Nancy Goldstein's Gay Money

Via Ann Friedman, Nancy Goldstein explains "why no Democratic presidential candidate is getting my gay money." I don't have any gay money, personally, but I think you've got to respect where she's coming from. It's worth observing, however, that presidential politics simply isn't a particularly effective leverage point for advancing gay rights as a general matter. If you have the chance, check out Josh Green's profile of Tim Gill a few months back in The Atlantic to see a more efficacious path.

Gill's approach, in essence, is to try to scour the country in search of low-level elected officials who stand out of the crowd for their anti-gay activism, and then get big chunks of cash sent to their opponents. Green's lead example is "Danny Carroll, the Republican [ex] speaker pro tempore of Iowa’s House of Representatives" who sponsored his state's entry into the "succession of state ballot initiatives banning gay marriage."

Over the summer, Carroll’s opponent started receiving checks from across the country—significant sums for a statehouse race, though none so large as to arouse suspicion (the gifts topped out at $1,000). Because they came from individuals and not from organizations, nothing identified the money as being “gay,” or even coordinated. Only a very astute political operative would have spotted the unusual number of out-of-state donors and pondered their interest in an obscure midwestern race. And only someone truly versed in the world of gay causes would have noticed a $1,000 contribution from Denver, Colorado, and been aware that its source, Tim Gill, is the country’s biggest gay donor, and the nexus of an aggressive new force in national politics.

Carroll lost his seat. Let that kind of thing happen a few more times over the next few cycles, and suddenly you have politicians everywhere thinking twice about whether or not they really want to be leading anti-gay demagogues. It's much easier to impact elections for state legislature, and the preponderance of gay rights issues are state-level anyway.

Comments

I like the idea in principle, but I'm not so sure it would work. To work it requires anti-gay demagogues to know that significant money will go to their opponents if they run anti-gay campaigns. Of course, if they know that, then they know the money is coming from gay groups and can use that as a campaign issue itself (which would presumably work in areas in which an anti-gay campaign would be successful). The example cited apparently depended in part on Carroll not knowing that his opponent was getting "gay money."

Posted by Brian | July 8, 2007 12:34 PM

Wow, that's great and looks like something you actually hope contributions to be about.

The reason large national organizations don't really do that though, with all due respect, is generally because they want office-holders to like them, and so the best strategy for that is to give heavily to likely winners. Giving to long-shots is always undervalued, and anyone stepping in to fill that void is going to have a lot of initial success, dollar for dollar wise.

Posted by Tony V | July 8, 2007 12:36 PM

"Gay money"? I remember when Ezra Pound railed against usury as "contra naturam". So, now there's gay money.

If it ain't one thing, it's another.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 8, 2007 12:36 PM

Gay rights and even gay marriage as a political wedge issue has lost a tremendous amount of steam in the past few years, and I don't see it making a comeback anytime soon. Basically the gays won the national debate and that's all there is to it. Now they just have to mop up in some of the holdout states and repeal DOMA; gay marriage will follow naturally in a decade or two.

So I don't really see the big deal if Obama, Edwards, Clinton etc. don't support gay marriage. As Yglesias points out that kind of stuff is much better fought on the state level, anyway, and generally you'd much rather want a Democrat in the white house than a Republican. So withholding "gay money" seems like a weak purity test to me. After all it's not like all those rich gay donors can't afford it.

I did think it was lame that Obama and Clinton would try to equivocate on whether they thought homosexuality was immoral. That was both a substantive and political failure on their parts.

Posted by Korha | July 8, 2007 12:44 PM

I apologize in advance for this joke but I can't resist.
Does it come in three dollar bills?

Posted by dSmith | July 8, 2007 12:47 PM

The big question on gay rights & Presidents - will they appoint justices who think that sex discrimination laws implicate either due process or equal protection? The major battles are in the States, but 5 good justices could resolve the marriage issue in favor of gay marriage forever.

Further, what is their attitude towards the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Posted by MDtoMN | July 8, 2007 1:44 PM

I keep my gay money in the same closet with my guns.

All my other money is not gay, but sad, because it must leave home.

