We reconfirmed in our early focus groups our own views that Californians had a tolerant opinion of gays. But there were limits to the degree of tolerance that Californians would afford the gay community. They would entertain allowing gay marriage, but not if doing so had significant implications for the rest of society.

Schubert Flint recognized they had an uphill battle early on.

Our ability to organize a massive volunteer effort through religious denominations gave us a huge advantage, and we set ambitious goals: to conduct a statewide Voter ID canvass of every voter; to distribute 1.25 million yard signs and an equal number of bumper strips; to have our volunteers re-contact every undecided, soft yes and soft no voter; and to have 100,000 volunteers, five per voting precinct, working on Election Day to make sure every identified Yes on 8 voter would vote. All of these goals, and more, were achieved.

We built a campaign volunteer structure around both time-honored campaign grassroots tactics of organizing in churches, with a ground-up structure of church captains, precinct captains, zip code supervisors and area directors; and the latest Internet and web-based grassroots tools.

We held the campaign’s first statewide precinct walk the weekend of Aug. 16. We had hoped for 20,000 volunteers, which would have been unprecedented in California ballot initiative politics, but were stunned when almost 30,000 people walked their neighborhoods that first weekend.

Information about some of the specific plans and activities supported on the LDS scaffolding for the Yes on 8 campaign are linked to here. Mormon wards began organizing in late July in order to be a force to be seen in mid-August.

Fundraising was also a critical activity of this early period, the success of which enabled us to ultimately exceed our initial voter contact objectives. By this time, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints had endorsed Prop 8 and joined the campaign executive committee. Even though the LDS were the last major denomination to join the campaign, their members were immensely helpful in early fundraising, providing much-needed contributions while we were busy organizing Catholic and Evangelical fundraising efforts. Ultimately, we raised $22 million from July through September with upwards of 40 percent coming from members of the LDS Church.

Even though our campaign clearly had the better ads and grassroots operation, the success of the No side’s fundraising effort threatened to undo all our work. Voters were seeing their commercials at least twice as often as ours as the campaign headed into its final 12 days. Our lead evaporated. Frank Schubert wrote an e-mail to our 90,000 online supporters called ‘Code Blue for Marriage,’ letting them know we needed more money to be victorious. This e-mail, along with other emergency fundraising activities, helped produce $7.5 million in contributions from people of faith in the next 72 hours.

The huge influx of late-October donations from Utah, Idaho, New Mexico and Texas displays this last-minute donation tap quite well. A significant amount of these last-minute donations, donations not included in Schubert’s “upwards of 40 percent quote” relating to July-September donations came from Mormons.

Members of the Mormon faith played an important part of the Yes on 8 coalition, but were only a part of our winning coalition. We had the support of virtually the entire faith community in California. Prop 8 didn’t win because of the Mormons. It won because we created superior advertising that defined the issues on our terms; because we built a diverse coalition; and, most importantly, because we activated that coalition at the grassroots level in a way that had never before been done.

Schubert Flint won several industry awards for their work on the campaign, including “Fundraising for a Ballot Measure”

Schubert Flint was recently tapped to get working on Same-Sex Marriage campaigns in Maine.

Mormon church reports spending $180,000 on Proposition 8
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/top-officials-w.html>

5:51 PM, January 30, 2009

Top officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed reports today indicating that they donated more than $180,000 in in-kind contributions to Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in California.

The contributions included tens of thousands of dollars for expenses such as airline tickets, hotel and restaurant bills and car-rental bills for top church officials such as L. Whitney Clayton, along with $96,849.31 worth of “compensated staff time” for church employees.

The church said the expenditures took place between July 1 and the end of the year. The church’s involvement has been a major issue in the campaign and its aftermath. Individual Mormon families donated millions — by some estimates more than $20 million — of their own money to the campaign.

On top of that, some Prop. 8 opponents say church officials violated election law by failing to file campaign disclosure reports outlining church funds being spent on the campaign. Fred Karger, who filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission after the election alleging that church officials had not properly disclosed their involvement, said he thought today’s filing proves that his complaint has merit.

