Beyond Proposition 8 -- The Mormon (LDS) Church and Same-Sex Marriage

What is the Mormon (LDS) Church’s involvement in California’s Proposition 8 and other battles involving same sex marriage? -- see www.mormons-proposition8.com and www.prop8-mormon.com.

Some of the articles are included below:

Utah money helped push Prop 8 spending to historic levels

Donations -- Utahns contributed heavily to both sides

By Tony Semerad

The torrent of money that poured into campaigns for and against California's Proposition 8 may make it the costliest state ballot measure ever.

Contributions to both sides of the successful ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage have already topped a total of $75.2 million, according to disclosures filed with the California secretary of state. And almost 5 cents of every dollar came from Utah.

The picture may change when full financial reports are filed in late January, but documents now show Proposition 8's unsuccessful opponents actually out-raised supporters by about $1.9 million, yet still lost by 504,853 votes, a 4 percent margin.

''It was the most expensive social issue on a ballot anywhere,'' said Fred Schubert, a spokesman for ProtectMarriage.com, by far the biggest official fundraising group in favor of Proposition 8. ''I believe it simply reflects the passions people have surrounding the issue of marriage, on both sides,'' he said.

Those passions ran deep for Utahns, judging from the $3.6 million state residents contributed to the California campaigns. Fully 70 percent of Utah donations, or $2.58 million, went in support of the same-sex marriage ban, while $1.1 million was given to oppose it.

Utah ranked second only to California itself for total donations in support, while it ranked sixth for opposing donations, behind California and such heavily populated states as New York, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

Utah's big-dollar involvement can be linked to the LDS Church, the state's dominant institution, which urged churchgoers in a variety of ways to support the measure with their time and money. While Catholic and Evangelical churches and affiliated groups gave cash directly to support Prop 8, official Mormon involvement centered on nonmonetary and organizational aid, in addition to rallying church members, documents show.

''Mormon members were instrumental in the campaign, there's no question,'' Schubert said from his Sacramento office. ''They donated far in excess of their representation in the population.''

Utah's numbers also were pushed dramatically skyward by a public-giving duel between former Word Perfect executives Bruce Bastian and Alan Ashton, estranged friends on opposite sides of the issue who each threw $1 million into the fray.

Bastian, of Orem, is gay and has given to similar causes in the past. Ashton, a Lindon resident, is an active member of the LDS Church, former mission president and grandson of the late LDS Church President David O. McKay. After initially giving $5,000 to the anti-Prop 8 Human Rights Campaign in May, Bastian gave $1 million in July. Ashton countered with a $1 million donation to ProtectMarriage.com in October.

''I gave my money because I was fearful, when the church stepped in, of what would happen, and it happened,'' Bastian said. ''And I think other people like me were trying to counter what they saw the church doing.''

Bastian said Prop 8 and the LDS Church's involvement had pitted family members, churchgoers and work colleagues against one another across the country. ''There is a lot of anger and hurt and it's not going away.''

Ashton did not return calls seeking comment.

At least 720 Utahns donated to the Prop 8 battle between Jan. 1 and Election Day, reports show, with about 78 percent of them supporting Prop 8. Utah donors on both sides work from a diverse range of jobs, from software millionaires, engineers and attorneys to ranchers, housewives, retirees and self-employed filmmakers.

While the majority of Utah donors did not list their employer on California financial disclosures, the top employers among those who did were Brigham Young University, the LDS Church and the University of Utah.

Donations came from residents in 80 different Utah cities and towns, spanning 16 of Utah's 29 counties. Opponents tended to live in Utah's 26 largest cities, while supporters were spread among 76 communities, large and small.

A majority of Utah contributors to the opposing side came from Salt Lake City. Supporters were more widely dispersed around the state, with concentrations in Provo, Salt Lake City, Orem, Bountiful, St. George and Sandy.

Excluding the Bastian-Ashton donations, the average donation by Utah supporters was $2,792, while opponents averaged $440 apiece.

Opponents of Prop 8 have been combing through donation reports since their defeat, seeking in some cases to publicize and target big-ticket supporters with calls of business boycotts. Several Utah donors contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune refused to comment, citing fear of retaliation. One rural Utah business owner who made a five-figure donation in supporting the measure said he had received harassing calls.

