Republican Billionaires Financing Marriage Equality In New York

Right-wing plutocrats switching sides

Friday the NY Times published an interesting story by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Barbaro on where some of the big Republican money is going this year. While the Kochs are busy bankrolling fascism in Midwestern states and underwriting the giant astroturf Tea Party, other Republican billionaires are sending in their checks to pay for a campaign to pass marriage equality in New York. In fact, most of the money going into the effort this year-- over a million dollars so far-- "is coming from an unexpected source: a group of conservative financiers and wealthy donors to the Republican Party, most of whom are known for bankrolling right-leaning candidates and causes." It puts Republican state senators in an awkward position. The bill will pass or fail in their hands.

And apart from some of the Daddy Warbucks characters behind the GOP's creeping fascism-- Paul Singer, Steven Cohen, Clifford Asness-- Mayor Bloomberg, a major financial backer of the state's Senate Republican caucus has given $100,000 to the marriage equality cause and is lobbying the lawmakers he's been so generous to.

The new donations represent roughly two-thirds of the same-sex marriage coalition’s fund-raising, making New York the rare state where a lobbying campaign in favor of legalizing gay unions is not being financed primarily by liberal donors and Democrats. The support is likely to jolt the traditional financial and political backers of gay rights causes, who now find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being outraised and outspent in New York.

The donations are financing an intensive campaign of television advertisements and grass-roots activism coordinated by New Yorkers United for Marriage, a group of same-sex marriage advocates. The campaign is aimed chiefly at persuading several members of the Senate Republican majority to join most Senate Democrats in backing same-sex marriage, which was defeated in the Senate in 2009. The State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, has repeatedly passed same-sex marriage bills.

The newly recruited donors argue that permitting same-sex marriage is consistent with conservative principles of personal liberty and small government.

“I’m a pretty straight-down-the-line small-government guy,” said Mr. Asness, who described himself as a libertarian who favored less government intrusion in both markets and personal affairs. Mr. Asness, a frequent Republican donor, has praised Tea Party activists on his blog and last year attended a conference of right-leaning donors held by Charles and David Koch, among the leading conservative philanthropists in the nation.

“This is an issue of basic freedom,” Mr. Asness said.

...The involvement of Mr. Singer is the most striking, given his devotion to conservative candidates and philanthropy: He is chairman of the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning research group, and one of the most generous Republican donors in the country. But he also has a personal stake in the issue: he has a gay son who married his partner in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal.

Mr. Singer is coordinating much of the Republican fund-raising for same-sex marriage in New York, according to people familiar with the matter, donating $425,000 of his own money and personally soliciting an additional $500,000 in donations. At the same time, he has hosted private meetings to make the case for legalizing gay weddings in New York to other conservatives.

Among the deepest pockets have been Paul Singer, who's given around a million and a half dollars to Republican state parties and national committees and to the leaders of the anti-gay jihad, thousands of dollars in multiple donations to right-wing fanatics like Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Miss McConnell, Roy Blunt, Marco Rubio, George Allen, David Vitter, Richard Burr, John Boehner, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn, Rick Santorum and Jeff Flake. Similarly Daniel Loeb is ponying up big time for marriage equality but he's helped finance the careers of sworn enemies of any kind of equality from kooks like Allen West, Tim Griffin and Joe Miller to garden variety right-wing hacks like Roy Blunt and Steve Stivers. Ditto for Clifford Asness who's helped finance anti-gay fanatics Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt and dozens of other hate-mongers and misfits. It's good they're giving back after all the mischief they've caused with their money over the years.