Who Is The Mystery Man Behind Prop 8?

Who is funding California's Prop 8, the country's most controversial ballot measure? The Mormons' donations are well known, and are a source of outrage among the church's more moderate elements. But little attention has been focused on two of the proposition's biggest individual donors: Elsa Broekhuizen, the mother of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, and Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., the reclusive theocratic millionaire who inherited $300 million from his philanthropist father at age 18.

When I profiled Ahmanson in a 2004 article for Salon.com, I became the first journalist in 20 years to interview him. Yesterday I resurrected my reporting for The Daily Beast, updating it to cover Ahmanson's recent machinations, particularly his role in Prop 8. As I wrote, Ahmanson few Americans have heard of Ahmanson -- and that's the way he likes it. His extreme politics and eccentric personality reveal the draconian underside of a ballot measure billed by its proponents as "pro-family."

During a 1985 interview with the Orange County Register, Ahmanson summarized his political agenda: "My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives."

Though Ahmanson's rhetoric has softened over the years, his politics are derived from the radical Christian Reconstructionist theology of R.J. Rushdoony, a far-right theologian who advocated replacing the US Constitution with biblical law. "God's government prevails," Rushdoony wrote, "and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them." Those eligible on Rushdoony's long list for execution included disobedient children, unchaste women, apostates, blasphemers, practitioners of witchcraft, astrologers, adulterers, and, of course, anyone who engaged in "sodomy or homosexuality."

Rushdoony was the father Ahmanson never had, bringing him to radical right-wing Christianity not long after the anxiety-ridden, Tourette's-afflicted scion of wealth checked out of the Menninger Clinic. Ahmanson bankrolled Rushdoony's religious empire; in return, Rushdoony made Ahmanson a board member of his think tank, Chalcedon, which to this day advocates theocratic revolution in the United States. Ahmanson and his wife were at Rushdoony's bedside when he died in 2001.

(Read the full story on Ahmanson here).

My article is accompanied at the Daily Beast by a new video by Michael Wilson, creator of the brilliant documentary, Silhouette City. Wilson also co-produced my video documentary about Sarah Palin's belief in spiritual warfare, "In The Land Of Queen Esther."

On November 2, Wilson went to San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium to cover "The Call," an 80,000-strong Pentecostal rally for Prop 8. The Call organizer, Lou Engle, gathered his troops together for several days of fasting and prayer to stop what he called the "sexual insanity" of Prop 8 opponents. The rally culminated with Engle imploring his fervent crowd to become martyrs, to be willing to lay down their lives for the cause.

(Click here to see Wilson's video.)

The defeat of Prop 8 would be a nightmare for the Christian right. As Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said of the ballot measure, "It's more important than the presidential election... We will not survive [as a nation] if we lose the institution of marriage."

But behind the Christian right's panicked pleas for preserving "traditional marriage" lies a more deep-seated fear. California's rejection of Prop 8 would represent a decisive repudiation of the theocratic fantasy outlined by Rushdoony and mainstreamed by Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Lou Engle and countless evangelical minions. Ahmanson has spent what he could to keep his mentor's dream alive, but the movement's nightmare may arrive nonetheless.

Comments

[MarkBoston]

it seems the people of CA care more about Farm Animals wellbeing More than they care for fellow human beings lives and happiness . It simply dumbfounds me to know that there some people who actually believe that they are superior to other fellow Americans who are born with the same rights as themselves­.. yet fell THEY have the RIGHT to vote on gay Americans lives !!! What is this , the mid east here???? How can one group vote on the constitutional rights of someone else ?? What happened to the concept of constitutional rights that protect a minority from the tyranny of a majority ?? I believe that if prop 8 is passed , it will be held up in the courts for years and blocked during the process. It is repugnant to amend the CA constitution to actually take away rights from anyone based on religious fanaticism.

[DMHopper]

Thankfully, it's not ahead by much (only 60-70% of precincts have reported as I write this). For all the right-winger's efforts, they managed to take a 22 point lead on Prop 22 (the law overturned by the state supreme court last May), and turn it into a 4 point lead 8 years later. If they keep up the good work, Prop 8 will be repealed by the time Obama is term-limited out of office.

