Shortly after the Supreme Court released its rulings on same-sex marriage, the American Civil Liberties Union announced the start of a $10 million dollar nationwide campaign to bring marriage equality to more non-marriage states with the help of Republican leaders:
With the goal of working both with and within the Republican Party, the ACLU has hired Steve Schmidt (pictured left)…
Previously, he has worked on Capitol Hill as the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, served as one of the top strategists during President Bush's 2004 re-election and as a deputy assistant to President George W. Bush. Schmidt also directed strategic communications for the nomination of Chief Justice Roberts and led the nomination of Justice Alito…
Schmidt's role will be to help spearhead the campaign to strike down state-based laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. The campaign will, over the next four years, challenge legislative and constitutional provisions in states such as Illinois, Oregon, Hawaii, New Mexico, and others. The ACLU aims to spend roughly $10 million through 2016 and will officially announce the initiative with an ad in tomorrow's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Most recently Schmidt told political satirist Bill Maher that the Republican party's anti-gay positions repel tech-savvy developers from working with the GOP.
The ACLU will also hire Jimmy LaSalvia (pictured right) the former executive director of the gay Republican group GOProud to help with outreach efforts to gay conservatives and Tea Party members.
