Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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.

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