Bill and Melinda Gates have donated $500,000 to Washington United for Marriage, the campaign to pass Referendum 74, which preserves the state’s new gay marriage law.
Washington United announced the donation today, though it was made on October 15.
In thanking the Gates, Washington United campaign manager Zach Silk also mentioned New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who just donated $250,000 of his own money to the cause.
“These amazing gifts, from two visionary leaders, demonstrate their confidence in our campaign which families across Washington state are counting on us to win,” said Silk. “They join tens of thousands of individual donors and their call to action, coming as it does in these final days, is an inspiration to every supporter of the freedom to marry.”
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Referendum 74 asks voters to either approve or reject the law allowing same-sex marriage, passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Christine Giguere in February.
The Gates have already donated $100,000 to Washington United earlier this year. Actually, to date, Washington United for Marriage has brought in almost $11 million—that’s compared to a little more than $2 million raked in by those foes of equality at Preserve Marriage Washington.
Lets hope you can buy an election!
JDJase
“Gov. Christine Giguere”
Were you victim of autocorrect when typing Gregoire? hehe
nickatynot
You pull this off, and I promise to upgrade my staff to Windows 8!
John Doe
Surprising that this wasn’t posted yesterday. This news is a little old by now.
That being said, this donation also seems to come a little late, same with Bloomberg’s donation. I’m not sure when Washington United for Marriage was told that the $$ would be coming in, but Washington State residents vote by mail and many voters have already mailed in their ballots. Thus, any advertising done in the last two weeks is missing those who have already mailed in their ballot in the past week. Maybe not that many people have mailed theirs in…. or maybe many have. But, every day more ballots get mailed in and fewer people can benefit from seeing pro-equality ads that haven’t been shown yet.
I did see 2 ads on Hulu while watching a program this week. That was cool.
Anonymous
Do big money donations like this really help us out? I thought being gay was about love, not money in politics.
I’m all for gay marriage, but I’m against marrying the gay rights movement to the political establishment and it seems that the mainstream gay organizations (HRC in particular) have become little more than feeder-funds for the Democratic party. I don’t want to be associated with Bloomberg, Lloyd Blankfein and I’m not that convinced Gates is pure in his intentions either (The Gates Foundation is partnered with pesticide-giant Monsanto, and Microsoft profits off of the FBI mass surveillance program Trapwire).
Moreover, letting Billionaires buy us laws feeds into the right-wing talking point of gay rights being forced down on them by the elites. It also let’s some corporations buy a “gay pass” by giving us token support. Should I eat KFC instead of Chick-fil-a if either one is going to give me a heart attack?
I want to see more gay rights, I’d love to see gay marriage legal on a federal level. I’d also like to see more transgender rights, and I’d like to see something done about homelessness and abuse of LGBTQ youth, issues that I don’t thing the corporate gay rights groups are doing anything about.
We deserve more rights, but I’m not sure this is the way to get them. I don’t like the idea of politicians and billionaires throwing us scraps of either money or narrow support for our rights when politically expedient. Do they really care about us as people or are we just pawns in some game to them?