“They said they reported all their travel … now, when there is a [complaint filed] they disclose 25 Southwest tickets just in October,” he said. “They were required to report this” in an earlier filing, he said.

Church officials could not be reached for comment this evening.

– Jessica Garrison

The Church reported about $190,000 in donations for the calendar year ending Dec. 31, 2008.

The LDS Church filings are listed here at the California Secretary of State’s website.

First, not all Mormons voted for, campaigned for, or supported Prop 8. Just as it is bad for Mormons who feel persecuted for supporting Prop 8 to lump into one violent group all Prop 8 opponents, it is wrong for Prop 8 opponents to assume that all Mormons (or Catholics, or Evangelicals or …) voted on the “other side.”

Second, there are lots of ways to express anger, disappointment, grief, impatience and the host of other feelings resulting from the election results. There are avenues for channeling that energy and focusing it on lawful, productive measures to effect change in US and individual state laws. People on both sides are feeling picked on, hurt and vulnerable, and it does neither side any good to reinforce negative stereotypes of one another.

A document has been floating around the internet purporting to delineate the facts about the passage of Proposition 8.  Our response to those facts is included on this page.

The Facts:

1. Mormons make up only 2% of the population of California. There are approximately 750,000 LDS out of a total population of approximately 36 million.

“Mormon members were instrumental in the campaign, there’s no question. They donated far in excess of their representation in the population.” - Fred Schubert, a spokesman for ProtectMarriage.com, as quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune on November 21, 2008.

2. If one estimates that 250,000 LDS are registered voters (the rest being children), then out of a total of 5,661,583 yes votes, LDS voters made up 4.4% of the Yes vote and 2.3% of the total Proposition 8 vote (11,050,301).

Yes, and if you only count the active Mormons, that’s closer to only 375,000. And if you only count the active adults, it’s probably two-thirds of that number, or about 247,500. And if you only count the ones who are registered to vote AND who voted for the proposition (not all Mormons voted for the proposition), the numbers and percentages of California’s electorate are even smaller. AND YET, that almost infinitesimally small number of active adult Mormons donated the lion’s share of the money and comprised 80-90% of the early election volunteers, according to the leaders of the ProtectMarriage coalition. LDS Church members donated more than any other single group or even more than other individual religious members of the coalition. Why did Mormons donate and volunteer their time in such disproportionate numbers? Because, as Fact #3 points out, “members of the Church were encouraged to support the Yes on 8 efforts” by the First Presidency of the Church, the prophets, seers and revelators who lead and guide the Mormons.

3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) donated no money to the Yes on 8 campaign (except for a nominal, and legal, in-kind donation of $2,078.97, to cover the travel expenses of leaders coming from Utah for a meeting). Individual members of the Church were encouraged to support the Yes on 8 efforts and, exercising their constitutional right to free speech, donated whatever they felt like donating.

The Church actually reported two in-kind donations (only the first donation was widely publicized in the media). A quick check of the spreadsheet at this website shows both donations (one filed October 27th, another filed November 2nd). While members did donate whatever they felt like donating, reports from donors themselves confirm that some were given suggested donation amounts, some were asked to donate more than once, some were told that donations to support Proposition 8 were as important as tithing donations. Wards and Stakes were given financial goals (or assessments) to meet, and members were encouraged by local leaders to include their ward and stake information on donation forms so that their wards and stakes could receive “credit” for the donations. Donations that came in with LDS donation forms were sent to a special PO Box where LDS information was notated so it could be reported back to stake presidents prior to the money being forwarded to the Protect Marriage coalition.

4. The No on 8 campaign raised more money than the Yes on 8 campaign. Unofficial estimates put No on 8 at $38 million and Yes on 8 at $36 million, making it the most expensive non-presidential election in the country.

And without the LDS donations (encouraged by Church leaders) the Yes on 8 campaign would have been outspent at least 2-to-1.

5. Advertising messages for the Yes on 8 campaign are based on case law and real-life situations. The No on 8 supporters have insisted that the Yes on 8 messaging is based on lies. Every Yes on 8 claim is supported.

