Hot on the heels of yesterday’s federal court ruling in Sacramento that Protect Marriage and the Yes on 8 campaign must comply with California law and disclose the name, occupation and employer of anyone contributing $100.00 or more to their campaign, Buffy, blogging at The Gayatheist Agenda, has revealed a remarkable document this morning.
First a little background. Two weeks ago I wrote that the Mormon Church claimed it had only given a few thousand dollars to eliminate marriage equality in California. In a press release following the decision yesterday, Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate reminded us that, “The Mormon Church is currently under an active investigation by the California Fair Political Practices Commission – FPPC (Case # 080735) for allegedly not reporting what could amount to be hundreds of thousands of dollars of non monetary contributions to the Yes on 8 campaign.”
Both factors made the Yes on 8′s lawyers filing of a lawsuit in federal court to allow them to hide their donor list from the public seem more than a bit suspicious.
From The Gaytheist Agenda:
The Mormon Church donated nothing other than $2,000 to fly some church officials to a meeting! That was the biggest lie of all and no doubt the primary impetus behind the lawsuit asking for donor’s information to be made private. Yes, they claimed it was because of harassment and threats, but as can be seen by the linked lawsuit there are no valid complaints to warrant their requests. No. They were hiding something, something they desperately wanted to keep under wraps, and what it was is now available for all to see.
On November 3, 2008, ProtectMarriage.com received a contribution of $30,354.85 from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You read that right. The Mormon Church donated more than $30 thousand dollars to eradicate the right of same-sex couples to marry.
(emphasis and links from the original)
Click here to take a look at the PDF of a California Form 497, which is a Late Contribution Report of a donation by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to Protectmarriage.com – Yes On 8, A Project Of California Renewal on 3 November 2008. That the PDF is online at cal-access.sos.ca.gov seems to imply legitimacy.
Fred Karger, yesterday, reminded us:
The Mormon Church is in the midst of a self admitted PR offensive to recessitate its wounded image as a result of their heavy handed involvement in the Yes on Prop 8 campaign (see ABC’s Nightline segment from January 9, 2009 ).
It seems that any public relations offensive on the part of a religious institution would be severely wounded by the public revelation that the church had told a bald-faced lie in its attempt to cover up the true extent of its involvement in a political campaign.
The final filing date with California’s Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, is 31 January 2009 (tomorrow), but the donor information may not be made available until 3 February 2009. It will be interesting to see what the Yes on 8 side was so eager to hide. As Judge Morrison England Jr said in his decision yesterday, “If there ever needs to be sunshine on a political issue, it is with a ballot measure.”
That is especially true of this ballot measure.
