Spielberg Is Friends Of Thee

As it now stands, backers of California's Proposition 8, the initiative to ban same-sex marriage, have the fundraising lead, nearly $18 million to the foes' $12.4 million.

But that could change. Hollywood is starting to play a big role in the effort to defeat the initiative. Director-producer Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, announced today that they would put in $100,000 to kill the initiative.

The donation matches a $100,000 No-on-8 contribution announced last week by actor Brad Pitt.

Proponents of the initiative include many of the nation's most prominent conservative Christian individuals and organizations, including Focus on Family and the American Family Assn., a group based in Tupelo, Miss., that singles out the entertainment industry as being at the root of many of the nation's woes.

In a statement, Spielberg and Capshaw denounced the initiative: "By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation. Such discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any other."

LATimes