Political Contributions

Dallas-based telecommunications giant AT&T has contributed $75,000 to anti-gay Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott’s campaign for governor. Lone Star QA reports that, according to campaign finance reports obtained by the Texas Ethics Commission, AT&T’s Texas political action committee gave $50,000 to Abbott’s campaign in January, and another $25,000 in June…

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The resignation of Mozilla’s CEO amid outrage that he supported an anti-gay marriage campaign is prompting concerns about how Silicon Valley’s strongly liberal culture might quash the very openness that is at the region’s foundation.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board voted Wednesday not to remove its executive director from an investigation into whether the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) violated state law by not disclosing campaign donors.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission ruled Thursday that the political contributions of married same-sex couples should be treated equally to the donations of married straight couples, acting after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court on gay marriage.

Back in 2010, Target Corporation was forced to apologize when it came out that it had funded campaign ads on behalf of virulently anti-gay Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. The controversy hit the Minnesota-based company hard, in part because it vocally supports gay rights and has a reputation as a supportive workplace for LGBT people.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission said Thursday that married, same-sex couples cannot pool their money to donate to political campaigns as married, opposite-sex couples are able to do so.

PORTLAND, Maine — A lawyer for the leading national advocacy group opposing same-sex marriage told Maine’s highest court Thursday that the First Amendment shields it from having to reveal its donor list to state officials.

The number of contributors who gave in support of marriage for gay and lesbian couples was thirteen times greater – about 133,000 compared to an estimated 10,500 – than those giving financial resources to oppose marriage equality, according to an analysis by the Human Rights Campaign of donors to the four states with marriage equality on the ballot this year.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The state of Washington has advised the Catholic diocese in Yakima, Wash., that its plans to conduct a special collection to benefit the campaign to defeat the state’s marriage equality law is illegal under the state’s campaign finance laws.

President Obama has been greeted with thunderous ovations and thousands of dollars in LGBT contributions since his May 9 announcement that he supports allowing same-sex couples to marry.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – In a surprise move, the state of California’s ethics office announced Wednesday that it will investigate Fred Karger’s complaint against the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

New IRS 990 forms reveal that fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2009, reports Equality Matters.

A federal judge on Thursday ruled against two anti-gay groups who were both proponents of the Proposition 8 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California, saying they had failed to prove that they should be exempt from California’s campaign disclosure laws.

A federal appeals court in Boston on Wednesday denied a request by attorneys for the National Organization for Marriage to hold a rehearing on the court’s decision last month against the NOM.

The nation’s leading anti-gay group, the National Organization for Marriage, opposes marriage and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and earlier this month, many of the leading Republican presidential candidates signed NOM’s pledge calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. NOM has filed a raft of lawsuits to shield its donors from […]

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has again ruled against the National Organization for Marriage’s attempts to challenge the “constitutionality of a Rhode Island election law requiring the reporting of so-called ‘independent expenditures.’”

Athletic footwear company New Balance, is distancing itself from news that its Chairman, James Davis, contributed $500,000 to Mitt Romney’s campaign for President — Romney is one of four GOP hopefuls that have signed the NOM’s pledge to oppose marriage equality.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has rewarded four Republican state senators who voted for the state’s Marriage Equality Act with significant campaign contributions.

Target Corp. Chairman Gregg Steinhafel on Wednesday faced some unexpected questions at the company’s annual meeting from shareholders who wanted answers about the company’s funding of anti-gay politicians.

Lady Gaga has canceled her exclusive deal with Target to carry the deluxe edition of her next release, “Born This Way,” because of the retailer’s controversial political donations to an anti-gay candidate.