Dan Savage's "Slog" uncovered the rather disturbing fact that two of the owners of the WNBA team in Seattle, the Seattle Sonics/Storm, appear to have donated most of the budget to religious right homophobe Gary Bauer's anti-gay marriage campaign. From Slog:
The campaign finance records I’ve reviewed show that Sonics/Storm co-owner Tom Ward has contributed $475,000 to Gary L. Bauer’s Americans United to Preserve Marriage.
And another Sonics/Storm co-owner, Aubrey McClendon, contributed $625,000.
Both men made their first contributions to the group, $250,000 apiece, on September 8, 2004—the day after the group was formed.
As I said, the controversial group doled out $1,056,962 in the 2004 election cycle, which means Storm owners Ward and McClendon basically bankrolled the whole thing. Indeed, records show that between the 2004 and 2006 cycles the group spent $1.3 million total while Ward and McClendon’s donations total $1.1 million.
Savage's paper contacted the team for comment, they didn't get back to him, but did to the local paper. Check out their response:
People are entitled to have their views, they are not views that I happen to agree with but they are not trying to impose them on anyone out here.
Yeah, $1.1 million for a campaign to jam conservative Christian laws down our throats, to force all Americans to live under Baptist religious principles - that, according to the Seattle Sonics/Storm is "not trying to impose" your views on anyone.
Kiss that team goodbye. It's bad enough to be massively huge bigots. It's even worse to get all pissy and lie about it. And as Dan mentioned to me, "their games are attended mostly by lesbians."
