Liberals who habitually decry all the money in politics may want to turn their attention to Dallas today. That’s where a secretive meeting of millionaires and billionaires is convening and planning how to deploy $100 million over the next decade to influence American politics.
Closed to the press and public, the exclusive, invitation-only event includes the famous and not-so-famous, just so long as an attendee has at least $25,000 a year to give to causes “philanthropic” and political.
But since the OutGiving conference [1] supports the LGBT agenda, the too-much-money-in-politics crowd will of course give it a pass. And the press, in the form of a fawning profile [2] of OutGiving founder Tim Gill in the left-wing Bloomberg Businessweek, is already giving it plaudits.
OutGiving is a bi-annual event for some of the nation’s wealthiest and most influential LGBT supporters (“Big Gay?”). Participants have included (as presenters and moderators) New York Times Columnist Frank Bruni, MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts, Marguerite Kondracke of America’s Promise Alliance and wife of former Roll Call Executive Editor Mort Kondracke, along with middle-aged law school student Sandra Fluke.
Founder Gill, who became a millionaire starting the publishing software firm Quark, has been shoveling money into state and local politics since the mid-2,000s. He has helped elect gay-friendly politicians and tried to defeat pro-traditional marriage initiatives.
“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,” Bloomberg’s Joshua Green wrote, “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.” Transparency!
Confident that Gill, his allies and their media Sherpa have all but conquered traditional marriage, Green wanted to know what’s next for OutGiving. Well, stamping out dissent, of course.
“They’re launching a campaign, modeled on the marriage effort, to pass nondiscrimination laws in the dozens of states that don’t have them,” Green wrote. “And they’ll also try to halt or unwind ‘religious freedom’ acts like those that raised a furor in Indiana and Arkansas because they could allow businesses to deny services to gays and lesbians.”
To do that, Gill has created a new group, with a name George Orwell would find over-the-top: Freedom for All Americans. Eventually, Gill wants a federal law making it illegal to not bake gay wedding cakes coast to coast, but in the meantime, he’s going after red states in the South and Midwest. “The campaign won’t lack for resources,” according to Green. “OutGiving brings together the movement’s wealthiest donors, collectively worth billions … The new organization is prepared to spend $100 million in the coming decade.”
Even in the age of the Clinton Foundation, that’s not chump change. With that kind of money, and obsequious media coverage like Bloomberg Businessweek’s, red state bakeries better stock up on “His & His” wedding cake figurines.