As part of its 2012 Election news coverage, ThinkProgress reported yesterday that possible Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and his associates contributed more than $850,000 to a 2010 campaign against the three Iowa Supreme Court justices supported marriage equality. The report follows evidence that Gingrich also gave $200,000 to the anti-marriage equality group Iowa for Freedom, a recipient of funding from the violently anti-gay AFA Action organization.
Additional coverage of Gingrich’s financial contributions, published yesterday by the Associated Press, reveals that the conservative former Speaker was connected to contributions of $125,000 to AFA, as well as $25,000 to another anti-LGBT group known as the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.
AFA is one of the most prominent anti-LGBT groups in the country, and has been officially labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group is notorious for making confrontational and extreme comments about gay individuals, such as blaming gays for biblical plagues and equating gay sex with domestic terrorism and illegal narcotics. A spokesman for Newt Gingrich made no effort to deny the presidential hopeful’s fiscal support of the AFA and other anti-gay groups, and merely noted that the donations were for “general support” and not directed to any specific campaign.
Gingrich’s spokesman stated that there is no connection between the revelation of these funding activities and Gingrich’s possible bid for the presidency. However, ThinkProgress notes that Bob Vander Plaats, leader of last year’s anti-marriage equality campaign against the pro-equality Iowa justices, is also a political power player and organizer of an anti-LGBT group currently hosting a Presidential Lecture Series at which Gingrich is slated to appear later this year.
