Excerpt:
President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign is banking on gay donors to make up the cash it’s losing from other groups of wealthy supporters who have been alienated and disappointed by elements of Obama’s first term.
Pleased by an all-out White House push to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” gay donors have surprised campaign officials with the extent of their support. And the campaign’s new fundraising apparatus appears designed to capitalize on their enthusiasm: Obama’s finance committee included one gay man in 2008; there are 15 this year, a source said.
The Obama campaign finance director, Rufus Gifford, was a top California gay fundraiser; the DNC treasurer, Andrew Tobias, is gay; and the White House social secretary — traditionally a key, if unofficial, fundraising job — is also a gay man, Gifford’s former partner Jeremy Bernard.
The spur for the gay community becoming an anchor for Obama’s reelection fundraising is a series of policy shifts in 2010. After a year of rocky relations and suspicion from Obama’s gay supporters that he wasn’t really committed to their issues, the last year saw a surge in activity. Along with the high-profile repeal of the military ban, Obama’s Justice Department recently refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And the administration has taken smaller steps, like gay partner hospital visits and hate crimes legislation, concrete and important gestures that simply weren’t made during the Bush administration.
[…]Professional gay men, with a personal stake in politics and less likely to have children or college funds that would consume their disposable income, have long been key to Democratic fundraising. A rarely told story of Howard Dean’s 2004 rise, for instance, was his early, blockbuster fundraising from gay donors who appreciated his support for civil unions, then a cutting-edge policy.
This is what he gets for refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. Democrats don’t believe in marriage. They don’t believe that children should be raised by their mothers AND fathers.
WINTERY KNIGHT 