ACLU does quite a bit more than just support gay marriage, though. If they do a lot of things you think are great, and a few you're meh about, it's still good to donate.

The people who donate primarily for the gay marriage fight don't get to earmark their money either.

Yeah, and that was kinda my point.

I don't see why they don't make it possible to earmark money - I think they would end up getting a LOT more funding:

People that don't want to fund gay marriage advocacy would donate to the issues that they find more important, and people that feel strongly about gay marriage would donate more because they know it would all go towards their pet issue.

There's other charities with a narrower focus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_Marry

Yeah, marriage is overrated. It's not worth fighting for.

Or are you straight and hence it doesn't affect you? Kinda defeats the point of donating to charities...

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. I can't provide health insurance to my partner and we pay quite a bit more in taxes than a married couple.

I would like to not pay more because of whom I choose to marry.

I'm all for marrying who you want, but if you live in the US your tax comment doesn't make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_penalty

Umm... did you actually read the link that you just cited? “Multiple factors are involved, but in general, lower to middle income couples usually benefit from filing as a married couple, while upper income couples are often penalized.”