Reuters: Major Anti-Gay Marriage Group in Financial Straits

Washington State, where same-sex marriage was legalized in November, shows how much the tide has turned. Those who opposed gay marriage raised just $2.8 million but were wildly overspent by marriage-equality supporters, who managed to raise $12.6 million from private donations like a seven-figure check from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and corporations like Starbucks. Just a few years before, in 2008, ProtectMarriage.com was able to raise $40 million during the electoral battle over California's Proposition 8.

ProtectMarriage.com and other organizations bent on seeing gay marriage banned across the country are running up against a sector that once might have been at least neutral: big business. The Business Coalition for DOMA Repeal includes Fortune 500 heavy hitters like Marriott International Inc. (owned, incidentally, by a Mormon group), Aetna, eBay and Thomson Reuters.

Not all corporations are fighting to protect the rights of the LGBT community, of course. But the ones that where executives publicly support "traditional" marriage are few and far between. When the head of Chick-fil-A, the Georgia-based fast food franchise, spoke about how gay marriage would provoke God's judgment on America, the consequent media firestorm last summer provided some good business on a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day," but the CEO has since been reluctant to venture into the marriage debate since.

According to Equality Matters, a number of media outlets are reporting that the restaurant franchise owner continues to donate to anti-gay groups, however. Initially, Shane Windmeyer, the executive director of LGBT youth advocacy group Campus Pride, wrote in the Huffington Post that he had believed that the WinShape Foundation, Chick-fil-A's charitable arm, stopped donating millions of dollars to the groups after he saw the organization's 2011 IRS 990 tax form. In a follow-up article in the Advocate, however, it was alleged that Chick-fil-A officials of deceiving Windmeyer. True, giving had stopped to Exodus International and the Family Research Council. But the fast food chain is apparently still donating millions to the Marriage and Family Foundation, the National Christian Foundation and the Fellowship of Christina Athletes, all same-sex marriage opponents

In 2010, Chick-fil-A donated $2,000 to Exodus International and Family Research Council, which accounted for less than 1 percent of its total anti-gay donations, according to Equality Matters.

High Pay for Marriage Foe
Not all anti-gay marriage groups are financially suffering, at least judging from what they're paying their top executives. Gay Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger demanded to see the National Organization for Marriage's 2011 tax filings. He claims he discovered that the group's president, Brian Brown, paid himself more than $500,000 that year.

"One thing is crystal clear; NOM president Brian Brown and former president Maggie Gallagher are definitely getting rich off the NOM donors - very rich," Karger said in a press release. "Maybe they don't want us to know that NOM President Brian Brown made over $500,000 dollars in 2011. He was paid $230,000 by NOM's political operation where he claimed to work a minimum of 40 hours per week, and another whopping $230,000 from NOM's Educational Fund, where he claimed to work another 40 hours per week. Add $47,000 in benefits and you have the 'Half Million Dollar Man.'"