The advertising messages were based on situations that had limited application to California law. There have been several legal examinations of the Yes on 8 campaign ads which focused on scary-sounding stories of children being taught about gay marriage in Kindergarten or churches losing tax-exempt status or being required to perform marriages to which they were opposed. As those arguments have been examined and repudiated elsewhere on the internet, we won’t go into the details here. Suffice it to say that, even though Yes on 8 has passed, students will continue to remain subject to teachings in schools which demand “respect for marriage and committed relationships” and public facilities are still required to provide access to and services for all people, regardless of sex, ethnic group identification, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, color, mental or physical disability, or sexual orientation.

6. The majority of our friends and neighbors voted Yes on 8. Los Angeles County voted in favor of Proposition 8. Ventura County voted in favor of Proposition 8. San Diego County voted in favor of Proposition 8. Orange County voted in favor of Proposition 8. San Luis Obispo County voted in favor of Proposition 8. Sacramento County voted in favor of Proposition 8. Fresno County voted in favor of Proposition 8. And the list goes on and on: Merced, San Bernardino, Riverside, Mariposa, Tulare, Imperial, etc.

Those that voted against Prop 8, include Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Alpine, Mono, San Francisco, Marin, Napa, Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Alameda, Contra Costa and Yolo counties

7. African Americans overwhelmingly supported Yes on 8. Exit polls show that 70% of Black voters chose Yes on 8. This was interesting because the majority of these voters voted for President-elect Obama. No on 8 supporters had assumed that Obama voters would vote No on 8.

But blacks did not donate half the money, most of the people-hours, or respond to ecclesiastical calls to spend four (or more) hours each week making phone calls and using the internet to get people interested in voting yes. They did not organize massive get-out-the-vote campaigns or spend hours on street corners waving Yes on 8 signs.
From a recent newspaper article:

Exit polls show that various social forces played out across California on Prop. 8. The older voters were, the more likely they were to vote for Prop. 8: 61 percent of those older than 65 voted for it, while 61 percent of those younger than 30 voted against it. Ideology also had a pronounced effect, particularly party affiliation: 82 percent of Republicans supported Prop. 8. Only 36 percent of Democrats supported the measure.

Religion was just as pronounced. Prop. 8 found support among 81 percent of white evangelicals, 65 percent of white Protestants, 64 percent of Catholics and 84 percent of weekly worshipers. In the exit poll’s only nonwhite category involving race and religion, 58 percent of nonwhite religious voters supported the measure. The size of these groups gave them a substantial impact on the Prop. 8 outcome: White evangelicals comprised 17 percent of the electorate, Catholics comprised 30 percent, and Republicans comprised 29 percent.

The NAACP is among the groups petitioning for California’s courts to call the Proposition 8 vote a revision rather than an amendment to the state constitution. LAMDA Legal calls racial scapegoating “destructive and unacceptable.”

8. The majority of Latino voters voted Yes on 8. Exit polls show that the majority of Latinos supported Yes on 8 and cited religious beliefs (assumed to be primarily Catholic).

See response to Fact #7, above.

9. The Yes on 8 coalition was a broad spectrum of religious organizations. Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Muslims - all supported Yes on 8. It is estimated that there are 10 million Catholics and 10 million Protestants in California. Mormons were a tiny fraction of the population represented by Yes on 8 coalition members.

They were a tiny fraction of the population, but they were the ”main (and nearly only) supporters from the faith community. Information from Church leaders reports that the work will not succeed without strong LDS involvement as volunteer efforts from other coalition members was “disappointing”. The Mormons were part of a coalition in this campaign like the US is part of a coalition in Iraq or like Goliath was part of a coalition fighting Israel.

10. Though the Church urged its members to “do all [they] can to support the proposed constitutional amendment,” not all Mormons voted in favor of Proposition 8. Our faith accords that each person be allowed to choose for him or her self. Church leaders have asked members to treat other members with “civility, respect and love,” despite their differing views.

Yet, until October when Elder L. Whitney Clayton told the press that members would not be disciplined, members were allowed to believe that opposing Prop 8 publicly could be grounds for ecclesiastical discipline including being released from callings, having temple recommends removed, being prevented from speaking up or praying in church or even being formally disfellowshiped or excommunicated. And when the leader of the grass roots campaign likens the prop 8 opponents to those who followed Satan in the pre-existence (hard to get much more evil than that in the LDS belief system), it doesn’t do much to set up an environment conducive to civility, respect and love.

