News (USA)

Billionaire donates $325K to fight Minnesota same-sex marriage ban

Billionaire donates $325K to fight Minnesota same-sex marriage ban

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jon Stryker, chairman of the Arcus Foundation, which supports groups advancing LGBTQ human rights and social justice, has donated $325,000 to assist in the campaign to oppose a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

Stryker made the donation Freedom to Marry Minnesota’s political action committee on Tuesday, according to Minnesota state campaign finance records.

Jon Stryker

The contribution comes a day after the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign pledged to sink $1 million into four states where voters will consider gay marriage ballot measures. The group is donating $250,000 to Minnesota opponents of the gay marriage ban.

Freedom to Marry is a coalition partner of Minnesotans United for All Families, the main organization working to defeat the proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Stryker, who is a trained American architect, philanthropist and activist for social and environmental causes is heir to the medical supply company Stryker Corporation, founded by his late grandfather Homer Hartmen Stryker.

Minnesota is one of four states with a same-sex marriage measure question on the ballot in this presidential election year — voters will consider whether to ban gay marriage in their state’s constitution, in similar fashion to a constitutional ban that voters in North Carolina approved in May

The other three states with marriage equality ballot initiatives are Washington state, Maryland and Maine.

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