As we begin to address this question, please keep in mind the following:
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.