Getting rich from marriage inequality

Several times on this blog, I've reflected on the lucrative business model of opponents of marriage equality. (I've grouped the posts under the label of "follow the money"). From the now-discredited George Rekers, who testified for $$$$, to NOM's Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, who have various shell groups that pay them generously, the business of opposing marriage rights generates quite a lot of cash.

Over at JoeMyGod, Joe frequently points at the money-begging emails from another distasteful anti-gay activist, a Virginia county supervisor named Eugene Delgaudio.

And I'm sure Frank Schubert, the "mastermind" behind the Prop8 campaign and most of the other ones state campaigns, is doing very nicely based on this business model.  (Although we wonder if his business will drop off since he hasn't been so successful lately.)

Now, ThinkProgress has done some digging into the finances of Gary Bauer, and shows that his various PACS and action committees pay him VERY generously for....  what exactly?  He's a consultant, apparently.  Here's an example:

So far, Americans United to Preserve Marriage has paid Bauer more than $260,000 — and between 2009 and 2012, Bauer received more than half of the committee’s total spending.

So, you donate money to this group and half of it goes to Bauer.  Hmmm.  And then this:

The Campaign for Working Families PAC, a traditional political action committee first created in 1996, began 2013 with nearly $1 million left in the bank. The committee, which calls itself “the leading pro-family, pro-life political action committee in America,” claims to exist “solely to raise funds to support or oppose candidates based upon their political views.” But starting in March, Bauer began paying himself $13,750 a month for “political and admin” consulting — $68,750 over the past five months, and several times more than the $8,250 the committee has given, total, to federal political candidates so far this year.

The "Great Gay Menace" drives donations to these groups, which use those donations to pay the leaders large amounts of money. So, being anti-equality is big business, and they are getting rich on it.  It may also explain why people like Brian Brown are getting increasingly shrill and more anti-gay, not limiting his remarks to marriage.  Because slowly but surely, his marks are realizing that marriage equality is inevitable.  He's got to yell and instill fear if his big business model is going to keep going.

But do they really want to win?  They'd be out of a job, if they did....