Gold's Gym Faces Backlash After CEO Gives to GOP Group

Updated at 5:25 p.m. ET

A set of Gold's Gym franchises in the San Francisco Bay Area are abandoning their brand after learning that their parent company's owner made a large, private donation to American Crossroads, the conservative political group that backs candidates opposed to expanding gay rights.

Billionaire Robert Rowling, CEO of TRT Holdings, which owns Gold's, has given more than $2 million this election cycle to American Crossroads, the third party organization with ties to former Bush strategist Karl Rove.

Reports of Rowling's significant donations to American Crossroads angered some franchise owners, who said the donations betrayed Gold's strong ties to the gay community.

"Gold's Gym San Francisco has long been a pillar of the gay community. We will continue to be," Don Dickerson, the director of operations for Gold's Gym Bay Area, wrote in a Facebook note. "It is very unfortunate that the CEO of TRT Holdings has chosen this course of action. We do not support it in any way."

Dickerson wrote that the Bay Area Gold's Gyms will allow their contractual obligations with Gold's Gym International to expire in 2012, if they are not able to end them sooner. On top of that, the franchises plan to match every dollar paid in Gold's Gym in franchise fees with a donation of equal or greater size to LGBT charities.

Rowling's donations also spurred an online petition, which now has more than 4,000 signatures, calling on Gold's to stop its corporate executives from "taking money from customers and spending it in order to elect anti-gay politicians."

The petition points to American Crossroads' expenditures on Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who opposes allowing gays to adopt children, as well as its expenditures on Republican Rep. Roy Blunt, the Missouri Senate candidate who voted to amend the Constitution to prohibit gay marriage.

Gold's Gym International released a statement, Salon reports, distancing the brand from Rowling's donations.

"We are proud to have a large and dedicated base of LGBT members in our gyms... and value our strong ties with the LGBT community," Gold's spokesperson Dave Reiseman said in the statement. "Gold's Gym did not make a donation to American Crossroads (or any other political organization) and in no way supports anti-gay causes. Quite the contrary, the Gold's Gym family has been strong supporters of the LGBT community over the years."

Reiseman continued, "Gold's Gym is a non-political organization and our member's dues are not used to fund political candidates. Bob Rowling, the CEO of our ownership group, TRT Holdings, made a private donation completely independent from (and not on behalf of) Gold's Gym."

While Rowling did give more than $2 million as a private donation completely independent from his company, TRT Holdings has given an additional $2.5 million from the company treasury this election cycle, according to public filings.

The outcry over Gold's affiliation with American Crossroads is similar to the backlash Target Corp. suffered from earlier this year, after the company made a financial donation to a political group that supported a Republican candidate opposed to same-sex marriage. Target subsequently apologized for offending its customers and employees with the donation.

Update: Reiseman points out that the owners of the four Bay Area franchises in question, Sebastyen and Zsolt Jackovics, sold two of the four franchises earlier this year because of matters unrelated to Rowling's donations.

"While there is no doubt that Gold's Gym San Francisco has been a pillar of the LGBT community, to say that they left the Gold's Gym brand because of the American Crossroads donation would be disingenuous," Reiseman said.

Sebastyen Jackovics confirmed to the Hotsheet that its franchises in San Mateo and Redwood City were sold earlier this year. However, their two San Francisco franchises are still contractually tied to Gold's Gym International, and Jackovics said that shareholders of the San Francisco locations only made the final decision to terminate their relationship with the brand after learning about Rowling's donations.

"When this transpired, the company shareholders basically got together and said it's definite we're not going to renew," he said. "When this situation was thrown in our lap, it was unacceptable to our staff, our shareholders and our members."

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Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[crazyname]

Who are the biggots in our society. It is good for Soros to give milions to pot growers in Ca. and it is an outrage when a corporation gives money to the republican party because the party support business!

