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Blackwater mom funding the anti-equal rights Prop 8

post #1 of 11
10/27/08 at 3:10pm
Thread Starter 
Driving around So. Cal, I see a lot of pre-printed "yes on 8" signs and homemade "no on 8" signs. The anti-gay marriage, anti-equal rights, pro-8 campaign is well funded to be sure, and scary Blackwater bogeyman Erik Prince's mother is one of the reasons why.

Quote:
Local money fights gay marriage in Florida, California
by Ted Roelofs | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday October 27, 2008, 9:15 AM
Elsa Prince BroekhuizenRich DeVos

In much of America, the issue of gay marriage has faded as a presidential race fixed on the economy dominates headlines.

But two prominent West Michigan philanthropists are writing big checks to help keep it front and center.

Holland resident Elsa Prince Broekhuizen has pumped $450,000 into a Nov. 4 California ballot issue to ban gay marriage. It is one of the largest private donations to that cause.

...

In 2004, Broekhuizen was the top West Michigan contributor to Michigan's anti-gay marriage amendment, adding $75,000 to the cause.

Broekhuizen, 75, is mother to Betsy DeVos, the former state GOP chair who is married to 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos, and Erik Prince, founder of private security firm Blackwater Worldwide. She is the widow of the late Holland industrialist Edgar Prince and has remarried.

An assistant to Broekhuizen, who asked not to be named, said the issue is "very important to her. It's near and dear to her heart.

"She likes to give from her heart and not for public recognition."

The donations are consistent with numerous contributions to traditional-value causes by the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation. It gave $510,000 from July 2006 to June 2007 to the Family Research Council and $300,000 to Focus on the Family.

Both organizations oppose gay marriage, a stance underlined when Focus on the Family founder James Dobson cautioned in 2005 that gay marriage "will bring the destruction of this nation."
The rest is here.
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post #2 of 11
10/27/08 at 3:29pm
So, are you saying "hey, that's weird," or are you trying to say there's something more sinister going on?
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post #3 of 11
10/27/08 at 3:32pm
I don't see why it matters.
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post #4 of 11
10/27/08 at 3:37pm
Yeah, it doesn't. Unless Blackwater is some evil conspiracy promoting chaos throughout the land.
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post #5 of 11
10/27/08 at 4:23pm
I think it matters in that all it takes is a small group of like-minded individuals to frustrate, depress and affect millions of other people. Linking the support networks of the two groups is a good thing, for me at least.

It's reassuring. It helps make supporters of the two viewpoints (anti-gay, pro-Iraq War) seem less monolithic. It's just the Prince family. Of course it's not just the Prince family. But their money and business helps reinforce the opinions of those with less information or money.

And hey, Blackwater actually is a secretive group that has promoted chaos throughout the land, just not this one.
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post #6 of 11
10/27/08 at 6:40pm
Thread Starter 
If you like the idea of radical evangelical mercenary families bankrolling efforts to dictate human rights in your state, go with God. Me, I'm not so sanguine.
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post #7 of 11
10/27/08 at 6:45pm
"Like the idea"? No. But she can do what she wants with her money, and not that it matters but I'm sure that she genuinely believes in her cause.

Are you saying we should/could do something about this, yt?
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post #8 of 11
10/27/08 at 6:58pm
Thread Starter 
Clearly she can do whatever the &^%$ she wants with her cash. I know there are people like her who believe God wants them to take away other people's human rights, but we've gotten to learn a lot more about the "low information voter" in this election than any other, and I think it might be illuminating to "low information voters" who aren't necessarily God Warriors to know where this very visible, very well-funded anti-human rights campaign is coming from.

People have been brutally denied their human rights at the hands of Blackwater in the Middle East and right here in the US of A. A lot of people don't see it as a horrible, heinous, evil thing the way I do, but I see Blackwater's actions, and Mama Broekhuisen's efforts as inextricably linked and a story that should be well known.
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post #9 of 11
10/27/08 at 7:18pm
It's like a vulgar Reeses Peanut Butter Cup.

Blackwater is a merc thug outlet dressed in corporate suitery that could only thrive in a gun nut culture where war-deprived soldiers are encouraged to capitalize on their fetish for firearms and death.

Combine that grotesquerie with another American pastime of hating homosexuals and miltant efforts to marginalize them into the gutters and you've got a snack guaranteed to sell to too large a portion of my **painful swallow** fellow Americans.
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post #10 of 11
10/27/08 at 7:48pm
What helps me cope with the existence of people like her is imagining that there comes a brief moment right before they die that they realize that there isn't a god. That no afterlife is waiting for them, only oblivion. And so their last moments on earth pass in despair.

If you can't tell, I kind of hate them.
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post #11 of 11
10/29/08 at 10:29am
Devin's article and reading Andrew Sullivan's criticism of the "No on Prop 9" political group makes me wonder why they haven't aired these types of Political commercials...

1. Californian Homosexual Military Veterns (Iraq, Nam, Korea, and WWII) telling their storys of discrimination.

2. Some kind of ad that is similiar to Mr. Garrison's speech in the South Park episode "Death Camp of Tolerance". He says something to the effect of "You tolerate a crying baby on a plane, but it can still piss you off."

Basically that if you tolerate something, it doesn't mean that you agree with it.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/153717

3. Sulu talking about his marriage and the fact that he was in a Japanese Internment Camp in WWII.

4. Anti Blackwater ad.

You know, stuff that appeals to people's emotions. I could run a better "No on Prop 9" campaign than these clowns.

I think the reason why it is so badly run is because the National Democratic Party wants Obama to win Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia, so they told California liberals to run shitty campaign commercials. These commercials that the have ran so far won't piss of red staters who are considering voting of Obama.

It's a conspiracy man!
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