Amazon CEO gives $2.5M for Wash. gay marriage law

In a Monday, May 7, 2012 file photo, Amazon founder, president and CEO Jeff Bezos and wife Mackenzie Bezos arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala benefit, celebrating Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, in New York. Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced a gift Friday, July 27, 2012 of $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington's same-sex marriage law. Photo by The Associated Press.

RACHEL LA CORTE, Associated Press

Saturday, July 28, 2012

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced Friday they are donating $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington's same-sex marriage law.

With the gift, Washington United for Marriage has raised more than $5 million for its referendum campaign.

"It's a game changer for us," said campaign manager Zach Silk in Seattle. "It puts us in unique position to win."

But, his group is still the underdog, he said. In 32 previous elections nationally, same-sex advocates have lost. Silk said he believes the Washington election may be the turning point, thanks in part to the Bezos' donation.

"We're at a tipping point, and they really understand this is an historic moment, and they want to be on the right side of history and want to make history," he said.

Amazon.com Inc. publicly supported the law earlier this year, along with other prominent Pacific Northwest businesses, including Microsoft Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Nike Inc.

Last month, Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each donated $100,000 to support the law.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said the Bezos' donation was a personal decision and that "Jeff and MacKenzie feel strongly about the issue."

Silk and officials with two national gay rights groups — Freedom to Marry and the Human Rights Campaign — say Bezos' $2.5 million donation is the largest publicly reported gift to a marriage campaign. They noted that gay marriage opponents have tried to limit the disclosure of campaign contributions, so they couldn't be certain whether there was a larger one.

Referendum 74 was certified for the November ballot in May after gay marriage opponents in the group Preserve Marriage Washington turned in more than 240,000 signatures. The referendum seeks to overturn the gay-marriage law signed in February by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The same-sex marriage law was supposed to take effect June 7 but has been put on hold pending the November vote.

An "approve" vote on the referendum upholds the law, and a "reject" vote overturns it.

Jennifer Cast, a former Amazon employee who now is working as a volunteer fundraiser for the Washington United for Marriage, said Friday that she emailed her former boss on Sunday to ask for his help.

Cast, who has four children with her domestic partner, wrote of her wish to marry her partner of more than 20 years and "my desire to win marriage equality in Washington as a means for achieving national marriage equality."

"I beg you not to sit on the sidelines and hope the vote goes our way," she wrote. "Help us make it so."

Bezos' email response on Tuesday morning was just a few sentences: "Jen, this is right for so many reasons. We're in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie."

Cast said that she didn't believe the Bezos' donation was because of his personal opinion of her, but that "they gave it because they believe it's the right thing to do."

"They needed to be asked, and I did the asking," she said.

Herdener, the Amazon spokesman, confirmed the email exchange.

Joseph Backholm, chairman of Preserve Marriage Washington, said that while he was surprised by the size of the donation, his campaign has always expected that it would be outspent by gay marriage supporters.

"We're optimistic about what's going to happen in the end," he said. "Jeff Bezos gets to vote just one time like everyone else in state. That's the great equalizer."

As of Friday, Preserve Marriage has raised just over $253,000, though Backholm said the group hopes to ultimately raise $4 million.

National groups like the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for Marriage, which was involved in ballot measures that overturned same-sex marriage in California and Maine, have promised to help overturn the law.

Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C. Maryland legalized gay marriage this year as well, but that state also is poised to have a public vote this fall.

In Maine, voters will decide on an initiative to approve same-sex marriage three years after a referendum overturned a law passed by the Maine Legislature. And in Minnesota, voters will decide whether to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

The first television ad supporting gay marriage in Washington state was set to start during the Olympics opening ceremony Friday. The statewide ad was paid for by Seattle-based Pride Foundation, and will run several times a day on broadcast television in three media markets over the entire 17-day Olympic games.

