"Dinner is Served" - Mediterranean Pool Party "Tiaras & Togas" August 3, 2013

Each August a friend with the help of some of our Sunday pool party group (we call our friend's home "The Country Club") hosts a "Dinner is Served" party to benefit Access Aids Care, a local AIDS/HIV assistance organization.  This year, we are among the hosts and I would encourage local readers to consider attending.  It's a fun event (there is always a theme) with good food and adult beverages that raises money for a worthy cause.  The theme this year is "Tiaras & Togas" and some attendees will come in costume, although costumes are not required.  Here are event details:

We invite you to a Mediterranean Pool Party - "Tiaras & Togas". Please join us for dinner, cocktails and volleyball and many other friends at The Country Club  - Saturday, August 3, 2013 to benefit ACCESS Aids Care.

You can purchase your ticket's to the Dinner is Served Mediterranean Pool Party online with your credit card. Click on this link:

http://www.accessaids.org/index.php/special-events/dinner-is-served/tiaras-togas-dis-party

Can't attend? Purchase tickets anyway and it will be a donation to ACCESS!

Your hosts are Steve Kavanaugh, Rob Economu, Rodger Hall, Tony Wagerman, Perry Edmundson, Harley Handy and Barry Menser

6:09PM until 9:00PM

1425 RYLANDS ROAD, VIRGINIA BEACH, VA 23455

Music by DJ Airrick from the Rainbow Cactus • $100 Prize for Best Dressed Star/Starlet • Lots of Olive Garden Food, Snacks, Beer, Wine, and the Infamous Madras Punch!

Tickets $30 in Advance |  $40 at the Door 
$50 VIP Tickets • VIP: Open Bar (Premium Liquor)

•100% of  All proceeds benefit ACCESS AIDS Care Center for Education & Support Services
• Advance Donation Tickets ay be obtained from any of your hosts (Cash, Credit Card or Checks payable to ACCESS AIDS Care).

Please feel free to bring guests and remember to bring your towel! Also, please be respectful of neighbors and park only on the odd number side of the road.

Dinner Is Served is an annual event held by ACCESS AIDS Care where individuals and groups agree to host parties to help raise much needed funds for ACCESS and the services we provide to the community.

As a thank you to hosts and guests who make a donation you will receive a ticket to the Champagne and Dessert Gala (Date TBD). There we will raise our glasses and celebrate each other and our pledge to assist those suffering from HIV/AIDS in our community.

A big thanks for your corporate sponsor Olive Garden for providing the food for the Mediterranean Pool Party.

Caterpillar Drops Boy Scouts Support Over Gay Leader Ban

While the Southern Baptist Convention is busy condemning the Boy Scouts of America for allowing gay boys and youth to be members, another big money donor has cut off the money spigot since the BSA still discriminates against gays over age 18 and bars them from any sort of leadership position.  It goes without saying that anti-hate groups are continuing a propaganda war depicting gays as child molesters and pedophiles even though heterosexual males and closet cases (usually those psychologically damaged by religious indoctrination) are the main group that molest children of both genders.  ABC News looks at Caterpillar's decision to cease funding the BSA.  Here are highlights:

Caterpillar Inc. is no longer giving money to the Boy Scouts because the organization discriminates against homosexuals, a spokeswoman for the Illinois-based heavy equipment manufacturer confirmed Thursday.

The company's move wasn't directly tied to the recent Boy Scouts decision to continue to bar homosexual adults from roles within the organization while allowing openly gay children to be scouts. Instead, spokeswoman Rachel Potts said, the company decided to cut off funding while reviewing a request for $25,000 that came in last year from a local group in Illinois.

That decision was never announced publicly or communicated to the Boy Scouts of America, only to the local group, she said. But she added that the Boy Scouts' policy that continues to bar homosexual adults from working in the organization is "discriminatory."

