The contentious statewide debate regarding the legality of same-sex marriages may be decided ultimately by the power of the dollar. Despite evenly divided public opinion, there is a large discrepancy in the amount of funds the two major advocacy campaigns representing each side have managed to raise.
A statewide WisPolitics.com poll released in July indicated state residents are split on the Defense of Marriage amendment, which will appear on the Nov. 7 election ballot. According to the poll, approximately 49 percent of Wisconsin residents are in favor of banning gay marriage and 48 percent are against a ban.
Fair Wisconsin, the leading organization opposing the amendment has managed to raise $1.3 million. Its counterpart, Vote Yes, the pro-amendment campaign launched by the Wisconsin Family Action Inc., has raised only $2,254, according to their respective 2006 campaign finance reports.
Spokesperson Rachel Strauch-Nelson of Fair Wisconsin said there was no specific person or group who contributed a large portion of the funds. ""We had over 5,000 individual donors . . . over 90 percent came from people all over Wisconsin,"" she said.
Strauch-Nelson said the amount of funding ""indicates a widespread grassroots support from the state and a lot of commitment in defeating this amendment.""
She said straight residents also support Fair Wisconsin because ""they don't want to see their friends, family, or co-workers be discriminated against in this way.""
Strauch-Nelson also attributed Fair Wisconsin's fundraising success to the campaign's organization. ""We have over 7,000 volunteers and people who are out there fighting this every single day, and I really think this speaks to how much of a chance Fair Wisconsin has of defeating this,"" she said.
Of the $2,254 dollars donated to Vote Yes, $2,000 came from Wisconsin Family Action, a larger group of which Vote Yes is a branch. The remaining amount came in form of a printing discount from Econoprint. Vote Yes could not be reached for comment on their fundraising efforts.
Though Vote Yes was given a $254 printing discount, Rico Goedjen, spokesperson for Econoprint, said, ""We have no stance on the issue [of gay marriage]. We often will look at opportunities to do printing. We are apolitical. It just happened that this had more politics involved than we realized.""
According to Goedjen, Econoprint receives hundreds of discounted printing requests per year, and they often support social services and the arts. The decision to help Vote Yes is ""not intended to be any statement of any kind of our political leanings. We would never do something like that,"" Goedjen said.
