Limited Bang for Focus Bucks

The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family donated big money to both the successful campaign against same-sex marriage in Maine and the unsuccessful one against "everything but marriage" domestic partnerships in Washington State -- but far less on either than it spent in California's Proposition 8 battle.

Focus, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., donated slightly more than $115,000 to the campaign to repeal Maine's marriage equality law, the Associated Press reports. Maine voters passed the repeal measure, Question 1, by a vote of 53% to 47% on Tuesday.

It also donated $91,000 to the effort to rid Washington of the state's latest, strongest domestic-partnership law, which granted gay couples in registered domestic partnerships all the rights the state recognizes for married heterosexual couples. Washington residents voted to maintain the law, with unofficial totals showing 52% in favor, 48% against.

Focus officials said the organization would have spent more in Washington if not for campaign finance restrictions.

Between December 2007 and July 2008, Focus gave nearly $450,000 to the campaign to pass Prop. 8, which repealed marriage equality in California after voters approved it in November of last year. The smaller donations this year reflected both the states' smaller populations and the economic downturn, Focus officials told The Gazette of Colorado Springs.