There is a gay agenda -- winning elections

Gay millionaires and their allies poured unprecedented sums into the 2006 election -- and it worked.

By Kerry Eleveld

Read more: New York, Colorado, Politics, News, Michigan, 2006 Elections

Nov. 29, 2006 | Five weeks before the 2004 election, Rep. Sue Kelly, N.Y.-19 , made what seemed to be a safe move for a six-term Republican congresswoman accustomed to winning reelection by comfortable margins. Like 226 other members of the U.S. House, she voted to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have altered the U.S. Constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

Sure enough, the residents of Kelly's Hudson Valley district returned the moderate Republican to Congress that November with 67 percent of the vote. Voting for a constitutional amendment she had once vowed to oppose seemed to have few negative consequences for her politically -- and so she did it again in July 2006. To the degree either vote was noticed, they mostly helped quiet talk of a future GOP primary challenge from the right.

But at least one constituent who did take notice of what Kelly had done also took offense. This September, openly gay businessman Adam Rose wrote a $500,000 check to Majority Action, a so-called 527 political advocacy group, for the express purpose of unseating Sue Kelly in the November election.

"When she made that vote," explained Rose, "I took a look at the political environment, and I said there's nothing I can do about who's president. There's nothing I can do about the fact that Republicans control both houses [of Congress]. However, here is one thing I can have an impact on." Rose's half-million meant that Democratic challenger John Hall was actually able to compete with Kelly financially --- and topple the once-safe incumbent this past Election Day in a race decided by fewer than 5,000 votes.

Rose is one of five wealthy people in the top 20 donors to federal 527s this election cycle whose contributions were either partially or entirely motivated by an effort to combat anti-gay legislation and defeat anti-gay incumbents. They turned the 2006 election into an object lesson in targeted giving that could fundamentally change the way politicians think about the consequences of taking anti-gay stances. And the money they gave to federal 527s, while considerable, was in several cases only a small portion of the millions they spent on politics in 2006, since much of their cash went to low-profile but vitally important state-level races.

Rose, a New York real-estate developer whose father built Rose Associates into a multimillion-dollar company, finished 17th by giving $505,000. But his contributions were dwarfed by those of Ohio billionaire Peter Lewis, a retired insurance mogul who has a gay son. Lewis was the fifth-largest giver to federal 527s at $1.6 million, according to OpenSecrets.org. Medical supplies heir Jon Stryker of Michigan, who is openly gay, and his Colorado-based sister Pat finished eighth and 14th, donating $1.2 million and $605,000, respectively, this election cycle.

But both Jon Stryker and Rose were spurred to action by the example of the man who came in sixth on the list with $1.3 million, Colorado software millionaire Tim Gill. Lisa Turner, political director for Jon Stryker, confirms that Stryker was motivated by the generous and precedent-setting giving of Tim Gill, the openly gay founder of Quark Inc., in 2004. Adam Rose said he got the idea of targeting his local anti-gay congresswoman from Gill, and called him "my hero. It was his effort that I have never forgotten."

Gill, who is worth close to $500 million and does not speak to the press, made headlines two years ago when he took on the original architect and sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave.

Gill formed a 527 called Colorado Families First along with Pat Stryker and two other software millionaires, including the openly gay cofounder of the Blue Mountain greeting cards Web site, Jared Polis. The group pumped millions into ads that disparaged Musgrave for things like voting against a pay raise for soldiers in Iraq.

"When these guys stepped up to the plate and spent close to $2 million on her ads -- and they ran them frequently -- that had an effect," said Robert Duffy, professor of political science at Colorado State University.

Musgrave survived, but with only 51 percent of the vote, down 4 points from her 2002 margin. And the assault on Musgrave was actually only a small part of a bigger effort by Gill and his three associates to reshape Colorado politics. In fact, the group that came to be known as the Four Millionaires had their real success in the Colorado state Legislature. Within Colorado, said Duffy, the "conventional wisdom" is that the 527s set up by Gill, Polis and Pat Stryker --- and the millions they lavished on state races -- helped Democrats win an extra seat in the house and seven in the Senate and take control of both chambers. "They very carefully selected a number of swing districts around the state, especially in the Denver suburbs, and won a bunch of them."

During this election cycle, Tim Gill upped his overall spending to $10 million. Some of it went to states such as Arizona and South Dakota where gay marriage bans were on the ballot. Arizona became the first state to defeat a constitutional marriage amendment.

Next page: "All of the chambers we focused on, we won"