US Christians ‘bankrolling’ no campaign in Ireland’s gay marriage referendum
Source: The Guardian
With just five days to go before Ireland’s historic referendum on the legalisation of gay marriage, a bitter row has broken out between supporters and opponents over the funding of their respective campaigns. Supporters of a yes vote have accused opponents of a lack of transparency over finances and of accepting funding from rightwing Christian groups in the US.
... The yes campaign says its opponents have a huge advantage in terms of resources for buying billboard and poster space and have spent tens of thousands of euros in the last few weeks alone. Now no campaigners have booked full-page advertisements to appear later this week in dozens of regional Irish papers, calling on voters to reject incorporating the right for gay couples to marry into the republic’s constitution.
One of the no side’s strongest supporters in the US is the lavishly funded National Organisation for Marriage (NOM). In a letter to supporters around the world, it has urged evangelical Christians to visit keepmarriage.org, which is campaigning for a no vote.
... However, a spokesperson for NOM in the US denied this weekend that it had channelled funds to any of the three main opposition groups to gay marriage during the campaign. NOM is aware that foreign donations to lobby groups during referendums in Ireland are banned, the spokesperson said. Some in the no campaign have countered with claims that the yes side has benefited from millions of dollars donated by the Irish-American multimillionaire Chuck Feeney and his Atlantic Philanthropies agency.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/16/us-christians-no-campaign-ireland-gay-marriage-referendum
= new reply since forum marked as read
