{"id":1830,"date":"2009-04-08T14:44:59","date_gmt":"2009-04-08T21:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/?p=1830"},"modified":"2010-06-16T11:02:48","modified_gmt":"2010-06-16T18:02:48","slug":"church-admits-financial-support-of-prop-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourthoughts.ca\/2009\/04\/08\/church-admits-financial-support-of-prop-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Church Admits Financial Support of Prop 8"},"content":{"rendered":"
Update: See below.<\/ins><\/p>\n When I heard rumours of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints financial involvement to pass Proposition 8, last November’s ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California, I assumed they were lies spread because of malice toward the institution. Though I felt repulsed by the Church’s aggressive position, I thought it acted within its rights to encourage members in voting to strip away the rights of same-sex couples.<\/p>\n I also thought that the church was wise enough to respect the separation of church and state and refrain from actively funding the campaign. In a campaign filing, amid an investigation by Fair Political Practices Commission—a California state campaign watchdog agency, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has revealed it spent nearly $190,000<\/a> since September to help pass Proposition 8.<\/p>\n While many church members had donated directly to the Yes on 8 campaign—some estimates of Mormon giving range as high as $20 million—the church itself had previously reported little direct campaign activity.<\/p>\n But in the filing made Friday [January 30, 2009], the Mormon church reported thousands in travel expenses, such as airline tickets, hotel rooms and car rentals for the campaign. The church also reported $96,849.31 worth of “compensated staff time”—hours that church employees spent working to pass the same-sex marriage ban.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For all the crying about how the church has been unjustifiably targeted it’s incredible that it would have opened itself up to such a huge legal blunder and a public relations nightmare. I don’t know what the implications for class action suits by the 18,000 people who had their marriages annulled by the passing of Proposition 8 might be, but I hope it is a wake up call to those that think the church is legitimate in the way it went about robbing the rights of same-sex couples.<\/p>\n Correction: It turns out I was just a little confused about the implications of this report. As pointed out by JKS<\/a> the filing was posted on time and the church did not break any laws with its involvement in Prop 8.<\/p>\n Update: According to a few sources, it looks like, the Church has been convicted of 13 counts of late campaign reporting<\/a>.<\/ins><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Update: See below. When I heard rumours of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints financial involvement to pass … Continue reading Church Admits Financial Support of Prop 8<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10,5],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-1830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay","category-marriage","category-politics","tag-prop-8"],"yoast_head":"\nIt turns out, I was wrong<\/del>.<\/p>\nTo be clear, all same-sex marriage rights were stripped using legal means.<\/del><\/ins><\/p>\n