What possesses a family to give nearly $300,000.00 to change history and write discrimination into the California Constitution?
Well, here is what the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on March 15, 2008 on Caster family patriarch, Terry Caster:
Caster, who heads Caster Cos., which owns A-1 Self Storage and other commercial properties, said he believes that marriage between a man and a woman is fundamental to society. "Without solid marriage, you are going to have a sick society," he said.
This guy must really not like same-sex marriage. Mr. Caster and many of his eight sons and daughters and their spouses gave a combined total of $293,000.00 to the Protect Marriage campaign between January and July of 2008.
Why so much money? Is same-sex marriage that much of a threat to the Caster family and to society as a whole? Is his family so fearful of creating a "sick society" that they are willing to take away the recently attained freedom to marry in California? And where do all his children get the $9,100.00 they contributed to the Protect Marriage campaign?
Terry Caster, is the owner of A-1 Self Storage of San Diego and was the most generous of San Diego County's many major donors to Protect Marriage. Nearly 35% of the more than $2,000,000 raised from all over the United States came from San Diego to pay the professional signature gatherers to collect the 1 million signatures needed to qualify the initiative constitutional amendment -- now identified as Proposition 8 on the November 4th ballot.
Mr. Caster is a very successful businessman, no doubt. A-1 Self Storage has 38 locations all over California with 4 million units. He and his family have every right to contribute as much money as they want to this effort. It is a free country. But why so much money?
Mr. Caster joins other wealthy San Diegans, like Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel owner Doug Manchester who gave $125,000.00, and Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn, who gave $25,000.00 and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson, who gave $50,000.00.
Californians Against Hate will act as a truth squad during the next 3 ½ months. Our purpose is to let everyone know the major donor supporters of Proposition 8. With that information, people can chose whether or not they want to patronize the businesses owned by these major donors.
We will recommend action against some of the major contributors as we did last week in calling for a boycott of Doug Manchester's three hotels. We will be recommending action against Terry Caster and his A-1 Self Storage Company in the next few days.
Californians Against Hate will post all these major contributors on our web site in the very near future and disseminate this information through our Facebook group page and other new media.
It is sad to me and so many other Californians to see so much money being given out of fear and hate to try take away the freedom to marry for loving couples across this great state.
Terry Caster and his wife have 38 grandchildren. What message is he sending to all his grandchildren and to an entire generation of young people?