In Case You Missed It: "Fight Back Colorado"

17 Comments

by: Colorado Pols

FOX 31’s Eli Stokols reported on this last week, and we wanted to ensure it’s noted:

If you thought civil unions had an outsized impact on a few of Tuesday’s statehouse primaries, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

On Wednesday, liberal activists and donors announced the launch of a new group that will work specifically to target state lawmakers who opposed and twice helped kill civil unions legislation in May.

In short, Tim Gill, the gay millionaire responsible for bankrolling much of Colorado’s infrastructure of progressive political action groups, isn’t wasting time, helping fund the new group Fight Back Colorado, modeled on Fight Back New York, the political action committee that spent $800,000 and successfully removed anti-gay marriage incumbents from office, paving the way for the bill’s passage by the New York state legislature last year.

“I’m no meteorologist but it’s going to be raining rainbow money in Colorado,” one pro-civil unions activist told FOX31 Denver Wednesday. [Pols emphasis]

We discussed wealthy pro-LGBT philanthropist Tim Gill’s personal interest in the passage of civil unions legislation this year, evidenced in part by his sitting in on hearings on the legislation. It was widely speculated after the bill’s failure that Gill would invest heavily to ensure Republicans who subverted the will of their own chamber’s majority pay a price in November.

This would then be the vehicle for making them pay.

17 thoughts on “In Case You Missed It: “Fight Back Colorado””

Ed Rollins says:

July 2, 2012 at 7:51 pm

Looks like the Fight Back Colorado name was already taken…by the KOCH BROTHERS.

From the Colorado Observer:

Helpful hint: When choosing a name for a campaign aimed at unseating Republicans, always conduct an Internet search first.

Gay-rights advocates unveiled Tuesday a political-action group called Fight Back Colorado, which targets for defeat Republican lawmakers involved in preventing a civil-unions bill from reaching the House floor at the end of the 2012 legislative session.

The problem is, there’s already a group called Fight Back Colorado, and it has nothing to do with same-sex relationships.

Fight Back Colorado is the longtime moniker of the grassroots campaign run by Americans for Prosperity-Colorado. Anyone who searches “Fight Back Colorado” online will find themselves directed to the AFP website, http://www.fightbackcolorado.com, which warns that “America is under attack by this administration’s policies.”

That’s a reference to the Obama administration, not the administration of Colorado House Speaker Frank McNulty.

As a result, the anti-Republican campaign has been forced to use a less graceful address, http://www.fightback-co.com. It’s a surprising oversight, given that the effort is funded in part by Tim Gill, who made his fortune in computer software design.

“They could have saved themselves some trouble if they’d bothered to Google it,” observed AFP’s Sean Paige.

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1. Gray in Mountains says:
  
  July 2, 2012 at 7:55 pm
  
  for Tim Gill, et al, to use the same name.
  
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2. Aristotle says:
  
  July 2, 2012 at 8:12 pm
  
  And unless the name is a registered trademark or otherwise subject to copyright protection, it’s not an issue.
  
  Try, try again.
  
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3. sandra fish says:
  
  July 2, 2012 at 8:24 pm
  
  fightback-co.com. The committee registered with the Secretary of State June 19 and reported $55,000 cash on hand in a report filed. today.
  
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4. ArapaGOP says:
  
  July 3, 2012 at 1:18 am
  
  AFP thanks Tim Gill for the free advertising. I love it.
  
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  1. Aristotle says:
    
    July 3, 2012 at 4:06 am
    
    You’re falling apart at the seams, ‘bot.
    
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abraham says:

July 2, 2012 at 8:30 pm

On which primaries did the civil union issue have an outsized impact?

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Barron X says:

July 2, 2012 at 9:09 pm

It targeted Larry Liston.

Liston will not be back, defeated by that GLBT crusader Owen Hill.

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Pam Bennett says:

July 2, 2012 at 9:17 pm

Equal Rights Colorado was a 501 (c)(4) set up to help fight for LGBT equality in the state house. The personhood people decided to use Colorado for Equal Rights as their organization.

The results were often interesting. At the time I was VP of Equal Rights Colorado and handled the website. IIRC I had to add something to it because the personhood people were rather taken aback to see a full Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender website.

WE always accept our allies, as they come from many places.

And more gay news – Anderson Cooper came out today.

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1. dukeco1 says:
  
  July 2, 2012 at 9:27 pm
  
  except I thought he had a while back. Seems to me I heard it a few months ago.
  
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2. DenLawyer says:
  
  July 2, 2012 at 10:11 pm
  
  “And more gay news – Anderson Cooper came out today.”
  
  Tell me why this is “news”? Would it be news if he said he was heterosexual? Why, unless the person has been known for verbal LGBT bashing, does it matter when a “famous” person comes out as gay?
  
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  1. thiokuutoo says:
    
    July 3, 2012 at 4:50 am
    
    Or is this little questioning bring up the same stuff as:
    
    Why can’t white people have a parade? They do, many parades. But feel free to have a KKK parade.
    
    Why can’t gays keep their gayness to themselves? Or is that why do missionary position people constantly shove their lifestyle in to my life all the time?
    
    Nothing like having a famous person who has been in the closet for years come out for the straight and narrow types to be pissed off about it.
    
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    1. Aristotle says:
      
      July 3, 2012 at 5:16 am
      
      I think he means it in a “who cares” kind of way. Which was my first reaction, too. Which is a good thing, just like it stopped being news when a major city elected a black mayor, or a state a female governor. Boredom with coming-out stories is a measure of how far LGBT equality has come.
      
      Granted, there’s still a long way to go, and the more visible public figures who are out, the better (both for the LGBT youth of today, who need role models to look to, and for the continued progress of acceptance among straight people). But in Anderson Cooper’s case, it was fairly obvious. And as he states, he wasn’t really in the closet – pretending to be a straight man, getting married to a woman, having kids, living a lie, getting caught soliciting in a public restroom. He simply kept that private, and felt the time was right to make it public.
      
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      1. ProgressiveCowgirl says:
        
        July 3, 2012 at 5:19 am
        
        I think it’d be newsworthy if we finally elected one — or, hell, had a credible female gubernatorial candidate.
        
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        Aristotle says:
        
        July 3, 2012 at 10:25 pm
        
        Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it was a big deal any time that happened. Denver might have been the first major American city to elect a Hispanic mayor – we definitely made national headlines when Pena won in 1983. San Antonio and/or Miami might have beat us out, though.
        
        But point taken. I’d be very happy to see a woman or a person who wasn’t white (or someone who’s both) occupy the governor’s mansion.
        
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    2. DenLawyer says:
      
      July 3, 2012 at 7:15 pm
      
      Aristotle is correct. I meant “who cares” whether he is homosexual or heterosexual. Orientation should not be news any more than the color of a person’s hair.
      
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  2. ProgressiveCowgirl says:
    
    July 3, 2012 at 5:02 am
    
    Recently, however, I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.
    
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