Caterpillar has made donations in the past to the Boy Scouts of America, and the company's charitable arm, the Caterpillar Foundation, has donated money to local scouting groups in areas where it has factories and other facilities, Potts said. She declined to provide a dollar figure.

"We have inclusive policies here at Caterpillar Inc., and the foundation abides by those," she said. "We just don't feel that our two organizations align."

The decision by Caterpillar was first reported Wednesday by The Journal Star in Peoria, the central Illinois city where the company is based.  The local organization that was turned down, Potts said, is the Peoria-based W.D. Boyce Council. It includes scout groups across a large part of central Illinois.

The leader of a group of former Eagle Scouts that has pushed for a change in those policies said the pressure that the donation withdrawal could have on Boy Scouts was important. But Zach Wahls, executive director of Iowa City, Iowa-based Scouts for Equality, believes Caterpillar's decision reflects a broader shift in attitudes beyond scouting.

"This isn't a crazy, progressive company that's super liberal," said Wahls, who grew up in Iowa and Wisconsin, and whose parents are lesbians. "(Caterpillar is) very much a middle-American company and I think this indicates where middle America is moving on this issue."

Score another victory for the good guys.  The Christofascists will no doubt be fuming and foaming at the mouth.   They are slowly but steadily losing the culture wars.

Cuccinelli Financial Report Turns up Questions about Donor

Click on image to enlarge

It seems that soon to be crowned GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli just can't having ethical questions surround him, especially when money is involved - e.g., his long failure to disclose financial holdings in Star Scientific..  His latest financial report reflects an apparently nonexistent radio station as one of his donors.  NBC Decision 12 has details on the question of who actually gave the money to Kookinelli.  Here are highlights:. 

The financial forms are in from the first quarter of 2013 and we are starting to get a sense of who is funding the campaigns of both Ken Cuccinelli and Terry McAuliffe. 

There are some interesting take aways. McAuliffe has a significant Union presence on his financial disclosure report. This is not a surprise for a Democratic candidate. It is worth noting though because of Virginia's right to work status.

Cuccinelli's donor base was, as expected much different than McAuliffe's. His biggest haul came from the Republican Governor's Association which ponied up $1 million, almost half of his entire report. Cuccinelli also took a $25,000 check from Foster Friess, a major conservative donor during the 2012 presidential campaign. Friess, who was a big supporter of Cuccinelli ally Rick Santorum, drew some heat when we went on cable news and said that in his day pregnancy was prevented when "gals put it (an aspirin) between their knees and it wasn't that costly."

Also in Cuccinelli's report is a $2,500 contribution from a company that calls itself "KHSE LLC". KHSE lists their address as 6915 Wolf Run Shoals Road Fairfax Station, VA. They claim to be a radio station. The trouble is there is no such thing as a radio station called KHSE anywhere in Virginia or Fairfax Station. 

A Google search of KHSE doesn't turn up much either, especially in Virginia. In fact the only KHSE listed as a radio station anywhere on the internet is a Wikipedia entry for a station that doesn't appear to be broadcasting.

According to the Cuccinelli campaign officials, much like the McAuliffe situation, it is a case of an honest mistake. In this situation, the donor provided the correct information and the campaign incorrectly assumed it was a radio station. They submitted their filing information as such.   A spokesperson for the campaign said that KHSE is actually an investment firm not a radio station. They plan to fix the filing.

However, the campaign could not provide any information as to who runs the company. It is also difficult to find any other information about KHSE the investment firm either.  .  .  .  .   Much like our search of State Coroporation Commission Records of KHSE the radio station, nothing turned up in a search for KHSE the investment firm.

Boy Scouts Delay Vote on Gay Membership Ban

Caught between declining major corporate donor contributions and declining membership one the one hand and the anti-gay hatred that motivates organizations like the Catholic Church, Mormon Church and Southern Baptist Convention which, among others, provide meeting locations for the majority of scout troops and packs, the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America have opted to delay making a decision on whether to drop the current national ban on gay scouts and scouting officials.  I suspect that the BSA is going to be whip sawed no matter what it decides, so delay is only going to serve to postpone the ultimate firestorm that awaits.  CNN looks at the decision to delay:

We're going to have to wait a bit longer to see whether the Boy Scouts will drop their across-the-board ban on openly gay members.

The Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday delayed its vote on a proposal to let local troops decide whether to allow openly gay members and leaders. 

The organization, which had been expected to vote Wednesday, said it needs more time to get input from its members. The vote will now be held in May.

"After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," the group said Wednesday morning.

"To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013."

UPS Dumps Boy Scouts Over Anti-Gay Policy

The official anti-gay bigotry of the Boy Scouts of America continues to run up a high price as UPS joins the major companies which have ceased their financial support to the BSA.  Part of me feels sadness for the boys and youth who may lose out as a result, but the situation could easily be corrected: delete religious based bigotry from BSA policy.  Just this weekend I passed a table at a shopping center where a pack was fundraising and had to tell the boys and mother in charge that I simply could not make a contribution because of the BSA policy against gays.  It's bigoted adults within the BSA who are harming the boys and youths they claim to support.  Here are excerpts from Huffington Post on UPS's decision to drop the BSA:

More bad news for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), as a major donor has announced plans to sever funding to the organization on account of a controversial anti-gay policy.

The United Parcel Service (UPS), Inc. will soon adopt a non-discrimination policy that disqualifies the BSA from future funding, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reports. UPS follows the Intel Foundation in withdrawing corporate sponsorship from the BSA, GLAAD officials note in an email statement.

"UPS and The UPS Foundation do not discriminate against any person or organization with regard to categories protected by applicable law, as well as other categories protected by UPS and The UPS Foundation in our own policies," UPS officials note on the company's website. "These include, but are not limited to race, gender, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran or military status, pregnancy, age and religion."

In July, BSA reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays from participating as scouts or troop leaders, citing support from parents as a key incentive. "The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," the Scouts' chief executive Bob Mazzuca told the Associated Press. 

One can only hope that the day will come when the leaders of the BSA believe in supporting all boys and youths, both gay and straight.

Is Foreign Money Funding Mitt Romney's Campaign

It's always fun to watch the conservative get into a cat fight and taking shots at each other.  A case in point is the current spat between John McCain and Mitt Romney and his campaign.  While in my view McCain will never fully recover his credibility after selecting the insane and despicable Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, from time to time he does still manage to hit the nail on the head.  Like when he accuses foreign money of  creeping into Mitt Romney's super PAC and when he vehemently states that corporations are not persons.  Think Progress looks at this latest contra tempts.  Here are excerpts:

Though he has been one of Mitt Romney’s most visible supporters, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took aim yesterday at both Romney’s Super PAC and one Romney’s most controversial talking points. In an interview on PBS’s NewsHour, McCain told Judy Woodruff that because casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson makes a huge portion of his profits from a casino in Macau, his massive spending in support of Mitt Romney and other right-wing candidates is a form of foreign money influencing American elections:

WOODRUFF: This question of campaign money, highlighted today by the announcement that there’s a huge amount of money coming in from one donor in the state of Nevada.

MCCAIN: Mmmm hmmm. Mr. Adeleson, who gave large amounts of money to the Gingrich campaign and much of Mr. Adeleson’s casino profits, that go to him, come from this casino in Macau.

WOODRUFF: Which says what?

MCCAIN: This which says that obviously, maybe in a round-about way, foreign money is coming into an American campaign, political campaigns.

WOODRUFF: Because of the profits that the casinos in Macau…

MCCAIN: Yes, that is a great deal of money. And, again, we need a level playing field and we need to go back to the realization that Teddy Roosevelt had that we have to have a limit on the flow of money and that corporations are not people. That’s why we have different laws that govern corporations than govern individual citizens. And so to say that corporations are people, again, flies in the face of all the traditional Supreme Court decisions that we have made — that have been made in the past.

