Gay Groups Say No To Factionalism

Factionalism within the gay rights movement may take a breather in 2008 Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, with 700,000 members nationwide, said that the group is coordinating its efforts with other major gay rights groups, including -- most importantly, Tim Gill's Gill Action Fund. The Gill Action Fund burst on the scene after the 2006 elections, when my Atlantic colleage Josh Green revealed that the group spent $15 million on 70 targeted races; his analysis of campaign finance records suggested that the Gill bundling was the often the decisive factor in those races. Gill's success was an implicit rebuke to the politics applied by the Human Rights Campaign. (Gill doesn't play in federal elections -- the group is a 501(c)4 -- and HRC does.)

This cycle, HRC and Gill Action are sharing plans. HRC plans to train 1,500 political activists at "Camp Equality" in 13 cities. They've identified 5 million sympathetic voters nationwide. Florida and California will be of particular interest to HRC; both states face potential same-sex marriage bans this year.