[JohnBisceglia]

Thank you Max for some important information many of us have not even heard about in the MSM.

Given the amount of money Elsa Broekhuizen and Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. have, and since they are intent on using their MONEY to BUY BACK the civil rights recently given to California's LGBT community (rights that SHOULD HAVE NEVER EVER EVER BEEN PUT UP FOR A VOTE), perhaps they would be happy to pay the federal taxes of all LGBT Americans. After all, they paid for their theocracy's laws, maybe they should fund it also.

I am so over being "nice" while begging and pleading for civil marriage; perhaps if PROP 8 passes more LGBT Americans will also get FED UP. I mean REALLY fed up.

But seriously, heterosexuals of America, do you REALLY think ALL of us (gays) will nod politely and file our tax returns given these attacks on our family? Or will more of us do what millionaire Charles Merrill and others are deciding to do - DEMAND, not ask, DEMAND for equality for our beloved FAMILIES and CHILDREN.

[Jim Pivonka - Huffpost Blogger]

Digg it! Please, everyone, hit your Digg, Reddit, etc. accounts, and get this story up at the top of the list.

Write your local papers about it.

Get on Google, research the Dominionists, Reconstructionists, Joel's Army, etc, till you understandwhat this is about and why it must be exposed and fought.

If you are churched, make sure your church leaders and ministers recognize this movement as heterodox, and have explicitely rejected it and protected your church from being "steeplejacked" by its subversive agents.

This has to be done by the grassroots - especially by orthodox Christian grassroots, so that the MSM and politician can finally lose their fear of addressing the issues this movement raises for the future of our nation.

[MessageForceMultiplier]

Biblical law? On the plus side, kosher hot dogs are much better. On the bad side, I like blended fabrics.

[Jim Pivonka - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you so much for this contribution. Finally this story - not the Ahmonson story but the larger one, Reconstructionist Dominionism - is beginnning to get some small part of the attention it deserves. This is a story that has to be told and retold, until it becomes MSM material and is widely understood by every reporter and serious citizen of our endangered Republic.

[Amunaka]

More on.... Howard F. Ahmanson Jr


According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.

“On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),” wrote The Independent last November.

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/834


THE WEDGE STRATEGY
CENTER FOR THE RENEWAL OF SCIENCE & CULTURE

INTRODUCTION

Governing Goals

To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.


http://www.kcfs.org/Fliers_articles/Wedge.html

[knowBuddhaU]

Here's where an understanding of what I'm saying gets lost on most people: I think it perfectly human to reject reduction to "just a particle," or "just a cog in a machine."

Please read my post about Stephen Jay Gould's announcement that reductionism is dead, and with it, dies the Newtonian Mechanism metaphor for life.

Humans need to be explained, understood, studied, comprehended AS HUMANS.

We are more than the sum of our parts, no?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/opinion/19GOUL.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=8d10fa6185fdca8f&ex=1225947600

From its late 17th century inception in modern form, science has strongly privileged the reductionist mode of thought that breaks overt complexity into constituent parts and then tries to explain the totality by the properties of these parts and simple interactions fully predictable from the parts. ("Analysis" literally means to dissolve into basic parts). The reductionist method works triumphantly for simple systems -- predicting eclipses or the motion of planets (but not the histories of their complex surfaces), for example. But once again -- and when will we ever learn? -- we fell victim to hubris, as we imagined that,

***in discovering how to unlock some systems, we had found the key for the conquest of all natural phenomena.­***

Will Parsifal ever learn that only humility (and a plurality of strategies for explanation) can locate the Holy Grail?" [end Gould quote]

Or, as I like to put it:

KNOCK-KNOCK
(who's there?)
AMERICA!
(um, erica who?)
KNOW AMERICA YOU!