 Romney, of course, said in August that “corporations are people, my friend,” a claim that he and his campaign surrogates have vigorously defended since.

Though it is illegal for non-citizens to spend any money to influence U.S. selections directly, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United ruling left the door wide open for the American employees of American subsidiaries of foreign owned corporations — and even sovereign wealth funds — to spend millions or billions from their corporate treasuries on “independent” expenditures.

Oligrachy, American Style

The caption for this post is the title of a new column in the New York Times by Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman. As he has been doing for quite some time, Krugman focuses on the sad fact that the so-called American dream is becoming increasingly out of reach of most Americans as the nation quickly heads towards wealth disparities once found in banana republics and autocratic monarchies. The good news is that some folks seem to be finally waking up to this reality. Meanwhile, the oligarchy of the 1% of the population ranking in most of the advantages offered by the country tries to distort to distort the real picture. Heaven forbid that average people figure out that the 1% is living like Marie Antoinette (at left) and Louis XVI while the rest of us increasingly struggle to make ends meet. Here are some column highlights:

Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators!

Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.

So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.

The budget office laid out some of that stark reality in a recent report, which documented a sharp decline in the share of total income going to lower- and middle-income Americans. We still like to think of ourselves as a middle-class country. But with the bottom 80 percent of households now receiving less than half of total income, that’s a vision increasingly at odds with reality.

In response, the usual suspects have rolled out some familiar arguments: the data are flawed (they aren’t); the rich are an ever-changing group (not so); and so on. . . . . It’s a nice story, and a lot less disturbing than the picture of a nation in which a much smaller group of rich people is becoming increasingly dominant. But it’s not true.

[T]hese days workers with a college degree but no further degrees are less likely to get workplace health coverage than workers with only a high school degree were in 1979.


So who is getting the big gains? A very small, wealthy minority. The budget office report tells us that essentially all of the upward redistribution of income away from the bottom 80 percent has gone to the highest-income 1 percent of Americans.

[W]hy does this growing concentration of income and wealth in a few hands matter? Part of the answer is that rising inequality has meant a nation in which most families don’t share fully in economic growth. Another part of the answer is that once you realize just how much richer the rich have become, the argument that higher taxes on high incomes should be part of any long-run budget deal becomes a lot more compelling.

The larger answer, however, is that extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger?

As I noted yesterday, the America of my childhood and youth is gone and now much of "Old Europe" offers more social mobility than America.

Is Corporate America Beginning to Leave the Christian Values Network?

