Excerpted from Napa Winery to Donate Funds to Support Gay Marriage, by Chris Rauber, published Dec 5, 2006, by San Francisco Business Times:

O’Brien Cellars, a brand of O’Brien Family Vineyard, said Tuesday it’s started a “progressive” philanthropic program to donate 20 percent of revenues from its online Equality Wine Store to a civil rights group that supports an end to California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The family-owned Napa vineyard and winery said it will automatically donate those funds to Equality California, a San Francisco-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization. Winery owners Bart and Barb O’Brien said their goal is to help wine lovers support equal opportunity…

“We hope to raise over $100,000 for EQCA in 2007.”

…Other business-related supporters of Equality California, listed on the advocacy group’s web site, include Contempo Homes, the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Foundation, Proteus Fund Inc., Olivia Cruises and Resorts, Atlantis Events, Century Crowell Communities LLP, MTV Networks/Logo, Shadowrock Development Corp., AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Edison International, Foley & Lardner LLP, Gap Inc., Latham & Watkins and Wells Fargo.

Kors said the California State Automobile Association and Comcast have also signed up recently as sponsors of Equality California.

Continue reading in San Francisco Business Times…

How many corporations sponsored state “Protect Marriage” initiatives? Despite the fact that a majority of their employees (and customers) are married men and women with families, American corporations are increasingly supportive of homosexual activist groups. It is tragic that corporations are now taking the lead in undermining the foundations of marriage and family that built our nation and helped make America one of the wealthiest and most stable countries the world has ever seen.

Here is a partial list of companies and organizations that supported the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force‘s radical “Creating Change” conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Nov 8-12, 2006:

• American Airlines
• Ameriprise Financial Services
• Bacardi
• Bell South
• Chipotle Grill
• Cingular
• Costco
• Merrill Lynch
• MS. Magazine
• National Education Association
• NARAL
• Panera Bread
• Planned Parenthood
• United Way of Miami Dade
• Washington Mutual Bank
• Wells Fargo

Excerpted from For Gill, It’s Not About the Money, by Myung Oak Kim And Burt Hubbard, published Oct 23, 2006, in Rocky Mountain News:

…Tim Gill, the 53-year-old founder of the desktop software firm Quark, became a force in Colorado politics two years ago when he and three other wealthy residents spent $2 million to help install a Democratic majority in both houses of the state legislature for the first time in decades.

This year, Gill has dropped almost $5 million so far on state election campaigns – more than any other individual in Colorado.

…”I have never seen in Colorado politics in the 30-some odd years where I’ve been active . . . any individual involved to the degree that Tim Gill is,” said political consultant Katy Atkinson, a registered Republican who works with both sides of the aisle on ballot measures.

“Should he choose to, he can shape any part of Colorado public policy he wants to.”

Gill also is a player on the national stage, funneling more than $2 million into mostly Democratic causes, including the Democracy Alliance, a new group made up of dozens of the country’s wealthiest donors who are lavishing money on think tanks and organizations to counter similar groups established years ago by conservatives.

All of this is on top of Gill’s considerable philanthropy. Gill and his 12-year-old Gill Foundation have spent more than $80 million on gay and lesbian causes and on other organizations friendly to their gay workers, including the Pikes Peak Library Foundation, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Public Broadcasting of Colorado.

And all of this is just the beginning, according to Gill’s political adviser Ted Trimpa.

“Tim is in it for the long haul,” said Trimpa, a partner at the high-profile law firm Brownstein Hyatt & Farber. “What we’re talking about is strategic philanthropy and strategic politics.”…

Excerpted from Why is the Conservative Government Wasting Taxpayer Dollars on “Queer” Film Festival? by John-Henry Westen and Gudrun Schultz, published Aug 31, 2006, by LifeSite News:

…[T]he Conservative Government [of Canada]…funded the 2006 Vancouver Queer Film Festival, which ran from August 17-27.

The festival’s sponsorship page lists the Department of Canadian Heritage as the offending federal government branch. (See the sponsorship page here.)

Dominique Collin, spokesperson for Canadian Heritage Minister Beverley Oda, told LifeSiteNews.com the Vancouver regional branch of the Heritage department conducted the funding allocation which consisted of $23,000 (Canadian).

Ginette Montreuil, regional manager with the Vancouver office, confirmed that the Conservative Government approved the Arts Presentation Canada funding for the 2006 Festival on March 27, 2006.

The festival line-up included films with titles such as Deconstructing Crack Ho, Dyke After Dyke, I cum I, Lesbians On Ecstasy, Post-Porn & New Technologies Of Pleasure, and Toilet Sex In Canadian Cinema.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

Notes from AFT:

Actually, SIX Canadian government offices are listed on the sponsor page linked above.

Corporate sponsors include: Vancity, Showcase, Ramada Hotels, Quality Hotels, Opus Hotels, Visa, and many others.

Of particular note: the “youth-rated” queer films, about which the website suggests: “School is out, but you can queerify your summer.” Three companies are listed as sponsors specifically for this “Out in Schools” portion of the festival: Vancity, BC Hydro, and Vancouver Foundation.

An interesting statistic is inadvertently noted in this article: 22 of the 2880 tragically killed on Sept 11, 2001, are identified as having a homosexual partner. That is 0.75% — even if that figure were doubled or tripled, it is nowhere near the 10% figure that some homosexual activists still fraudulently cite to exaggerate their numbers and clout.

Despite the small percentage, the Red Cross‘s capitulation to homosexual activist groups is troubling. Few Americans have any clue when they are giving to this charitable organization that their donation could help advance a larger agenda to radically redefine the family. At the very least, Red Cross officials should let the public know of their decision which undermines the primacy of marriage, albeit in the name of compassion. – Sonja Dalton

The excerpt below is from an article in the Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper, “Sept 11 Introduced US to Gay Families,” by Louis Chibbaro, Jr, published Sept 8, 2006 (emphasis added):

…ESPA [Empire State Pride Agenda, a New York homosexual activist group] and HRC [Human Rights Campaign, a D.C.-based homosexual lobby group], among other groups, met with top officials of the American Red Cross, which initially limited its relief services to blood relatives or married spouses of 9/11 victims. In a development that disaster relief observers considered unprecedented, the Red Cross adopted a new set of criteria for defining a “family member” eligible for relief assistance that included domestic partners.

Agreeing to suggestions by ESPA, HRC and Lambda Legal, Red Cross officials adopted criteria such as a joint bank account, the naming of a partner as an insurance beneficiary or a joint lease on an apartment as verification that an applicant for relief was a legitimate partner eligible for relief services.

Red Cross officials went a step further by putting the new criteria in place for all future disasters such as hurricanes and floods…