Kris Hermanns, executive director of the Pride Foundation, would not disclose the cost of the ad buy, but said it "will be in the six figures."

———

Associated Press writer Doug Esser in Seattle contributed to this report.

More like this story

Graceful 10 months, 3 weeks ago

No more purchases from Amazon for me.

viktorkowski 10 months, 3 weeks ago

I'll email him and let him know. I'm sure he will miss your business

newone 10 months, 3 weeks ago

I'll place two order to make up for yours! ;-)

online_editor 10 months, 3 weeks ago

I removed a few posts. Please keep the discussion focused on your opinion of the issues related to the article and disengage from the same personal bickering that's monopolizing multiple pages. If you have to ignore another participant engaged in same, please do. Thanks. --Rick Brown, online editor, News Tribune.

eileen10 10 months, 3 weeks ago

I can't say I agree with what he's done, but it's his money and he can do with it as he pleases.It won't stop me from using amazon because if I stopped buying from places because of what they do there wouldn't be anywhere to shop.

JCLifer 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Gay marriage is a civil rights issue.

newone 10 months, 3 weeks ago

How do you figure they have the same rights? Graceful your thinking is truly messed up.

Sequoia 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Exactly. Your emotional feeling that there is something immoral about homosexual romantic love really has nothing to do with public policy.

Everyone has the right to marry the person of their choosing. That is the law.

Gay marriage is never going away. People are going to keep fighting for it. Time to get used to it.

Sequoia 10 months, 3 weeks ago

So, in your view, allowing gays to marry would be like condoning stealing, robbery, rape and murder? Is that your position? Because I can think of a LOT of differences between gay love and stealing that make your analogy seem fairly ridiculous.

So... is it your view, then, that when courts intervened to allow inter-racial marriage (which was illegal before courts intervened... now it is not) was ALSO akin to condoning stealing, robbery, rape and murder? It sounds like that is what you're saying. If you think that inter-racial marriage is NOT like stealing but gay marriage IS like stealing, can you explain that?

You make a lot of the same arguments about gay marriage that were made about inter-racial marriage, so I think the question is appropriate: can you point to any negative effects of permiting inter-racial marriage, similar to the negative effects of permitting stealing, rape, or murder?

I think anti-gay marriage laws are not long for history. The historical tide is turning against anti-gay legislation, just as it turned against anti-black legislation. The time is here. You can either deal with it or cry about it.

TickledPink 10 months, 3 weeks ago

They do NOT have the same rights. Did blacks have the same rights when they were forbidden to marry whites? Were they asking for "special" rights? No, and neither are gays.

spelchek 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Black and white can procreate, gays cannot. It is not the same no matter how you paint it. A girl/girl or guy/guy cannot make a baby naturally. Having babies via modern medicine is disingenuous and hypocritical. Adoption is one thing but when you have to use a surrogate or use a mans sperm to have a baby, you make the argument that being born into homosexuality dishonest. Two people of the same sex can love each other the same as two people of the opposite sex. The difference is the roles each play in conception and child rearing. Homosexuals will never be the same as heterosexuals no matter how hard they try, so stop trying to change the definition. You are a union, nothing more, nothing less. Marriage has always been and always be reserved for heterosexuals.

cinkisses 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Some marriages are only a union then in your thinking. Some women can't have children, some men can't father children, some families choose not to have children. So that means that those people shouldn't be "married".

Sequoia 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Okay, so you're saying people shouldn't be able to get "married" if they can't procreate? What about sterile male/female couples, or people who know they can't have children due to age or health issues?

Should they not be allowed to get married, in your view?

There is nothing in state law stating that marriage depends on people's ability to have children. I don't see that your point has any legal significance whatsoever. Look at Missouri's marriage laws, and you'll see.