11. The Church did not violate the principal of separation of church and state. This principle is derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” The phrase “separation of church and state”, which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson, although it has since been quoted in several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court in recent years. The LDS Church is under no obligation to refrain from participating in the political process, to the extent permitted by law. U.S. election law is very clear that Churches may not endorse candidates, but may support issues. The Church has always been very careful on this matter and occasionally (not often) chooses to support causes that it feels to be of a moral nature.

The argument that the Church rarely gets involved in political matters was used in many LDS conversations to emphasize the importance and unique aspects of supporting Proposition 8. As Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, “When churches or church leaders choose to enter the public sector to engage in debate on a matter of public policy, they should be admitted to the debate and they should expect to participate in it on the same basis as all other participants. In other words, if churches or church leaders choose to oppose or favor a particular piece of legislation, their opinions should be received on the same basis as the opinions offered by other knowledgeable organizations or persons, and they should be considered on their merits. By the same token, churches and church leaders should expect the same broad latitude of discussion of their views that conventionally applies to everyone else’s participation in public policy debates. A church can claim access to higher authority on moral questions, but its opinions on the application of those moral questions to specific legislation will inevitably be challenged by and measured against secular-based legislative or political judgments.” Dallin H. Oaks, “Religious Values and Public Policy,” Ensign, Oct 1992, 60.

12. Supporters of Proposition 8 did exactly what the Constitution provides for all citizens: they exercised their First Amendment rights to speak out on an issue that concerned them, make contributions to a cause that they support, and then vote in the regular electoral process. For the most part, this seems to have been done in an open, fair, and civil way. Opponents of 8 have accused supporters of being bigots, liars, and worse. The fact is, we simply did what Americans do - we spoke up, we campaigned, and we voted.

While many Prop 8 opponents appear to have made the mistake of assigning less-than-stellar (and sometimes inapplicable) motivations for support of Prop 8, their name-calling, picketing, marching and speaking up against those who voted to remove marriage equality from California’s laws is as much within their rights of free speech as that claimed by supporters. For the most part, opposition seems to have been done in an open fair and civil way. Think of the tens of thousands of people across the country who have voiced opposition to the vote taken in California and compare that with the despicable few who have resorted to violence, intimidation or vandalism.

As of Nov. 8, 2008, there are 6,585 total donations of $1,000 or more listed here. Of those, 3,365 (51%) have been identified as Mormon/likely Mormon. These donations represent $15,305,050.17, or 48% of all donations.

There are 182 (3%) donors (churches, groups and individuals) identified as non-Mormons, accounting for $9,294,243.99 in donations.

Of those donors, non-Mormon churches account for $1,449,677.92 (not quite 5%) of donations. The largest of the non-Mormon church donations are Catholic organizations, including the Knights of Columbus. Catholic organizations represent $1,365,888.00, or just over 4% of total donations.

Groups such as the National Organization for Marriage (CA), Fieldstead & Co., Focus on the Family, the American Family Association and Concerned Women for America account for just over 15% of donations totaling $4,809,648.13.  Donations from individuals make up the rest of the non-Mormon donations.  

There are 3,038 (46%) donations that are not identified as Mormon or non-Mormon, and those donations represent $7,046,053.36, (about 23%) of the large donation dollars.

NON-CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS:

CHURCHES:

Catholic Churches/Organizations:

Mormon Church

It will remain up.  It will continue to identify LDS donors until the last filings are filed and reported.  It will continue to remove last names of identified LDS donors because the purpose of the site is not to threaten individuals or organizations, it is to demonstrate what Mormons, as a group, have done to finance this proposition.

It will remain up.  It will continue to serve as a reminder that there is “grassroots” and there is Grassroots.

It will remain up.  It will continue to remind us that LDS chapels across the state of California had special donation forms in every foyer and that members were continually requested to use donation forms provided in chapels so that wards and stakes could “get credit for” the donations made by their members.  It will continue to remind us that Stake Presidents received regular reports about donations from their areas so they could keep track of how close they were to reaching their contribution goals and assessments.