Another donor, Janna Morrell, a homemaker from Providence, gave $15,000 to ProtectMarriage.com in the closing days of the campaign. Later, when one California-based anti-Prop 8 group began posting names of large contributors on its Web site, instead of worrying, the 42-year-old mother of 12 called to insist they include her.

''I'm going to stand up even in the face of danger," said Morrell, who is LDS and learned about the measure from her brother, a California resident active in the campaign. ''I believe strongly that Proposition 8 is not meant to be anti-gay but it is meant to be in favor of marriage.''

Salt Lake Tribune, November 22, 2008

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'8: The Mormon Proposition': Audacious look at church's role in gay-marriage ban

By Jen Chaney, Washington Post Staff Writer

It takes a certain amount of nerve for a former Mormon to make a film that takes on the Mormon Church for alleged political meddling in one of the biggest gay-rights battles in recent history.

It takes even more nerve to then unveil that movie in Utah, the home of Mormon Church headquarters and the epicenter of the Latter-day Saints faith.

Clearly Steven Greenstreet -- a Silver Spring resident, onetime adherent to the Mormon faith and co-director of "8: The Mormon Proposition," one of the buzzier documentaries to debut at this year's Sundance Film Festival -- isn't lacking in the audacity department. His film -- which the church has blasted as "obviously biased," even before its release -- examines the church's role in the contentious campaigns over Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban Californians voted into law in 2008.

"One way or another, we're going to put this movie in front of as many voters as possible across the nation," Greenstreet says by phone from Park City, where the annual celebration of indie cinema and studio dealmaking has been underway for the past week. "The people in California went to the ballot box with misinformation and lies orchestrated by billions of dollars raised by a church."

Using internal church documents and recordings of Mormon officials, and interviews with gay activists, political figures and former members of the church, Greenstreet and his fellow director, Miami journalist Reed Cowan, make the case that the church overstepped its bounds as a nonprofit, religious organization to ensure that Prop 8 passed. But the movie doesn't just focus on that single piece of legislation.

"8" also explores the broader impact of what the filmmakers describe as the church's historically intolerant attitude toward gays, using tales of suicide attempts by young Mormons struggling with their sexual orientations and men still grappling with memories of the shock treatments they endured in order to "cure" them of their homosexuality.

"We have a lot of numbers and money and politics in our film, but really, it's about the people and their stories," Greenstreet, 30, says.

The church has not addressed specific allegations in the film. Mormon officials do not appear on-camera, although we do hear a phone call between church spokeswoman Kim Farah and Cowan, who also was raised Mormon. "I think that we don't want to put ourselves front and center in a battle with the gay community," she tells him.

When The Washington Post requested comment, the church forwarded its official statement, also from Farah: "We have not seen '8: The Mormon Proposition.' However, judging from the trailer and background material online, it appears that accuracy and truth are rare commodities in this film. Although we have given many interviews on this topic, we had no desire to participate in something so obviously biased."

The anti-gay group America Forever has taken a more pugnacious stance against the documentary, issuing 80,000 faxes to its base that condemn the movie as a "hateful attack" on the church and declare: "Shame on Sundance" and "Shame on Reed Cowan."

Early reviews of "8" have been mixed. Daniel Fienberg, a blogger for the Web site Hitfix, dismissed it as "sloppily assembled propaganda," while the Salt Lake City Tribune called it "a vital, important cry for an open dialogue." Variety said the film "covers a lot of ground in a short space, not always in the most organized way, but on enough fronts to spark an informed dialogue."

All the attention has sparked interest from distributors, Greenstreet and Cowan say, although they haven't inked any agreements yet. Adding currency to the film is a closely watched federal court case in California regarding the constitutionality of Prop 8, as well as President Obama's recently announced desire to end the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Both filmmakers say their work on the movie has jeopardized relationships with their families, whose members continue to practice the Mormon faith. "I know they are hurt, and on so many levels, by the fact that I attach my name as a director to this film," says Greenstreet, whose parents still live in his home town of Pylesville, Md.

Cowan, 37, who grew up in the town of Roosevelt, Utah, and is openly gay, says he hasn't spoken to his sisters or father in six months. (He occasionally speaks to his mother.) "I'm sad to say my parents haven't gotten to any screenings yet," he says. "And they could."

Still, Greenstreet, who describes himself as a straight man and gay activist, doesn't regret his decision to make this film or to quit the faith that once defined his life.

