Mormongate -- The Church's Cover-up of its Prop 8 Funding

Late last Friday, January 30th, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filled a Major Donor Report with the California Secretary of State listing $189,903.58 in non-momentary expenditures on behalf of Protectmarriage.com -- Yes on Prop 8. The Mormon Church finally admitted directly spending a huge sum of money as part of its monumental effort to end same-sex marriage in California.

The Church waited until 5:00 pm on Friday, one business day ahead of the required filing date of February 2nd, to turn in its first report detailing at least some of its involvement in the Prop 8 campaign. This was clearly timed by the Mormon Church and its attorneys to try and stay out of the media's eye. This is an age old political trick, dumping bad news late Friday afternoon, but one that has not gone undetected.

The Mormon Church has repeatedly lied about its involvement in California's Prop 8. Don Eaton, a Mormon Church spokesman, told KGO Television (ABC) in November, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put zero money in this [the passage of Prop. 8]."

Up until Election Day, November 4th, the Mormon Church had only filed one non-monetary contribution, and that was reported just 4 days before the election for a mere $2,078.97. As founder of Californians Against Hate , this prompted me to file a sworn complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Karger hoped that an investigation by the FPPC would determine exactly how much money was really spent by the Salt Lake City based Church on behalf of the Yes on 8 campaign.

Right after the complaint was filed on November 13, 2008 Church spokesman Scott Trotter said the allegations are "false" and the complaint has "many errors and misstatements."

They said that the Church worked closely with its California political attorneys to comply with the law, and that it did not need to file anything further.

Eight days later when the FPPC announced it was launching an investigation into the Church's expenditures, a Mormon spokesman said that they would send all necessary information to the FPPC for its investigation. Then days later, it switched its position once again, and said that it had complied by all election laws and it did not need to report any money spent, only its members did.

Then on December 1st ProtectMarriage.com -- the official Yes on 8 committee --
filed an amended campaign report showing $19,715.08 in legal expenditures made by the Mormon Church way back on June 23rd -- 5 months late! This was reported 10 days after the FPPC had announced its investigation.

No other expenditures were reported until last Friday when the Mormon Church filed a Major Donor Report with the Secretary of State for an additional $170,072.18. Most of this was spent during October with 3 small expenditures from September. This included lots of travel expenses with 26 tickets purchased on Southwest Airlines alone. They reported $96,849.31 spent on one day (November 4th) in "compensated staff time" that appears was just for Election Day activities.

In its latest campaign report filed over this past weekend for the period October 19th to December 31st, ProtectMarriage.com reported 4 non-monetary contributions from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. The first was dated October 25th for the formerly reported travel expenses of $2078.97, then two on November 1st -- one for more travel expenses $2864.21, and $19,715.08 for legal expenses and a final entry for November 3rd for staff salaries of $30,354.83. This totals $55,031.11 and it's odd that ProtectMarriage.com coincidentally reported all the Church's contributions after the October 19th cutoff to try and avoid any fines or FPPC penalties for itself. However, the amounts and dates are not the same as those reported by the Mormon Church.

Last June, in his now famous letter read to every Mormon Church, President Monson announced plans for the Church to become extremely active in the Prop 8 campaign. Their fundraising took off soon after that. Mormon families were contributing over $300,000 per day by late July and over $500,000 per day by early August. This money kept pouring in though Election Day bringing the total Mormon money to Prop 8 to nearly $25 million.

Gary Lawrence, the Mormon Church's "Grass Roots Coordinator," started his activities well before he sent out his August 7, 2008 memo posted on his web site. It detailed the grassroots Mormon Campaign Plan.

Show us the money!

Where are the rest of your non-monetary expenditures Mormon Church? What about the phone banks, precinct walks, all the slick videos and commercials, direct mail, buses, legal bills from your California political law firm, etc.? They could not all have occurred until late September and October. It is clear that you began your work in June.

And why didn't ProtectMarriage.com report any earlier non-monetary contributions from the Mormon Church? Their report does not match up with yours.

The California Political Reform Act was passed by the voters 35 years ago and has been very effective in keeping our campaigns honest and fair. It certainly appears to us that the Mormon Church did everything possible to avoid complying with our election law, and only now, after an active investigation is underway by the FPPC (Case # 080735), did it decide to finally report some of its expenditures.

California's election law is designed to let the voters know exactly where the money is coming from to fund our initiative and candidate campaigns. If the voters of California were aware of the massive expenditures by the Mormon Church prior to voting on November 4th, the results of the close Prop 8 election might have been very different.

Comments

[desertson]

The SL tribune also did a pretty extensive expose on this story over the weekend. The Deseret News (as expected) was completely silent.

