Gay Marriage Opponents receive help from shadowy RW organization

[ck4829]

"Opponents of a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions raised more than twice as much money this summer as the referendum's supporters, according to state financial reports.

The Commonwealth Coalition raised more than $315,000 in July and August in its effort to defeat the ballot initiative, the group said in a statement filed with the State Board of Elections. The group includes gay rights advocates and religious and business organizations.

Amendment supporter va4marriage.org, an affiliate of the Richmond-based Family Foundation, reported nearly $155,300 in donations for the period.

...

Va4marriage.org also has received polling services valued at $5,970 from the Arlington Group, a Washington-based coalition of religious and conservative leaders and associations that together have given nearly $2 million to back gay-marriage bans in other states, according to the Institute on Money in State Politics."

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--gaymarriage-fundr0916sep16,0,26720.story?coll=dp-headlines-virginia

From a Wikipedia page about it:

"The Arlington Group is a coalition which unites the leaders of almost all of the most prominent Christian Right organizations in the United States. Founded in 2002 principally through the efforts of American Family Association President Donald Wildmon and Free Congress Foundation Chairman Paul Weyrich, the group seeks to establish consensus goals and strategy among its members and translate its combined constituency into an overwhelming force within the Republican Party, particularly at its highest levels. Its membership and purpose overlaps to an extremely high degree with the Council for National Policy; but the group is much more narrowly focused, choosing to emphasize such issues as same-sex marriage, abortion, and confirmation of like-minded federal judges.

The group's success has been mixed. While widely acknowledged to have the ear of President George W. Bush and his chief political advisor Karl Rove, and while generally successful in its efforts to coordinate the Christian Right, it has also endured noteworthy embarrasments. In early 2005, it threatened to withhold support for the President's proposed Social Security reforms if Bush did not vigorously support a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. This provoked a firestorm of unwelcome media attention, but failed to produce the group's desired result (despite the President's continuing support for both their specific and broader aims). And later, in October 2005, Arlington Group Chairman and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson became the center of a minor scandal after leaking assurances made by Rove to an Arlington Group conference call regarding the pro-life credentials of Supreme Court nominee and White House counsel Harriet Miers. Miers withdrew her nomination later that month, largely due to reservations among conservatives.

Despite these setbacks, the Arlington Group remains one of Washington's most powerful conservative groups, and the first effective combination of the major religious right organizations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_Group

[leeroysphitz]

1. Isn't the phrase "shadowy RW organization" a bit redundant?

I mean aren't they all at least bit shadowy at this point?