"Leaving the church was a grueling and painful experience," he says. "It was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. But I am who I am today because of that decision."

Washington Post, January 30, 2010
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904041_pf.html

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Gay-marriage ruling brings split Utah reaction

By Rosemary Winters, The Salt Lake Tribune

The LDS Church expressed disappointment at the news from California. Hundreds of jubilant gay-marriage supporters marched around the church’s Temple Square in downtown Salt Lake City.On Wednesday, Utahns both panned and praised the decision of a federal judge in San Francisco to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that eliminated gay marriage in California. Two years ago, the campaign drew intense interest in Utah after the LDS Church urged its members to support Prop 8 with their cash and time. Utahns spent $3.8 million — most of it to defeat gay marriage — in the $83 million fight.

The federal ruling means, for now, gay marriage is legal — again —in the Golden State.

But Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has put a temporary hold on issuing marriage licenses while he gives opposing sides in the lawsuit, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, time to debate whether there should be a long-term stay during appeals, which could extend for years and stretch as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We have plans to go to California as soon as possible and make our marriage legal,” said Salt Lake City resident Jeff Key, who, on Wednesday, celebrated not only the ruling but the three-year-anniversary of his nonlegal wedding with his partner, Adam Nelson. “I’m feeling pretty proud to be an American right now.”

In fact, Key knelt on one knee at a Capitol Hill rally Wednesday evening and asked Nelson, “Will you remarry me?”

Nelson said “yes” to the cheers of nearly 400 supporters of gay marriage. The crowd, flying both rainbow and American flags, swelled to 600, said organizer Eric Ethington, as the group marched from the Capitol to LDS Church headquarters and around Temple Square.

“We’re all here. We’re all equal,” Ethington said before leading the march. “Get it through your head.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the LDS Church lamented the overturn of the ballot measure it helped to pass, spending nearly $200,000 on the campaign, according to campaign disclosures.

“California voters have twice been given the opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage in their state and both times have determined that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We agree,” said LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy. “Marriage between a man and woman is the bedrock of society.”

The church also called for “mutual respect” and “civility” in the ongoing debate over marriage.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, blasted Walker.

“This is what happens when judges make up the Constitution as they go along,” Hatch said in a statement.

Cliff Rosky, a law professor at the University of Utah, praised the analysis that went into the decision as “correct.” Walker concluded that Proposition 8 denied gay men and lesbians their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.

“Marriage is a fundamental right. The Supreme Court has made that very clear,” Rosky said. “I don’t think that same-sex marriage is so different than other forms of marriage that it becomes [excluded from] the right to marry.”

Brandie Balken, executive director of Equality Utah, agreed.

“Equality Utah has always believed that the Constitution does cover gay and transgender people,” she said. “We support full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, which includes the right to marry.”

In 2004, Utah voters approved a state constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage and civil unions.

If the Prop 8 lawsuit eventually lands in the U.S. Supreme Court, a decision there in favor of gay marriage could create a right for gay men and lesbians to marry in every state, said Bill Duncan, director of the Lehi-based Marriage Law Foundation.

Duncan, who filed a brief in the California lawsuit on behalf of religious groups siding with the Prop 8 defendants, disagrees with Walker’s ruling. “In order for something to be a fundamental right, it has to be deeply rooted in our nation’s history and tradition,” said Duncan, who filed an amicus.

“Same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in our nation’s history and tradition.”

Currently, same-sex marriages are allowed in Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

Salt Lake Tribune, August 5, 2010
See http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50052100-76/marriage-gay-decision-ruling.html.csp

Religious freedom under siege, Mormon leader says

Dallin H. Oaks describes an 'informal conspiracy of correctness to scrub out references to God' in the U.S. Many Americans find little evidence that religious liberty is threatened.

By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints threw itself into the public square in 2008, when it played a central role in the campaign for Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California. Mormon support helped win that battle, but one of the church's top leaders is worried about losing a much larger struggle.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of 12 leaders, known as apostles, who help govern the Mormon Church, delivered his message Friday in a speech at Chapman University in Orange: The 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion is under siege, he said, threatened by a growing secularization of society and constrained by the inroads made by a vigorous gay rights movement.

"For some time," he said, "we have been experiencing laws and official actions that impinge on religious freedom."

