Gold's Gym Responds to Controversy Over Anti-Gay Donations

Fox News was able to snag a few moments of billionaire Robert Rowling's time today, to ask him about the growing controversy over his corporate and personal political advocacy — which has included several million dollars in donations to a political group founded by Karl Rove to elect anti-gay candidates — and his ownership, as head of TRT Holdings, of the very gay-friendly Gold's Gym. What was Rowling's message?

Essentially this: I'm not giving money to help these candidates because they're anti-gay; I'm giving them money because they'll help make me rich.

"I've never heard one discussion of a social issue. This is all about fiscal sanity," Rowling said of his millions of dollars in donations to Karl Rove's group. "[American Crossroads] supports conservative candidates, and even though those candidates may disagree with them on social issues, the resounding issue is fiscal responsibility."

The resounding issue for Rowling might be fiscal responsibility, but there's no denying that his money isn't going to support the anti-gay platforms of American Crossroads' endorsed candidates. Take Sharron Angle in Nevada, who is running against Sen. Harry Reid for the U.S. Senate seat. Angle has supported bans on gay adoption in the past, and once endorsed a political publication that called gay people "brazen perverts" and "sodomites."

Or take Roy Blunt in Missouri, who is campaigning on preserving the Defense of Marriage Act.

Or even take Ken Buck in Colorado, who infamously suggested that homosexuality was like alcoholism earlier in this campaign cycle.

In the face of statements and actions like this, can a business owner really get away with saying their money isn't going to anti-gay causes?

Gold's Gym International, for their part, issued a statement acknowledging that Rowling, as head of TRT Holdings, did give money to these anti-gay candidates. But they echoed that their gyms are often independently-owned businesses, and that the owners of these gyms embrace the LGBT community and LGBT customers. In an interview with the Dallas Voice, the head of media for Gold's Gym International said that while Rowling stands to make a profit off of Gold's Gym, gay customers should still feel welcome at Gold's and should consider themselves an important part of the company's brand.

So what's a good gay consumer to do?

That's the question we're all going to have to wrestle with, especially in a post-Citizens United world.Retail giant Target, of course, faced the wrath of LGBT customers after their CEO was caught giving personal and corporate money to an anti-gay candidate in Minnesota. To this day there are still tens of thousands of LGBT customers who won't set foot in a Target, even though their CEO said much the same thing that Rowling said: Don't take my political donations personally; it's just business.

Meanwhile, Michelle Garcia wrote in The Advocate last night that upwards of 300 Gold's Gym owners were potentially going to issue a statement condemning the political donation by Robert Rowling, and pledging their support for the LGBT community.

One last note: Rowling has also given money to another politician in the past with a deep, dark history with the LGBT community. That would be former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, became infamous for lashing out at efforts to decriminalize sodomy, and penned a piece earlier this yeartalking about how the Defense of Marriage Act was a valuable piece of legislation keeping society in order. Santorum has also spent a great deal of time in Iowa this past year blasting the concept of same-sex marriage, and has been a vocal supporter of the National Organization for Marriage, quite possibly the leading anti-gay organization in the entire country.

Guess giving to candidates with extremely offensive records when it comes to LGBT rights is just business as usual for Rowling.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.