Straight people can still get married, even if they can't conceive a child, so I don't see why that should suddenly become a criteria for homosexuals, unless you're just looking for a way to deny them the right to marry the person of their choosing, which, as the Supreme Court said in Loving v. Virginia, is eveyone's right. In that case, the state said that black and white marriages were contrary to God's law, or "natural" law, so the state had the power to make them legal. Interestingly, the losing side in that case argued Grace's point: that a black man had the right to marry any black woman he chose. The court said that we have the right to marry the person OF OUR CHOOSING. Grace's argument lost long ago.

A church has the right to make a moral distinction between homo- and hetero-sexual couples. The government does not. It may only make rational distinctions in my view. I could give two squats what Joe Politician thinks is moral.

The government encourages marriage because married couples are more emotially and financially secure, and there is no rational reason to discriminate between gay and straight couples on this basis. Both gay and straight couples who commit to each other in marriage are more emotionally and financially stable. The ability to bear children has nothing to do with it.

Sequoia 10 months, 3 weeks ago

When a democratic form of government doesn't protect equal rights for minority groups is the day there is no freedom.

If it were true that political activity surrounding an issue was evidence that said issue "destabilizes society," then every subject of every political debate would be destabilizing, and therefore any discussion of something new would be off limits. I don't buy that. Policial discussion is uncomfortable, but it takes places within stable rules. Political debate is actually a stabilizing force because it gives us a way to deal with dynamic change in society without violence or wholesale restructuring, which is truly destabilizing.

People change. Society changes. Politics is how we do it. Just because you happen to be nervous and anxious about the change does not mean that society iself is unstable. Your view is threatened, but society is stable because change is moving through stable channels. The proponents for equal rights are going to win this one. That should be clear to everyone, regardless of your view.

In fact, there is no evidence that gay relationships are any less stable than straight relationships. We have all the evidence. You've got nothing but rationalization of your own panic. That's why we're going to win.

Sequoia 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Well, the Constitution provides for equal protection under the laws. If straights get government benefits for marriage, gays should too. That's why the federal DOMA is unconstitutional. In my view, we're not losing freedom. We're gaining the freedom to use the political process to create the society we want to live in. We have the freedom to live as we choose, and we have the freedom to correct mistakes we made in the past. We ALWAYS have the freedom to be wrong, and to try again.

States regulate marriage, so it is their decision on a state-by-state basis. If a state supreme court rules a state's marriage law unconstitutional, good for them. If they don't, they don't. The best way is to convince the state legislature to change the law.

cinkisses 10 months, 3 weeks ago

However, one person's morals in the union are not necessarily everyone in the union's morals. How is preventing two people (who believe that their relationship is moral and love each other ) the right to marry promoting freedom. Wouldn't allowing any one person marry any other person regarless of their gender allow more freedom. The government should not be able to place on me the morals that they "feel" are appropriate within reason. That being said if you dont think that gay marriage is within your morals, then dont marry a man/woman. Allowing a gay couple to marry doesn't pose bodily harm nor physical harm on any person. And the political activity surrounding gay marriage.. that is there because they are not allowed to marry. There wouldn't be such a big todo about everything if they just legalized it and let everyone choose what morals they susbscribe to on their own.

TickledPink 10 months, 3 weeks ago

Grace, your argument was the same as the state of Virginia's in Loving vs Virginia.

"The case, Loving v. Virginia, was decided unanimously in the Lovings' favor on June 12, 1967. The Court overturned their convictions, dismissing Virginia's argument that the law was not discriminatory because it applied equally to and provided identical penalties for both white and black persons."

They were wrong, you are wrong. The current laws are as wrong as those from that time were found to be. Thankfully for the rest of us, bigots always get overruled in the end.

TickledPink 10 months, 3 weeks ago

No, I'm being quite rational. Just because I don't share your view on this issue does not make me irrational. Your "reason" isn't sound and will be legally resolved in due course. Unfortunately the hatred and bigotry won't be resolved so easily. Even after the marriage laws are overturned there will still be people who thrive on the hate. THAT is what we really need to work on.

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