Petrelis Files

HRC = Big Donor to IL's Mark Kirk;
$33K to GOP Closet Case

(Kirk, on the left, with an unidentified young male constituent.)

Mark Kirk is a glass closet-living Congressman from Illinois, vying for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Barack Obama.

Elected to the House in 2000, Kirk wants to step up the federal political ladder, and is facing many tough questions about his military, academic, and political resumes. Oh, and DC blogger Mike Rogers recently outed him as a homosexual.

I wasn't surprised to learn that the Human Rights Campaign, according to public records available at OpenSecrets.org, has been among the top 100 donors to Kirk's campaigns.

Kirk took in $10,000 for his 2002 race, placing HRC at number 5 on that year's list of biggest donors. During 2004's election, he received $5,000 from them, landing the org at number 40.

In the 2006 cycle, the org donated $6,025 to Kirk, and earned the 76th spot on the list. For 2008, the HRC contribution was for $10,000, and the org took the 46th ranking. And so far in 2010, the org has given nothing.

Sub-total of HRC checks to Kirk's House races comes to $31,025.

Cruising over to the Federal Election Commission web site, public records show that that HRC gave Kirk $2,000 in 2009 for his Senate race.

Total amount Kirk has taken in from our largest gay political advocacy org, for House and Senate campaigns equals $33,025.

All that gay money thrown at Kirk, who enjoyed high ratings from HRC's political scorecard over the years, came to naught recently when he voted the wrong way on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and HRC has abandoned him and his Senate candidacy.