[StopCensoringMe]

Prop 8 is yet another superb example of why I feel legislation by ballot is a terrible idea. This country was founded on the principle of REPRESENTATIVE democracy, not direct democracy. When the simplistic legislation that finds its way onto our ballots becomes nothing more that fodder for litigation (expensive to the tax payers) and the 'set in stone' BS law, we as a people lose. While I have certainly enjoyed the low property taxes on my homes here in California as a result of Proposition 13 (that freezes property taxes at the price paid at transfer..­.with minor adjustments) it has proven the undoing of our budgets on a statewide basis. Cities, counties, and now the entire state are in the red without an effective way to generate more revenue. We hold elections to send REPRESENTATIVES to our capitols to solve these issues through thought-out, debated well-written legislation. Yes, the sometimes get it wrong. Sometimes they make poor choices. Thus, two years later, we throw that bum out and try another. But amending the state's constitution to PROMOTE discrimination and bigotry is a symptom of all that is wrong with this country.

No on 8
and No to Popular Referendum
thus no to bigotry by ballot

[blueraven]

It's the sad part of a necessary act to get the grip of Southern Pacific off our state legislature. I'm considering the wisdom of a ballot initiative requiring a 2/3 majority to pass if it amends the state Constitution. Maybe add in "volunteer signature-gatherers only".

[bobsmith]

This is a perfect example of why I believe that the inheritance tax is crucial for our survival as a free society. Let someone pass on maybe one million per person (indexed to inflation) - perhaps 3 million for a disabled child. Tax the rest at 100%. Use the proceeds to pay for post-secondary training for promising students with a good plan, and business start-up costs for young people with solid business plans. This would ensure that the best and brightest youngsters in the country have the tools necessary to move the country forward into perpetuity. It would also help to eliminate the damage caused by the shiftless, worthless offspring of the mega-wealthy No more Bushes, or Walton kids, or Scaifes, or any of the other nameless, faceless, do-nothings that the mega-wealthy tend to leave behind for the rest of us to clean up after. Level the playing field every generation.

[ManUtd]

Or Kennedys, or Heinz-Kerrys etc.

Yes. Taxes are the answer to everything. I would go even further and say that the government should be in control of every red cent that anyone in this country possesses. In fact, we should all simply be issued a cash card with a monthly allowance and be told precisely what to spend our money on. If we tried to do something that wasn't in line with the government's mandate, then the transaction would not be approved. And then, I want to be assigned a government job where I am on a sub-committee that will determine if the period goes on the inside, or the outside of the quotation marks in all government documents. All of this will be fantastic.

[mkw408]

That is a scary thought. Regardless of what their views are, their families earned that money. They should be able to give it to whomever they want. It is ridiculous to tax at the rate you propose. I think the death tax is ridiculous and should stay exactly where it is at. You solution wouldn't give any incentive to succeed. The problem in America is our blind consumption and nonexistent savings. We are wasting our resources on the military industrial complex and greedy, and shallow consumerism. Our priorities are completely out of wack. The current rise of religious fundamentalism is nothing more than a last gasp of breath as the world shakes some of these crazy idea. There is absolutely no incentive to succeed. There are rare circumstances that the money is used in such an extreme manner as Ahmanson Jr did. Most inherited money never makes it past the person generation that receives it. The family members tend to squander the money through incompetence and waste. It all makes it back into the system.

[knowBuddhaU]

Earned? Or sequestered under laws written by their peers, for their peers, to hell with the impoverished people who worked and bled to create that wealth?

[liberalladylawyer]

The California Supreme Court, the majority of which is Republican, in ruling in favor of allowing same sex marriage, upheld the California Constitution's due process clause which EXPRESSLY prohibits denying equal protection of the State's laws to, among other protected classes, homosexuals.

Because many same sex couples are permitted to adopt children, equal protection under the law includes binding these couples to the provisions of the California Family Law Act (child support, spousal support, community property division).

If for no other reason, the children of these couples should have the equal protection of the laws the marriage of their parents will require.

No on Prop 8.

[faith]

I have just received a robocall that uses Barack Obama's voice in defining marriage and then the call says vote yes on prop 8. Prop 8 is the anti gay initiative to change the California Constitution. Who ever initiated the call is surely taking Obama's statement out of context and misusing his likeness for their personal gain. Any ideas out there on who to contact to report this?

