Maureen Mullarkey, Prop 8 Supporter

Maureen Mullarkey, the art critic and artist well-known to the gay community for her iconic portraits of drag queens and gay pride parades, was yesterday revealed by the NY Daily News to have contributed $1000 to Proposition 8.

Maureen Mullarkey, 66, made her sizable contribution to the National Organization for Marriage's "Yes on 8" fund in June, a Daily News review of campaign records found. The Westchester County woman was one of tens of thousands who poured a total of more than $83 million into the coffers of Proposition 8 support groups - money that helped convince California voters to overturn an earlier court decision granting gays the right to marry in the Golden State.

Questioned outside her home in tony Chappaqua - the same town where Bill and Hillary Clinton live - she refused to discuss her donation last night. When asked how she could have donated money to fight gay marriage after making money from her depictions of gays, she just said, "So? If you write that story, I'll sue you."

On her Web site, Mullarkey says gay parades are a "marvelous spectacle" and "assertion of solidarity." "It is an erotic celebration loosed for a day to keep us all mindful that Dionysus is alive, powerful and under our own porch," said Mullarkey, a former art critic for the now-defunct New York Sun. Gay activists felt betrayed at word of Mullarkey's donation. "If I were a buyer of her work, I wouldn't buy it anymore," said Charles Leslie, co-founder of Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in Manhattan.

I actually know somebody who owns a Mullarkey. I'll have to ask him about this.