Focus on the Family Action, the secret-money political arm of Focus on the Family, disclosed Monday that it has made a $1.2 million independent expenditure of direct mailings to voters in several swing states in support of Mitt Romney and six anti-LGBT Senate hopefuls.
The group said it spent:
1. $784,644.48 for Mitt Romney. The group’s mailings to Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin were both supportive of Romney critical of to Barack Obama. Romney has signed a pledge to push for a marriage inequality amendment to the constitution and gave a shout-out to Focus on the Family in his Denver campaign rally on Monday.
2. $71,404.18 for former Sen. George Allen (R-VA). Allen has argued homosexuality is not “acceptable” and should be “illegal.” A prominent anti-LGBT equality section on his campaign website notes that he will even oppose hate crimes protections for LGBT Americans that were enacted in 2009.
3. $67,896.06 for former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R-WI). Thompson has tried to present himself as a moderate in this campaign, but has a long history of opposing LGBT equality, dating back to the early 1980s.
4. $52,413.67 for Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO). Though conservatives have distanced themselves from Akin after his controversial comments that women who are victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant, his stridently anti-LGBT record apparently put him in line with Focus on the Family. When President Obama announced his support for marriage equality, Akin lambasted him for showing an “unquenchable desire to tear down the traditional family unit brick by brick.”
5. $15,356.87 for Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT). Rehberg proudly pranked a colleague with a gay-mocking “Idaho Travel Package” while dismissing LGBT equality as “extremist.”
6. $33,839.41 for Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV). Though Heller has tried to avoid talking about his opposition to LGBT families throughout this campaign, he has voted against equality at every single opportunity over his time in Congress.
7. $184,124.26 for State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R-OH). Mandel has said the fight against marriage equality is one from which he will “will never, ever back down.”
All totaled, Focus on the Family Action (which now calls itself “CitizenLink”) spent $1,209,679 to encourage voters in key swing states and in states with close Senate races to vote for anti-equality candidates.