[Survivallady]

How can we overcome hate and have real tolerance in this country if we keep letting issues like this divide us. This is a simple case of if you vote yes, you are taking away equal rights. If you're a woman, this should be especially disgusting to you. We ourselves are one step away from being refused equal rights. Really, really think about this. Everyone has a right to life, liberty and happiness. It's not a moral question, it's an equal rights question.

www.survivallady.com

[VeroucaSalt]

Nutjobs, the lot of them! I voted NO on prop 8.

Who cares if two people of the same sex get married? It doesn't affect me. Nor does anyone who chooses to be a religious zealot. I don't stand in the way of anyone who wants to experience happiness, however they choose to pursue it, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights, safety, or wellbeing of others.

These people need to buy an island and practice their zealotry outside the realm of those of us who don't care to be exposed to it.

[scadabout]

They already have an "Island" it's called Alaska. The Socialist, Welfare State of the Union.

[gggaaabbb]

These people are crazy!!!!! Anyways, I was wondering who was sponsering because the yes8 yard signs are everywhere I turn!!!!! It drives me crazy. There are even large electronic billboard signs that read "Yes on 8." It's not nice. I was at a rally and someone said I was delusional for thinking that I deserve equal rights, and I really needed to stop with the gay agenda. hahaha. delusional? they're wrong and they really need to look at themselves in the mirror.

[tdpubs]

This article is the reason that the Founding Fathers and Teddy Roosevelt fought so hard to keep the estate tax going. It is easy for sons and daughters of great wealth to fall prey to charlatans and kooks. It is even worse when these kids of privilege feel that they are entitled to power.
Richard Mellon Scaffe and others constantly try to interfere in our democracy. The greatest threat to our Union is the super wealthy who feel that our Constitution is just a piece of paper.

[taeloanita]

If Prop 8 passes, the wish of replacing the constitution with the bible wil be well on it's way to becoming a reality. This is very sad that the radical, ignorant religious right has clawed its way this far into our American sociial fabric. I hope we take a stand today, vote no on Prop 8, and reverse the alarming trend.

[nikkiazz2fat]

that's far from the truth especially in California. Californians have spoken on this issue twice yet the San Fran supreme court tried to force it upon Californians. Just because he is a far right crazy radical does NOT mean every one voting Yes on prop 8 shares his views. There is no way Californians will support replacing constitutional law with the bible, the thought is ABSURD. I think believing that the bible could replace the constitution because of Prop 8 is a very radical view. I whole heartedly believe religion & politics should be separate, but not all people who are for Prop 8 are religious people.

[RG5626]

So other than the religious reasons, why support Prop 8? Do people really believe that their marraiges will be hurt because gays are allowed to marry? How does that work? I live in California and have been married for almost 20 years. Will my marraige be in danger of falling apart if 8 does not pass? I have not felt any less in love with my wife since the court decision allowing gay marraige last Spring, so maybe the effects take a while to show up.

[VeroucaSalt]

You need to do a bit more research. This proposition threatens the inherent human rights of individuals based on, of all things, the Holy Bible.

We have separation of church and state for this very reason. This proposition should never have made the ballot.

[MsMeryMac]

No, general bigotry, fear and hatred I suppose could be other reasons to vote for prop 8, rather than turning our government into a theocracy.

The California supreme court did it's JOB by reviewing laws and overturning those which were anti-const­itutional. Inequality is anti-const­itutional. That's why this is a constitutional amendment - if whack-jobs get hatred written INTO the constitution, it can't be unconstitutional, right? Just because a slight majority of people favor oppressing the minority doesn't make it right. I'm sure a vote on whether or not black should have equal rights in Mississippi in 1950 would have denied rights to a minority, too, but that doesn't mean it's ok. That's why there are checks and balances, and also why we live in a republic and not a direct democracy.

[JWoode]

You can wrap it up in whatever extremism you wish but it amounts to the same thing. The passage of Proposition 8 will make it legal for a citizen to have a right that another citizen can not have.

It takes a truly misguided person to not see that.