Former GOP presidential candidate Fred
Karger is headed to Florida to attend the Republican convention and
set in motion plans to boycott the Orlando Magic NBA basketball team
over anti-gay marriage donations made by its owners.
Earlier this month, Karger announced a
boycott against Amway and the Orlando Magic over a donation give by
its president in support of the National Organization for Marriage
(NOM), the nation's most vociferous opponent of gay marriage.
Doug DeVos in 2009 gave $500,000 to the
National Organization for Marriage Education Fund through his Douglas
& Maria DeVos Foundation. And Richard DeVos, Doug DeVos' father,
gave $100,000 in 2008 to the campaign to approve Amendment 2,
Florida's constitutional amendment which defines marriage as a
heterosexual union.
The Orlando Magic is owned by RDV
Sports, Inc., a Michigan-based corporation set up by the DeVos family
to purchase the NBA franchise.
Amway was founded by Richard DeVos and
Jay Van Andel. In 1999, they established Alticor, a privately held
corporation which serves as the parent company of Amway, Quixtar and
Access Business Group. Doug DeVos is the president of Alticor.
Karger temporarily set aside his
activism to run for the Republican presidential nomination. He bowed
out of the race in June, renamed his advocacy group Rights
Equal Rights and last month in Las Vegas announced the
Amway/Orlando Magic boycott.
“We have conducted four previous
boycotts of donors who contributed $100,00 or more to pass
Proposition 8, and we settled two,” Karger said in an e-mail to
supporters. “We've never boycotted a professional sports team
before, but feel there are strong reasons to do so and with an 82
game season, ample opportunities to get our message out.”
In an e-mail to On Top Magazine,
Karger said he was not planning on meeting with representatives from
the Orlando Magic during his visit.
Karger also said he will attend the
upcoming Republican convention to speak out against “third party
hate groups” which are “wielding way too much power and are
driving away an entire generation of Republicans” – a reference
to Christian conservative groups which successfully sponsored anti-gay
marriage language in the 2012 Republican Platform.
(Related: Pro-gay
marriage conservatives disappointed with GOP platform's stance on
marriage.)