This is what is wrong with the democratic followers. No real plans, just tear down any attempt to bring back the country to capitalism, the thing that has made this country great, and the thing that has allowed these people to do what they are presently doing. They are now trying to take away freedoms of peoples and groups. It is easy to see who the unbalanced people are.

[AnnaMouse]

Why would you give money to the Republican/Tea Party wackos? They have no solutions and only want to rob you blind. Privatizing government services would increase expenses, not decrease them - college still teach economic theory, yes? They want to pull the US back into the Victorian era, and eliminate our rights.

By voting against the Small Business bill, the Republicans can't even pretend to care about small to mid sized business anymore.

The Republicans stand against everything American, except Wall Street.

[krzeaz]

Yay for Gold's Gym! Now I know who to patronize. Stop the socialist takeover.

[sharkboy234]

DEMOCRATIC WILL WIN CONGRESS AND SENATE AND GOVERNOR BEAT THE REPUBLICANS HATE EM ALL RIGHT NOW SEND REPUBLICANS HOME RIGHT NOW!

[RobAla]

This is in San Francisco; not a very representative area of the nation. These people are far extremist left wing, and Democrat leaning. What do you expect?

[RobAla]

How about unions who support Democrats with funds, while many of the union members support Republicans? Groups are groups. If unions can give funds to parties and candidates, so can private businesses. No difference.

[bostonjim]

This is exactly why these people and companies don't want to publicise who they make donations to and vote for. There is always this huge Union, Special Interest, Immigration, etc. backlash that hurts their business. They want Republicans in office to get the economy going yet they are targeted by groups that seem able to mobilize huge numbers of people to protest, boycott, or sometimes intimidate the delivery of their product. It is a shame really. I live in Boston and would really like to have a Walmart so I can buy things on the cheap like rich liberals do in the suburbs, but I can't because they mobilize unions every time Walmart comes in to buy a lot to build. These liberals raise my sales taxes while they drive to New Hampshire every time they want to make a big purchase. If you are poor and live in my city I am forced to buy things at small family run shop or huge union supermarkets at twice the price. I mean who do they think they are helping by making the poor city dwellers with no car pay 2 or 3 times as much for an orange or a cell phone? I know companies that donate to Democrats but everybody doesn't protest them because they support illegal immigration you know? Many of these issues are hotly contested and often more popular in our country yet conservatives don't mobilise a small army to hold signs outside their doors. Who ever is doing this should consider that having a bunch of unemployed, or what, people working with flexible hours available all day to protest isn't something to brag about. If you have so many people available all day maybe you should address that issue rather than just promote divisive issues to create this class warfare.

[simpleconservative]

Heaven forbid he have a right to free speech and a right to support issues he deems important. This is just another example of the ILLiberal left who can not win on issues so they need to silence other views through intimidation and character assasination!

[incog-nito]

simpleconservative: Crying wolf again? They have the right to give to anybody they want. Nobody is stopping them. Others have the right to not do business with them.

[AnaBanana5]

Glad to know this because my daughter wanted to take boxing lessons at a Golds Gym in Sacramento. I'll nix that now.

[hhandyman]

thats what happens when the ceo is a republican that tosses budget to a political group of his personal choice not under control of the owners of the stock is stealing from the till thus the the rights to the speach that a company gives. That is the main error in supreme court decision that Money is speech
Thus the theft by a ceo of money used without the permission of the owners is an immoral use of speech for a political aim Thus the perfect example of why the Supreme court decision is less than perfect: when the Right forces its might to help pay for the spewing Of negative advertisement. Nafta Remember was written by the Right of the K street Republicans paid business to kick you out of work and export your job. and just like ScrOOge keep the CEO Chairman of the board ect keep their High dollar jobs.

[retm-w]

The unions do the same thing all the time, their members have no say in how much or who political contributions go to.

[RCC_Soldaten]

'Gold's Gym Faces Backlash After CEO Gives to GOP Group'

I'm confused here. Why is this a problem?

[pasha128]

It's called theft of stockholder equity without their permission (commonly referred to as fraud).