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.