It would appear that more and more of corporate America's leading companies are waking up to the toxicity of being viewed as aligned with conservative Christian organizations which often are little more than hate groups hiding behind the veil of religion. These groups hate not only gays, by pretty much all minorities and in truth they have little regard for the constitutional liberties of other citizens. As a result, many companies are removing their online store from the “Christian Values Network” (CVN). Why? Because when an item was purchased, a donation would be made to a "charity" of the purchaser's choice - "charities" like Focus on the Family and even groups certified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Fortunately, long term the tide seems to be turning against anti-gay bigotry, but until these types of foul organizations and the parasite like leaders are thrown on the trash heap of history, no forward thinking corporation should want to be alienating the larger population by underwriting hate and bigotry. Sadly, many mainstream corporations have yet to walk away from CVN. If you see a company you utilize listed, take the time to contact it and tell it that it needs to join the exodus if it wants to keep your business. Here are highlights from Change.org on the growing exodus from CVN:
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Pressure is increasing on Apple to remove their online store from the “Christian Values Network” (CVN), after several other corporations have removed their stores this week. More than 3,500 people have signed Western Washington University student Ben Crowther’s Change.org petition to Apple. CVN is used as a fundraising tool by several anti-gay, anti-women organizations like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.
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Late Thursday, the Wells Fargo and Delta Airlines online stores were removed from CVN. Prior to removing their store, Wells Fargo was offering up to $300 to the religious charity of the shopper’s choice, money that could be donated to “Focus on the Family” or the Family Research Council. Delta offered $3.00 per ticket.
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On Wednesday, BBC pulled the BBC America Shop from CVN. “BBC America Shop was not aware of CVN.org's current donation policies,” April Mulcair, BBC’s VP of Publicity, told UK Gay News in a statement. “We have ended our relationship with this affiliate effective immediately."
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On July 7, Microsoft pulled their online store from the Christian Values Network after a Change.org petition started by Seattle resident and Microsoft customer Stuart Wilber highlighted several anti-gay groups raising money through the Christian Values Network.
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Last weekend, CVN beneficiary Focus on the Family came under fire after TOMS shoes expressed “regret” in a statement sent to to Change.org for a Focus on the Family speaking engagement by founder Blake Mycoskie after learning about Focus on the Family’s anti-gay and anti-women views.
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Dozens of major companies like Netflix, Target, Best Buy, USA Today, Walgreens, REI, and even Sesame Street participate in CVN’s service. When customers make purchases through CVN, a donation is made to the religious charity of the customer’s choice. For example, USA Today will donate $5.25 per subscription, and 2.5% of the purchase price for products bought through Apple iTunes store can be donated to groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council.
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Celebrities Stephen Baldwin and Michael Lohan helped launch the Christian Values Network, an online service that raises money for various religious groups from the purchase of goods and services. More than 700 companies are listed at www.cvn.org, the Christian Value Network’s domain hosting links to various corporate online stores. Both Baldwin and Lohan are outspoken about their anti-gay views. Stephen Baldwin told the Guardian in 2010 that he supports so called “ex-gay” therapy, a harmful practice that falsely claims to “cure” people of their sexual orientation. Michael Lohan told reporters in 2008 he would not walk his daughter, Lindsay Lohan, down the aisle if she chose to marry her same-sex partner.
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Former Governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is a Christian Values Network advisor and spokesperson who has posted videos on YouTube supporting the company. In the past, Huckabee has equated being gay with bestiality, necrophilia, and pedophilia.