Oaks, a former law professor and Utah Supreme Court justice, has been making speeches along these lines for more than 25 years, and says the climate has been getting worse for religious rights. "It was apparent 25 years ago, and it is undeniable today," he said.

Some may find his timing odd, coming after the church's ballot box victory in California and at a time when the Mormons are experiencing unprecedented success in other realms. Membership is growing, with surveys showing that slightly less than 2% of Americans now identify themselves as Mormons. And there is the real possibility that two Mormons, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., may run for president in 2012, suggesting a level of acceptance in American society that was once unthinkable.

But Oaks' concerns, he said, are not specific to Mormonism and apply equally to other faiths. "It is easy to believe," he said, "that there is an informal conspiracy of correctness to scrub out references to God and the influence of religion in the founding and preservation of our nation."

Oaks' speech received a standing ovation from his audience of about 800 law students, lawyers and others at Chapman's Memorial Hall. He clearly was tapping into a concern of many Americans: A 2008 Pew survey found that the country was almost evenly divided on the question of whether religious influence on government was increasing or decreasing. Among those who saw it decreasing, the majority said it was a bad trend.

But many Americans find little evidence that religious liberty is threatened.

"I hadn't noticed that," deadpanned Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates a robust separation of church and state. She questioned whether Oaks was simply feeling "wounded" by criticism of the Mormon Church's role in the Proposition 8 campaign.

"There's a real irony," she continued, "because he doesn't understand the meaning of religious freedom.… What they want to do is to curtail freedom for gays. They're not for freedom. They're for theocracy in matters of marriage.…They're not so different from the Islamists, the mullahs."

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, has been following Oaks' statements from a unique vantage point. A lawyer, she is a former Mormon who grew up in Utah and has a familial perspective on the church.

"The church has a view about men and women and how they come together and how they form families that does not include same-sex relationships. And that's fine. I have no quarrel with that," Kendell said. But the church also has "a view that civic life should be a reflection of Mormon Church doctrine," she added. "And I doubt that that is a vision that is shared by most of America."

Kendell said there is no evidence that people of faith are being targeted for discrimination. "What a certain stripe of religious adherents are asking for is actually an exemption, a free pass, from laws that apply generally to everyone else — for example, nondiscrimination protections," she said.

In his speech and in an interview, Oaks said he didn't want to dwell on same-sex marriage. But the examples he cited of intrusions on religious liberty were almost all related to that debate. He cited, for instance, a New Mexico case in which the state Human Rights Commission held that a private photographer had discriminated against a couple by declining to photograph their same-sex commitment ceremony, and a case in New Jersey in which the United Methodist Church was penalized for denying a same-sex couple access to a church-owned pavilion frequently used for weddings.

What if, Oaks was asked, the photographer or church had refused to serve the couples because they were African American — or Mormon? "It's a good question," he said. "And it gets into a philosophical point.… There is always a legitimate question about whether the power of government should be used to interfere with individual choices."

In the case of the photographer, Oaks said there might be room for discussion about whether the customers' civil rights were violated. In the other case, however, he said it was "monstrous" to compel a church to allow its property to be used for something that violated its principles.

Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2011

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Prop 8 involvement a P.R. fiasco for LDS Church

The campaign offered fuel for critics

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

Although they live a continent away from California, LDS Church members Gregory and JaLynn Prince, of Washington, D.C., still have felt the backlash from their church's involvement in the traditional marriage initiative known as Proposition 8.

Their daughter, Lauren, a Boston University student, has lost friends over the issue, while their son, an LDS missionary in San Bernardino, Calif., has had a disproportionate number of potential converts cancel appointments.

About two weeks ago, during a first-ever class on Mormonism at Wesley Theological Seminary, where the Princes have built bridges for years, students pointedly asked them: "What was your church thinking?"

"We are not taking sides on the issue, but the way this was done has hurt our people and the church's image," JaLynn Prince said. "It reminds me of the naive public relations strategy we had regarding the Equal Rights Amendment."

In some minds, the so-called "Mormon moment" heralded at the start of 2008 has stopped short.

Just 10 months after the death of LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, who spent nearly 70 years burnishing his church's public image, goodwill toward Mormonism that culminated during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games seems to have faded in a haze of misunderstanding and outright hostility.

