Seattle Sonics/Storm Owners May Be Homophobic

Bad News for Sonics Fans. The group that recently purchased the Seattle Supersonics and Seattle Storm, known as the "Professional Basketball Club LLC," has donated as much as 1.1 million dollars to the "Americans United to Preserve Marriage," an ultra-right wing, anti-gay group. The articles from the "Slog" blog from The Stranger:

Bad News for Seattle Storm Fans?

Posted by JOSH FEIT on February 26 at 1:38 AM

A tipster says Tom Ward, one of the new co-owners of the Seattle Sonics/Storm contributed $100,000 to a 527 called Americans United to Preserve Marriage.

(Yikes. Sounds like one of those Citizens Councils from Mississippi in the 1950s that was fighting to preserve the tradition of segregation.)

The conservative 527 doled out $1,056,962 in the 2004 election cycle and $162,322 in the 2006 cycle.

I have not confirmed Ward’s donation to the group yet.

I can confirm that Ward contributed $5,000 to Gary Bauer’s PAC, Campaign for Working Families, in 2002—which should make the Storm’s lesbian fan base queasy enough.

Ward also contributed $1,000 to Bill Spadea, a GOP candidate in New Jersey for U.S. Congress in 2004.

I’ll do some more reporting on this tomorrow.

Seattle Storm Owners Bankroll Anti-Gay Group

Posted by JOSH FEIT on February 26 at 8:4

5 AM

It’s even worse than my tipster thought.

The campaign finance records I’ve reviewed show that Sonics/Storm co-owner Tom Ward has contributed $475,000 to Gary L. Bauer’s Americans United to Preserve Marriage.

And another Sonics/Storm co-owner, Aubrey McClendon, contributed $625,000.

Both men made their first contributions to the group, $250,000 apiece, on September 8, 2004—the day after the group was formed.

As I said, the controversial group doled out $1,056,962 in the 2004 election cycle, which means Storm owners Ward and McClendon basically bankrolled the whole thing. Indeed, records show that between the 2004 and 2006 cycles the group spent $1.3 million total while Ward and McClendon’s donations total $1.1 million.

I'm conflicted. On the one side, I now hate them. But on the other side, they are likely going to keep Rashard Lewis and the rest of the Sonics in Seattle. So I'll let readers draw their own conclusions.