Tim Gill, reacting to Rove, pushes for full LGBT equality in Red States

June 18, 2015 12:36 PM

In 2004, George W. Bush initiated a war over gay marriage when he was running against Kerry, and Karl Rove helped to extend that battle to states in 2004 and 2006, according to Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair, Ken Mehlman (previously, twice). GWB won in 2004, and voters passed all 11 bans on gay marriage. The latter shook Tim Gill, a quiet and successful software entrepreneur, who had been a political activist since 1992.

Gill became radicalized. “I got depressed and angry,” he says. “But, in the end, my response was to say, ‘Well, how am I going to fix this? These were political defeats. The way you fix political defeats is through politics. And so I thought, ‘These people are in office. We can’t have that. How do we go about undoing it?’ ”

Bloomberg Politics: America’s Gay Corporate Warrior Wants to Bring Full Equality to Red States.

Tim started the Gill Foundation in 1994, the same year that the GOP celebrated a "sweep to power," thanks to Newt Gingerich's GOPAC. In 2008, two key members of the Gill Action Fund, when compared to GOPAC, didn't deny the similarity, but said

“We’re not afraid to learn from anyone across the political spectrum who’s doing really smart work, be it EMILY’s List or GOPAC.”

Those two key members were Patrick Guerriero, former leader of the Log Cabin Republicans and onetime candidate for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, and Bill Smith, a political consultant and former employee of Karl Rove. By their numbers, in the 2006 election, Gill Action directed some $2.8 million to 68 candidates across 11 states, and 56 of those candidates won.

But as the fight for marriage equality continues to gain momentum, with additional progress made in conservative circles thanks to significant social, political and financial support from such big-name donors as Paul Singer and Dan Loeb, public support for full equality still lags. This was made blatantly apparent thanks to Indiana's recent "religious freedom" bill, which then saw significant public resistance from major companies.

“It was really wonderful that this negative reaction came on the national stage,” says Gill. “It was an essential part of the education process for the American public: Something people had not even bothered to think about, they now had to think about. The engineer in me thinks you should think about a problem, decide what’s fair and equitable, and that’s your solution. But people don’t do that. They make emotional judgments.” He added, smiling, “I actually could congratulate the governor of Indiana on elevating the conversation to the national stage. He’s been spectacular.”

Gill has also been active with broader base liberal donors in planning for the coming years.

posted by filthy light thief (8 comments total)

Also: Tim Gill is the most influential gay donor most people have never heard of, particularly because the fact that many politicians, especially in Red states, would get flack for receiving funding from a pro-LGBT group.

To maintain the element of surprise—and because the image of a network of rich gay philanthropists swooping in to influence local races might be counterproductive—they often operated by stealth, waiting until the final weeks before an election (so Federal Election Commission filings wouldn’t reveal them until afterward) and then flooding pro-gay candidates with dozens of individual donations that could collectively tip a race.

posted by filthy light thief at 12:58 PM on June 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

My historical perspective is that the war on same-sex marriage started much earlier than 2004, and the primary motivation was to get "defense of marriage" enshrined in state law as a legal barrier to piecemeal rights. Conservatives were already flipping their shit over adoption, power of attorney, domestic partnership insurance, custody hearings, and municipal anti-discrimination measures.

That doesn't mean it wasn't useful as a wedge electoral issue. But the shift from "defense of marriage" to "religious liberty" is also a big bait-and-switch to create a legal justification for discrimination.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 1:45 PM on June 18, 2015

Shame that the DNC strategists will make sure it is a wasted effort.
posted by srboisvert at 1:52 PM on June 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

2004 is identified in the Bloomberg piece as the key year, though the older Atlantic article on Mehlman makes it sound like the get-out-the-vote aspect of the "war" continued into 2006.

I'm interested to hear how this route ("grass-roots" in terms of supporting everyone down to local races and laws, plus major company support, from the likes of Toyota when they moved into Plano, Texas) is more or less resilient to national-level machinations, Dem or GOPs.

Last year, when Toyota Motor decided to move its U.S. headquarters from California to Plano, Texas, a conservative Dallas suburb, company employees asked the Plano City Council to pass a nondiscrimination law so gays and lesbians could relocate without sacrificing the protections they have in California. The council agreed and passed the law, despite objections from the Liberty Institute, a Plano-based Christian group that threatened to file suit. Several large employers with headquarters in Plano, including Frito-Lay and PepsiCo, wrote letters of support for the policy.

Good on Toyota, and sad that Frito-Lay and PepsiCo didn't ask for it sooner.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:05 PM on June 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

srboisvert: "Shame that the DNC strategists will make sure it is a wasted effort."

Man do I really dislike reflexive sneering.

Anyway, let's hear it for the local boy! Gill's in Jared Polis' district, and I wonder now how much influence he had in getting Polis into his seat.
posted by boo_radley at 2:10 PM on June 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man do I really dislike reflexive sneering.

It's not reflexive sneering. It's fucking frustration that the DNC throws away half of America. Progressives in red states struggle to even borrow a dime from the national party. I don't live in a real "Red State" but I imagine those people who do feel pretty abandoned.
posted by srboisvert at 2:46 PM on June 18, 2015

To the extent that they can get away with it here, religious conservatives in Canada still couch their legal defence for discrimination as "religious freedom."

There seems to be early adoption of this rearguard action in the US insofar as it anticipates a favourable ruling on equal marriage by SCOTUS next week.

They're already making noise about how "I'll be arrested at the pulpit for refusing a same-sex marriage."

The thing is, they would never be compelled to do so, so it's total straw man.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:04 PM on June 18, 2015

I feel like winning an election or two by using anti-gay hatred to motivate the base was very much a seed corn eating exercise for the republications. On one hand they won some elections, on the other hand they alienated a lot of motivated, powerful people. Republicans hate it when their party is described as racist, but they put on the "We hate the gays" label willingly, and with enthusiasm.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 8:40 PM on June 18, 2015 [1 favorite]