Obama LGBT Dinner Expected to Raise $1.5 Million

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http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2012/02/09/Obama_LGBT_Event_Expected_to_Raise_15M/

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will meet Thursday evening with LGBT donors at a high-ticket fundraiser in Washington, D.C.

The dinner event, held at a private residence in northwest Washington, is expected to draw about 40 people and raise $1.5 million for the Obama campaign, according to David Bohnett, the billionaire philanthropist who launched GeoCities in the 1990s and is co-hosting this evening's fundraiser.

Bohnett will be joined on the hosting committee by well-known LGBT Democratic donors including James Hormel, the first openly gay U.S. ambassador; Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs and one of the Obama campaign’s major fundraisers, or “bundlers”; and Henry van Ameringen, whose namesake foundation has supported LGBT groups such as Truth Wins Out. Attendees will be asked to max out their donations to the campaign, a $37,500 sum.

The fundraiser comes two days after a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that stripped same-sex couples of the right to marry, is unconstitutional. The White House has declined comment on the ruling, though Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday that the president “has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts that deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples,” a statement the administration has used to address multiple efforts nationwide seeking to rescind or constitutionally prohibit gay marriage. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum all denounced the Ninth Circuit decision as textbook judicial activism and an affront to California voters who passed Prop. 8 more than three years ago.