To our knowledge, no other religious organizations operated donation or contribution requests in this manner.  If anyone can provide proof that other religions were as active in seeking contributions from members, we would be happy to add similar information to this database.

It will remain up.  It will serve as a record of how to run a top-down campaign that appears on its face to be completely grassroots.

One donor, Alan A. of Lindon, Utah, donated $1,000,000 to match contributions from other donors.

In 2006, the Census Bureau estimated the population of Utah to be 2,550,063.

The California Secretary of State’s office defines anyone who has donated at least $100 cumulatively as being eligible to be reported in this category.  If one donor sent in $50 in one month and another $50 in another month, that donor would show up in this list.  If that donor sent in $1,000 one month, the $1,000 was already reported on the daily reports and is not duplicated here.  Anyone wanting to download the full report (where you can see cumulative totals for all donors) can use the links to the Secretary of State’s website on our Blogroll.

As we get the donations uploaded, we’ll link to them here in the following categories:

Out of State Donors through Sept 30 (filed Oct 6)

Out of State Donors Oct 1-18

California donations under $1000 from Oct 1-18

900 series zip codes (900– through 909–)

910 series zip codes (910– through 919–)

920 series zip codes (920– through 929–)

930 series zip codes (930– through 939–)

940 series zip codes (940– through 949–)

950 series zip codes (950– through 959–)

960 series zip codes (960– through 965–) (Not all 96— series zip codes are in California. Remaining 96— series zip codes are on the Out of State Donors page.)

ZIP code problems (where Zip codes were obviously incorrect or associated with the wrong state.  We’ll try to clean these up as we get time).

These numbers are taken from the coalition’s gargantuan filing that crashed the Secretary of State’s computers on October 6th.  A list of smaller donors that was also part of that report is being prepared for publication at this website and those donation reports will start showing up soon.

As of September 30th, the coalition has so far spent $12.7 million.  There will be one more report released before Election Day itemizing expenses for the first half of October.

A few things to note from this report:

1 – The biggest expense so far has been broadcast advertising, no surprise, with payouts of almost $6 million, or 47% of the expenses.

2 – The next biggest expenses were those related to shipping and postage, amounting to $1.2 million, or just over 9.5% of expenses.

3 – Getting petitions signed was another 8.5%, just over $1 million

Payees receiving the most money include:

1 – Marketing Communications Services, the company that handled the television advertising, received $6.1 million, or just over 48% of the payments between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30.

2 – Bader and Associates circulated petitions and received just over $1 million for their services.

3 – Candidates Outdoor Graphic Svc. did the signage and got 7% of the money, just over $893,000

Of note to the religious types:

1 – Skyline Church received just over $18,000 for pastoral services and phone services.

2 – Church Communication Network, Inc., received $300,000 for conference expenses.

3 – And for LDS interest, Lawrence Research collected almost $172,000 for polling expenses.  Gary Lawrence is the “State LDS Grassroots Director” for the Protect Marriage coalition.

There are lots of fun and interesting payments to review.

October 6th was the deadline for the first major pre-election donations and ProtectMarriage’s report is being prepared for this site.  Identified Mormon donors already reported on here now make up 44% of contributions, or $8.6 million.

Identified Mormons have now donated more to Prop 8 than all the supporters to Prop 22 eight years ago.  According to Ballotpedia total expenditures in support of Prop 22 added up to $8,422,913.  As a comparison, identified Mormons who have contributed in increments of $1,000 or more are now responsible for providing $8.6 million in funds to the Protect Marriage coalition.  The addition of smaller donors will only add to that total.

The Secretary of State’s office has released small donation information on its website (the computer glitches have been overcome).  Small donations that add up to $100 or more in any calendar year are reportable in the small donor reports.  From those reports, California donors sent in another $4.3 million and out-of-state donors sent in about $152,000.

The 5,008-page filing covers all donations and expenditures from July 1 through September 30, 2008.  There will be one more pre-election filing covering the first 18 days of October.  Donations, expenditures and loans made after that will be reported on October 23rd.  Donations made between Oct 19 and Dec 31 are due on Feb. 2, 2009