Calif Exports Antigay Efforts

A new product has joined Hollywood movies and citrus fruit in bearing a made-in-California stamp: anti-marriage equality campaigns.

Of the $2.7 million spent to promote Question 1, the measure Maine voters passed in November, repealing that state's marriage equality law, about 75% went to California companies, The New York Times reports. Chief among them is Mar/Com, a San Francisco-based company that produced television and radio advertisements in favor of Question 1.

Mar/Com received about $1.6 million from Question 1 backer Stand for Marriage Maine, but more than 85% of that money was passed on to Maine television and radio stations, California political consultant Frank Schubert, whose firm worked with Mar/Com on the ads, told the Times.

Schubert's company, Schubert Flint Public Affairs, collected more than $325,000 in fees and expense reimbursements for its role in the Maine campaign. About $84,000 went to four other California firms Schubert Flint regularly uses as vendors.

Schubert Flint was heavily involved in the fight to pass Proposition 8, which repealed marriage equality in California, and was hired by the antigay National Organization for Marriage to handle advertising campaigns against proposed marriage equality laws in New York and New Jersey. Schubert Flint has "a winning track record," NOM president Maggie Gallagher told the Times.

Jesse Connolly, who led the campaign to maintain same-sex marriage in Maine, told the Times, "It's pretty clear that Frank Schubert and his vendor friends have decided there's big money to be made in these fights."

Schubert Flint has also done consulting work for major corporations with gay-friendly employment policies, such as Reynolds American and Ford Motor Co. Read The Advocate's report here.