Donors to G.O.P. Backing Gay Marriage Push

As gay rights advocates intensify their campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, the bulk of their money is coming from an unexpected source: a group of conservative financiers and wealthy donors to the Republican Party, most of whom are known for bankrolling right-leaning candidates and causes.
. . .
The newly recruited donors argue that permitting same-sex marriage is consistent with conservative principles of personal liberty and small government.

“I’m a pretty straight-down-the-line small-government guy,” said Mr. Asness, who described himself as a libertarian who favored less government intrusion in both markets and personal affairs. Mr. Asness, a frequent Republican donor, has praised Tea Party activists on his blog and last year attended a conference of right-leaning donors held by Charles and David Koch, among the leading conservative philanthropists in the nation.

Okay. Let’s get this straight one more time. Conservatives and libertarians are different. They are not synonymous. The three basic governing philosophies in the U.S. are progressive, conservative, and libertarian.  The first two are relatively more statist than the last.

Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, is the most politically centrist of the donors. (He is not coordinating his efforts with the other contributors.)

Bloomberg centrist?  Not really.  If Bloomberg supports gay marriage and lots of economic regulations, he’s one of the statist philosophies.  Libertarians can be viewed as the most centrist because of their consistent application of liberty and limited government. Contrast that with liberals (who also call themselves progressives) and conservatives, both of which propose all kinds of schemes to limit our liberty and to expand government.

Here.