This is certainly not the first time the LDS church has interfered in political matters, but perhaps it's the most blatant. A similar effort was conducted in Hawaii back in the 90s over the same issue. I guess the success of the effort then and the lack of any repercussions emboldened them on the CA proposition.

The Mormon church should have it's tax exempt status repealed over this.

[ChinoBlanco]

Utah's ABC4 did a two-day running segment on Mormongate. Fred, as usual, did great, but it's also gratifying to see a local Utah station covering this story:

Mormongate: LDS Church responds to FPPC investigation with last-minute reporting of Prop 8 donations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktFi_tCS0fM

Mormongate: New questions emerge about LDS Church Prop 8 contributions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40n04elgqJA

In the second vid, watch as Chris Vanocur (the local reporter) slips into high dudgeon over the discrepancies ... cracked me up.

[jqcitizen]

Religion and Politics. What a wonderful thing to 'Invent' a war over.

Forget your religion and your favorite politician and we won't fight anymore.

[LymanKirkland]

Some additional context about this latest filing should be helpful to readers: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/church-clarifies-proposition-8-filing-corrects-erroneous-news-reports

[woodsywizz]

Look, I'm an ordinary citizen (read, "victim") of a Red State, Texas. But at least here, we declare our loyalties. We don't hide about our feelings. The Church of Latter Day Saints has unlawfully invovled itself in a political matter. Can we fix it?

[Nikola Tesla]

Hear Mark Oliver & Clark Pingree from "Mormons for Marriage" articulate the alternative Mormon Viewpoint @ http://www.trifecta.tv/prop8/pod_casts/Mark%20Oliver%20Clark%20Pingree-iPhone.mov

[VikingQuest]

We can point fingers at the Mormon church all you want but they didn't make or break prop 8 so what is the point here?

Are we thinking Romney might run again in 2012?

Obama said he believes marriage is between a man and a woman thus has the same view as the majority of Mormons and the majority of Californians.

Bottom line, if Obama voters in CA decided they wanted to have gay marriage, they easily could have.

[Nikola Tesla]

Prop 8 is a violation of the California State Constitution.

Legal Arguments @ http://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/articles/proposition-8-challenged.html

California State Senator explains the case at the Nov. 15th Prop 8 Protest
@ http://www.trifecta.tv/prop8/pod_casts/Mark%20Leno-iPhone.mov

[JohnBisceglia]

What BOGGLES my mind is why lawmakers, politicians, judges, etc., (you know, those who SHOULD KNOW BETTER), why in the hell did they ALLOW a PROP 8 in the first place?

If Prop 8 is truly a violation of the California State Constitution, and I think it is, then how can ANYTHING that is such a blatant violation go through months of planning and process?

It is ridiculous that we have to wait months (years?) for law makers to repeal PROP 8 and figure out how to do their job.

[SD Indy]

Obama is just like John Kerry, he was for it before he was against it.

[Kortni]

I agree with VikingQuest (victory!); this makes no difference. The Church never hid the fact that they were against this; neither has the Catholic church; nor President Obama and Vice-President Obama. This is a moot point. Prop 8 did not pass and drudging this up makes no difference.
The involvement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not hidden the fact that a large sum was donated to fight Prop 8; this was highly publicized in the media, locally and nationally.

[desertson]

The "point" is that the LDS church is a tax exempt organization. Money spent for political purposes by ANY person or organization is fully taxable and does not qualify as a charitable donation. The IRS code specifically prohibits tax exemptions for money used to effect politics. You can't hide your political activities under the "charitable contributions" blanket.

That's exactly the way it should be.

[desertson]

The other problem with Prop 8 is that it is much, much more than simply a "difference of opinion", as many defenders of similar laws argue. Prop 8 is actually even worse because the CA Supreme Court had already ruled that the state constitution already afforded such rights. Prop 8 took them away.

Prop 8 and all other similar laws use majority rule to deny rights and privileges to a select group of citizens that other citizens freely enjoy. Mortgage tax deductions, inheritance rights, income tax deductions, health insurance benefits, life insurance benefits, parental custody and adoption rights, just to name a few.

[Morcat]

For decades, the Mormons have had a campaign to market themselves to the US as "just another mainstream" church, but their history, beliefs and practices betray them. They are radicals, and their beliefs are no more closely related to Christianity than are those of Islam -- perhaps not as closely as Islam, actually. It isn't surprising that they would consider themselves above the law, but this level of dishonesty is astounding.

[KHAAANNN]

Hey, when you already own one state (Utah) why not try to take over another one?
Baby steps, baby steps. They have time (and tons of money) on their side.