Posted by serial catowner | July 8, 2007 2:13 PM

Back in the '90s, here in New Orleans I remember seeing a lot of dollar bills with "GAY MONEY" on them in black or red ink, like it was done with a rubber stamp. I used to notice it from time to time and guessed it was someone's way of pointing out that gay people are a part of the local economy. I saw the bills often enough that it had to be a bunch of people doing it, or a few very committed ones. I always assumed people were doing it in other cities, too. I don't think I've seen a "GAY MONEY" bill in about two years, though.

Posted by Kiril | July 8, 2007 2:35 PM

Yup, Gill's approach is correct. The fixation on presidential politics is harmful to all sort of progressive causes.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | July 8, 2007 3:46 PM

Not to understand which political party will extend our civil rights and which will curtail them is to be a fool. Have you attended to the Supreme Court recently? Gay or not gay, I am voting for Democrats because I believe in having civil rights.

Posted by Jennifer | July 8, 2007 3:57 PM

Re: The major battles are in the States, but 5 good justices could resolve the marriage issue in favor of gay marriage forever.

Well, no, because we could end up with the damn FMA passing as a result.

Posted by JonF | July 8, 2007 4:00 PM

I don't have any gay money, personally

I think all of my money might be gay. I stick it in my wallet to reproduce, but it never does.

Maybe I can convince it to adopt.

Posted by samba00 | July 8, 2007 4:21 PM

That's a very clever way of doing about campaigning. And unless there's something I'm missing, it looks like it could work for a variety of causes.

Posted by Brian | July 8, 2007 6:26 PM

The problem with that technique is once these guys know they've got gay money against them, they can use it as a selling point. "Oh, look, the homosexual left-wing conspiracy is raising money against me! Send me money, I stand for true American values!"

Etc., etc. Sadly I think there's no good way to do this. The best might actually be aiming for cultural change with Will & Grace, etc.

Posted by SFG | July 8, 2007 6:26 PM

Everyone knows that one of the bedrock principles of progressive politics is for secret cabals of wealthy people to work behind the scenes, using their money to implement an agenda opposed by the majority, especially when that majority is composed largely of (yechhh!) non-college graduates.

Posted by y81 | July 8, 2007 8:16 PM

Can anyone here break a three dollar bill?

Posted by Ellie - The Other One | July 9, 2007 12:03 AM

The problem with that technique is once these guys know they've got gay money against them, they can use it as a selling point.

Nah, that's not a big problem. First of all, they won't know it until the finance reports start coming out, and by that point the race is underway and they have to struggle to regroup. Second, as it's said in the article, nothing indicates the money is gay, although they could try to make hay out of the money coming from New York or D.C. into a state race. Good luck getting that message out to voters who can't normally name their state legislators but might have seen the negative ads that money buys.

Third, these guys are used to not having serious contests. They see gay-baiting as a way to rise in the leadership and squeeze some small money out of conservatives. If they see that this carries a cost for them, in that they'll actually have to campaign against well-funded opponents, they'll find it's cheaper to stop bashing gay people than to stand on this principle and then have to fight tough battles. And isn't that the point?

We saw gay money and activism in the form of feet on the ground transform the gay marriage issue in Massachusetts. It went from legislators thinking "I'll just vote against the gays, no one likes them anyway" to "oh shit, they're going to send an army of volunteers to my district to talk about my vote to cut school funding and state aid" and supporting gay rights became the -easier- position.

There's a lot of shallow opposition to gays, which is why we lose all the referenda, but when the going gets tough we're the ones fighting for our own lives and are in this for more than all but the most extreme bigots and conservatives.

Posted by Brittain33 | July 9, 2007 9:04 AM

I think that forcing presidential candidates to talk about gays and lesbians is essential for the gay rights movement. The candidates would like nothing more than to never have to talk about them, because that way the candidates can go ahead and seek the votes of bigots and homophobes.

But the only way you are going to marginalize those bigots and homophobes, and force people to change their stripes, is to get the issue out in the open. And that requires that gay rights groups be willing to fund campaigns that talk the talk and oppose campaigns that refuse to.

The real problem is the fact that so many gay rights groups are supporting Hillary Clinton, who doesn't give a crap about gay rights. But if gay rights groups indicated that the major candidate who takes the most gay-friendly positions, in the most open manner (no 10 pm on the west coast fundraisers), will get their money and their organizing power behind them, this could have a huge impact.

Posted by Dilan Esper | July 9, 2007 4:15 PM