Mean-spirited critiques of Mormonism during Mitt Romney's unsuccessful presidential campaign were followed by persistent news-media reports linking Latter-day Saints to the FLDS polygamous sect raided by Texas authorities. Now, angry opponents of Proposition 8 are demonstrating at Mormon temples, accusing the church of being anti-gay.

New President Thomas S. Monson faces a daunting public-relations challenge. He follows the well-respected Hinckley, who observers say had an intuitive gift for balancing the church's need to speak out on moral issues with the need to avoid appearing too extreme.

"The Olympics had this nice afterglow for Mormons and, boy, is that gone," said Sarah Barringer Gordon of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies LDS history and culture.

LDS Church apostles declined to be interviewed for this story, but the public affairs office did respond to questions.

"All in all, 2008 has been a particularly good year for the church," LDS spokesman Scott Trotter said. "The church dedicated four temples and announced eight more. Membership topped 13 million worldwide with over 52,000 missionaries in the field. While some of the protest activity we have seen has been deplorable, there are others who have taken the time to fully understand the church's position on marriage and home to respect this principled stand."

Gary Lawrence added his own optimistic view.

"These protests will help us. It puts a spotlight on us," said Lawrence, a leader in the Proposition 8 campaign and author of How Americans View Mormonism: Seven Steps to Improve Our Image.

"Which is worse -- antagonism or apathy? I believe apathy is our bigger enemy."

Following the pattern --- In a 1997 memo about the LDS Church's involvement in the campaign against gay marriage in Hawaii, the late Loren C. Dunn, then a general authority, noted that Hinckley approved Mormon participation but said "the church should be in a coalition and not out front by itself."

In the case of the Proposition 8, which supported a constitutional amendment to define marriage as solely between a man and a woman, the LDS Church only joined the Coalition to Protect Marriage in June after being asked by Catholic Archbishop George H. Niederauer of San Francisco, who presided over Utah Catholics for 11 years. The LDS First Presidency in a letter urged all California Mormons to give their time and money to the effort.

Ostensibly just part of a broad-based coalition, the Mormon faithful soon led the drive. They donated nearly half of the $20 million raised by Yes on 8, canvassed neighborhoods and staffed phone banks. Because the LDS Church routinely asks its members to give time and money, Mormons are "uniquely situated to be mobilized into politics," said David Campbell, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame. "But they only get mobilized when a match is lit, and that doesn't happen very often."

The Mormon push for Proposition 8 reinforces what people already think of Mormons, he said, "that they have a lot of money and are willing to work for a socially conservative cause."

That image may hurt the LDS Church with a wide swath of the American public.

Mark Silk, professor of religion in public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., thinks the visceral opposition to Proposition 8 is much more consequential for the LDS Church than either the Romney campaign or the perceived association with polygamy.

LDS officials decided to inject themselves in the fight to protect traditional marriage "in a big money way," Silk said. "That raises the specter not just of Mormon weirdness but also Mormon power as far as cash on the barrel."

Mormons could be forgiven for underestimating the opposition, he said. They likely thought they were on the winning side. After all, marriage initiatives have passed in about 30 states. But California is not an average state.

"People expect anti-gay referendums to pass -- and they do -- but it's California, for crying out loud," Silk said, ". . . not Zion."

Benefits of battle -- On the opposite side, are observers such as Kirk Jowers of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, who think the LDS Church actions may help it win friends among Evangelicals.

"Other members of this coalition may realize the significant role that LDS Church members played," and see that it took a disproportionate share of the opposition's arrows, he said.

The Rev. Jim Garlow is one of those evangelical allies.

Last week, Garlow, of Skyline Church in San Diego, was so outraged by the protests against Mormons that he e-mailed 7,200 California pastors urging them to "speak boldly" in defense of the LDS role in passing Proposition 8.

"We were not going to stand by and be silent while there was anti-Mormonism in the streets," Garlow said Friday. "Our theological differences with Mormonism are, frankly, unbridgeable, but these are our friends and neighbors and attacks on them are unacceptable."

The Proposition 8 campaign deepened his relationship with Mormons, he said, and the protests have solidified it.

It is not clear, however, whether the LDS Church will soon jump into another political fray.

"Politics is a tough game, especially at this visceral level where one side is talking about religion and the other about rights, " said Gordon, the Penn scholar. "I would be surprised to see them do this again. They really need to heal some wounds."

The Salt Lake Tribune, November 22, 2008