Target Feels Backlash From Its Shareholders

It is remarkable how dumb some corporate leaders can be. Target and the current controversy that it finds itself embroiled in is a case in point. The $150,000 contribution to what turns out to have been an anti-gay organization obviously should have been better investigated BEFORE the contribution was made. But someone from the outset should have realized that the same forces that are always describe themselves as "pro-business" are the same ones who typically wrap themselves in the flag of homophobia to pander to Neanderthal Christianists voters. Even someone casually familiar with politics and the GOP platform in general should have been able to connect the dots and figured out that this might backfire and bite Target in the ass. Did they think Teh Gays wouldn't find out? In any event, now Target, which has carefully worked to provide same sex partner benefits, non-discrimination policies for LGBT employees, etc., has found all of that effort shot to Hell. Worse yet, it now faces calls for boycotts and is receiving all kinds of negative news coverage. And deservedly so in my view. Now adding to the mix is the backlash from shareholders who are none too happy at the controversy which could have been so easily avoided by simply remaining neutral. Having once been in-house counsel for a Fortune 50 corporation, I never cease to be amazed how ego maniacal senior management forgets that it is the shareholders - not management - that own the corporation. The Los Angeles Times looks at the self-inflicted damage being experienced by Target. Here are some highlights:
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After weeks of public protest over its financial support of an organization that backed a GOP gubernatorial candidate opposed to gay rights, Target Corp. now faces a new form of pressure: demands from institutional shareholders that it revamp its donation process to avoid the chance of additional backfires.
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Imprudent donations can potentially have a major negative impact on company reputations and business if they don't carefully and fully assess a candidate's positions," said Tim Smith, a senior vice president at Walden Asset Management, one of three asset management firms that this week filed a resolution asking the retail giant to overhaul its campaign donation policies. He cautioned that funding ballot initiatives, as many corporations have done, "can similarly backfire."
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The three management firms sponsoring the resolution — Calvert Asset Management, Trillium Asset Management and Walden — together hold $57.5 million of Target stock. Other institutional investors, including the giant New York state pension fund and union investment managers, are considering co-signing the resolution, which calls on Target's independent directors to review the criteria and risks in making donations to organizations active in political campaigns.
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"Target should have carefully considered the implications that direct political contributions can have toward shareholder value," said Ola Fadahunsi, spokesman for New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the pension fund's sole trustee. "It's troubling to think that they can fund controversial candidates without properly assessing the risks and rewards involved." The New York state pension fund currently holds 3.8 million shares in Target, with a market value of $283 million.
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Target said it made a $150,000 donation to MN Forward because the group promised to back candidates promoting a better business climate. "The intent of our political contribution to MN Forward was to support economic growth and job creation," Steinhafel said in an e-mail to employees.
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The first advertisement aired by MN Forward touted Emmer, who favors lower taxes and other pro-business positions but also has a strong record of opposition to gay rights legislation.
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Besides seeking a review of political contributions, the institutional shareholders also are asking the retailers to consider how contributions will affect the company's public image, business sales and profitability, and whether a candidate espouses policies that conflict with the company's values.
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Bill de Blasio, a board member of another large pension fund, the New York City Employee Retirement System, said Thursday that he would ask other members of his board to support the resolution. The retirement board holds nearly 1 million Target shares.
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"A good corporate political contribution policy should prevent the kind of debacle Target and Best Buy walked into. . . . "We expect companies to evaluate candidates based upon the range of their positions — not simply one area — and assess whether they are in alignment with their core values. But these companies' policies are clearly lacking that," Alpern said.
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In a news release announcing the resolution, Trillium also disclosed that one client with a relatively small holding in Target had asked that its ownership of the stock be immediately liquidated. Officials from the Equity Foundation of Portland, Ore., said they were divesting because they were "troubled" by Target's political contribution.
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Target also is facing calls for a boycott from MoveOn.org and has received stinging criticism from gay rights advocates, who once lauded the company for its approach to gay and lesbian issues.

Know Thy Enemies - Take the Battle to Their Wallets

As I have said on any number of occasions, it is important that members of the LGBT community know who their enemies are so as to better defend against their attacks, expose their untruths, and - and this is important - take the battle to where it hurts them where it really counts: in their wallets. Fortunately, the California Secretary of State's Office makes it easy to see who is funding the effort to pass the anti-gay marriage amendment to the California Constitution. This information can be found here. As a diary on Pam's House Blend points out, to the extent businesses or their senior management are contributors, I believe they should be challenged and targeted for a boycott of their products by the LGBT community. Bigotry needs to have a real tangible price. This page and this page show those contributing over $5,000 and lists Focus on the Family, the Knights of Columbus, and some contractors, leasing agents, doctors, lawyers, a Vice President of San Diego Gas & Electric, the President of Hoehn Motors, and officers of other businesses. Here are some highlights from the PHB diary:

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If you look at these spreadsheets, the data includes the name, the company, and the position of the person if it's an individual giving the donation. I'm particularly interested in high profile corporate donors to the campaign to keep gay people as second class citizens. Here is just one item: In the Protectmarriage.com section on the website, you will notice a $1,000 contribution from one Tamara Seymour, who is the Chief Financial Officer of Favrville, Inc.

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If you look at the main page of the Favrville website, it bills itself as a purveyor of "cancer treatment technologies". Its business would not seem to be to weigh in one way or another on the same sex marriage equality battle. Does Favrville wish to be associated via its CFO with an ugly bigoted campaign to deny same sex couples the same benefits as any other married couple has? I have not written Favrille yet, but I surely will.

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I firmly believe that those who give money to deny us equality (especially corporations) ought to at least be asked to publicly answer for their positions.