Subject: Martina, Ellen, Anne, Madonna, and the FEC
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 02:34:08 EDT

Reprint rights from [email-masked]. 

Martina and Equal Donations to Queer Candidates
By Michael Petrelis

    When lesbian tennis champ Martina Navratilova steps up to the podium
at the Human Rights Campaign dinner on October 9 in Washington, she will
accept the group's prized National Equality Award.  Navratilova will also
be a keynote speaker at the misguided and divisive Millennium March on
Washington next April.  By most standards, she is a lesbian leader
deserving plaudits and a platform. 

    Her status as a celebrated wealthy spokesperson for the queer movement
led me to search her name at a web site for Federal Election Commission
(FEC) public records.  To my small surprise, Navratilova has donated a
sizable amount of cash, $11,250 to be precise, to candidates and
committees, all heterosexual, stretching back to 1990.  Why not hit a few
balls of equal donations to lesbians and gays, I wondered.  What reason
was there behind her choice to refrain from contributing to open lesbian
Rep. Tammy Baldwin's historic win of a Wisconsin Congressional seat last
November? 

    Navratilova's FEC records don't show one donation to any queer
candidate. This fact was surely taken into consideration by HRC when they
decided to honor her. 

    Should we hold her to a higher standard and demand she also donate to
qualified gay candidates at the federal level?  Of course not, especially
since other queer icons also didn't send money to either Baldwin, or
Margarethe Cammermeyer in Washington state, or Christine Kehoe of San
Diego, three viable lesbian candidates for the House last year.  But what
is the larger context beyond one individual's donations of our efforts to
get our own politicians elected to higher office?  Were other celebrities
pitching in to elect more of us to Congress? These questions among many
led me to search the FEC records on dozens of noted queer people. 

    To start, I sought out high-profile names and quickly learned how easy
it was to search this electronic library.  For example, actress Ellen
Degeneres forked over $1,000 last spring to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and
that was the extent of her federal largess.  Degeneres's life-partner and
fellow actress Anne Heche also gave $1,000 to Boxer, who has a solid
pro-gay, abortion and AIDS voting record. 

    The film world's Catherine Saalfield, a wealthy Manhattan heiress and
documentary movie maker, also chose not to contribute to any lesbian or
gay candidates.  She has however coughed up $9,950 for heterosexual
politicians since 1990. 

    As you can see, practically everyone makes checks out rounded to the
nearest ten.  Breaking this rule consistently is legendary Broadway
composer Stephen Sondheim with donations like $238 or $514.  What show
tune queen worth her tiara can't warble a few of this talented boy's
tunes?  Zillions? He gave zip to gay candidates.  Where did he put some of
his royalties?  All of his donations, totaling $10,049, were directed to
the ASCAP Legislative Fund for the Arts, a political action committee. 

    On the plus side for lesbians who did contribute to a lesbian, or a
long- rumored lesbian politician, there was author Rita Mae Brown.  Her
one rubyfruit donation was in 1997 for $250 to Sen. Barbara Mikulski,
D-MD.  Rest assured, Mikulski possesses a high rating from HRC for her
votes on issues of importance to us.  Only size queens will compare
Brown's amount to Navratilova's much larger donations. 

    In a sexual category all her own, singer Madonna Ciccone's sole
political donation was a hefty $5,000 check to the Democratic National
Committee. She's like a virgin when it comes to finding a living lesbian
or gay candidate to financially endow.  That could change, if celebrity
donating to queer candidates becomes vogue. 

    And the Big Mo's unique gal-pal from "A League of Their Own," talk
show hostess Rosie O'Donnell, made two chunky donations.  The first to a
lesbian candidate, the second to a heterosexual woman.  The lesbian
recipient was military veteran Cammermeyer of Washington state.  And
Elizabeth Dole's exploratory committee for her presidential bid received
$1,000.  (OK, Cammermeyer we can all see.  But Mrs. Dole?  Hello?  Is
Rosie, gasp, a closet Log Cabin member?)

    In the Rosie "Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod," camp is where I place Secretary
of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala on the sexual orientation
spectrum. None too shockingly, since she spent most of her academic career
at the University of Wisconsin, Shalala made a $250 donation to Baldwin's
successful campaign. 

    On the Republican side, we find Log Cabin executive director Richard
Tafel failed to contribute to any of the handful of openly queer GOP
congressional candidates since 1994.  Tafel did donate $1,000 to Bob
Dole's presidential bid in 1996, only to have the money eventually
refunded by the candidate.  In the end, Tafel bought himself millions of
dollars of free publicity when Dole accepted, then rejected the Tafel
check drawn on the Log Cabin account. 

    While queers with wealth are free to pick and choose political
candidates worthy of a personal donation, we should use online search
engines and monitor contributions to homosexual and heterosexual federal
candidates.  The more informed we are as a community about the financing
of political campaigns the better able we will be to play the game of big
time politics.  Check out www.tray.com/fecinfo and have some fun. 

    Am I saying the only way for the rich or famous among us to aid queer
candidates is to write big checks?  No.  Many of these people write
smaller checks or appear at receptions for queer campaigns to raise money
and get good press. They may also get their friends to write checks. 
There are plenty of avenues for them to help elect our candidates to
national office. 

    However, it is too bad when Navratilova makes her speech accepting
HRC's prestigious award for equality she won't be able to say, "I like to
be in Washington with a lesbian sitting where she belongs - in the House. 
Elected in part because of my donation to her."  Maybe by the spring
Navratilova will have written a check or two to the next crop of queer
candidates.  After all, it isn't just marches on, or dinners in,
Washington we require for crucial aspects of our political equality, we
must additionally have our own sitting in Congress every day of the week. 

(The author is an activist who lives in San Francisco.  His email address
is [email-masked] ... Contact him for reprint rights.)