A surge in big-money contributions from two benefactors has given gay-rights advocates a huge boost in their campaign to push for recognition of domestic partnerships and fend off efforts to ban gay marriage on the November ballot.
The Gill Foundation, launched by high-tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Tim Gill, has spent $903,000 on a Colorado Springs-focused advertising campaign about Norman, a dog who says “moo.”
The ads, while not technically connected to any political campaign, feature TV spots that say Norman was born different and are linked to a website that asks: “When did you decide to be straight?”
Meanwhile, Michigan architect and philanthropist Jon Stryker, brother of Fort Collins heiress Pat Stryker, contributed $250,000 last month to the gay-rights group Coloradans for Fairness – more than double the amount raised by the two groups opposing gay marriage and same-sex partnerships.
Opponents of the gay-rights measures – who trail in fundraising by a 5-to-1 margin – said money alone won’t carry the election.
“We went in with the expectation that we’d be outspent, but also that we’d have a far better grass-roots campaign than they do,” said Jon Paul, executive director of Coloradans for Marriage, which seeks an amendment to ban gay marriage.
Coloradans could see as many as four same-sex-related ballot issues this fall. Three of them must first raise 68,000 signatures to be put before voters.
The Stryker contribution constitutes more than half of the nearly $500,000 raised by Coloradans for Fairness, which opposes the marriage amendment and supports a domestic partnership measure. Gill has pitched in $179,000 through his foundation.
Coloradans for Marriage has raised a little more than $105,000, with Focus on the Family accounting for $55,000. Protecting Colorado Children, author of an initiative to ban domestic partnerships, has raised a little more than $8,000.
One expert who follows issue campaigns around the country called Gill’s effort in Colorado Springs an “ingenious” way of framing the issue.
“Other campaigns have all been waged in terms of opposing this (anti-gay marriage) measure,” said Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida. “What Gill has been able to do is to get people to think about how this is about fairness and equality.”
But Smith also pointed out that anti-gay-marriage forces likely will use the opposition’s deluge of campaign money as a tool to ignite more support.
“This helps their cause to say, ‘Look, we’re under fire,”‘ he said. “It will certainly be a rallying point for conservatives to raise more money.”
Gill’s Colorado Springs ad campaign has raised controversy for the way it has used public banners to spread its message.
Beth Kosley, executive director of Downtown Partnership, said the organization puts up the banners for nonprofit organizations. The Downtown Partnership did not interpret Norman, the mooing dog, as political, she added.
Mayor Lionel Rivera requested a review of requirements for the banners earlier this week. On Tuesday, he said the banners should be used to promote events like the local rodeo and anniversaries of local institutions, “but not used to make political statements.”
Sean Duffy, executive director of Coloradans for Fairness, stressed that the Colorado Springs ads aren’t an arm of the election campaign – but added they don’t hurt. “When people have the opportunity in a somewhat humorous way to think about people who happen to be gay, it certainly helps the issue of how to provide basic rights to those same people,” he said.
