the teet of gulible donors, will be having vapors claiming those rich gay rights extremists will out spend them as a way to shake more funds from the sheeple, to use Pam Spaulding's term. Here are some story highlights:*
California likely will play host this fall to an unprecedented political battle over gay marriage, as a looming ballot-initiative contest appears likely to force more than $30 million in total spending from the rival factions. Even though a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage has not yet made it onto the November ballot, both sides are already taking in big checks from familiar donors.
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Adding fuel to the fire are a pair of dueling polls. Last week, a Los Angeles Times/KTLA poll found a majority of voters opposed same-sex marriage. But a Field Poll released Wednesday appeared to show a sea change in public opinion on the issue, with roughly half of those surveyed in support of gay marriage. The poll suggests that a constitutional amendment could face a hard road this fall. Steve Smith, campaign consultant for Equality for All, the main group on the "no" side of the proposed Protect Marriage initiative, said his group could raise as much as $20 million. "We will have to at least match them dollar for dollar," Smith said.
*On the anti-same-sex marriage side, the donors are led by a pair of wealthy Southern California businessmen who are also evangelical Christians. Fieldstead & Co., the company owned by billionaire financier Howard Ahmanson, gave $400,000 in February and March to the committee behind The California Marriage Protection Act. Christian radio magnate Ed Atsinger has donated $12,500. Both live in Southern California. Meanwhile, the Santa Ana-based National Organization for Marriage has packaged up $921,000 to pass the amendment. Colorado-based Focus on the Family has contributed $133,000. That group's founder and leader, James Dobson, is one of the leading voices in the anti-gay movement.
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The Gill Action fund gave $150,000 to the Equality California Issues PAC in February and March. The Fund is controlled by Tim Gill, the gay founder of Quark Express and a former member of the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. The Colorado-based Gill gave a quarter million dollars to fight Prop. 22 in 2000, and is widely seen as a kind of pied piper for gay political donations. Another openly-gay tech entrepreneur, GeoCities founder David Bohnett, gave $200,000 to the PAC in March. The group Equality for All has put in $815,000, which the Human Rights Campaign has donated $125,000. The National Center for Lesbian Rights added $50,000 in April.
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More worrisome for Pugno's cause [Protect Marriage] is a Field Poll released Thursday morning. It found that likely California voters approved of allowing same sex couples to marry by a 51 percent to 42 percent margin. Depending on how the question is asked, between 51 percent and 54 percent oppose adding a ban on same sex marriage to the state constitution. But over 30 years of polling on the subject, all segments of voters have become more accepting of the idea, he said. Younger voters, meanwhile, make the biggest difference. Among those 18 to 29, 68 percent approve of same sex marriage. Among those 65 and older, it's just 38 percent.
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