Currently 31% of the total amount of donations over $1000 to protectmarriage.com has come from Mormon donors. That’s a pretty impressive number, given that only about 2% of the state’s population is Mormon. However, we believe that the actual percentage is much higher. If you scan down the list, you’ll see that there are many cities where we really have no data yet, Elk Grove, for example. We think that if we had information for which donors there are LDS (Mormon), the proportion would look something like Carlsbad, or Rancho Santa Fe. In Carlsbad, as of September 18, at 11:00 AM, there are 31 donors, and only one is not identified as LDS. (We don’t know if that donor is LDS or not.) Carlsbad donors have given $51,000 , and $50,000 came from LDS donors. That’s 98% of the money donated in Carlsbad. In Rancho Santa Fe, there are 10 donors and 9 of them are LDS. A total of $107,000 has been donated from Rancho Santa Fe, $80,000 of that from Mormon donors, for a total of 75% of total Rancho Santa Fe donations from Mormons.
Please note: Comments discussing the data and interpretation of same are welcome, but comments debating the issues or discussing the righteousness (or lack thereof) of people on either side will be deleted.
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More out-of-state money is opposed to proposition 8 than in support of it.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-moneymap,0,2198220.htmlstory
In fact, Californians are financially supporting prop 8 two-to-one over the opposition in the state.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-moneymap,0,2198220.htmlstory
My town of Redlands is well-represented as well. Nearly every contributor is LDS with a whopping $73,100! I’ve checked the stake directory and have been able to confirm all the names listed.
Think about how many poor people who could be fed with all that money. Think about the legitimate Christian service that could be conducted with all that money. Instead, they are trying to buy the California constitution.
Oh well, “You can get anything in this world for money”.
On an interesting note, this does not seem to be a republican vs. democrat issue. In my own survey of the local precinct, Republicans were 80% in favor of the propostion, but democrats were 60% in favor of it. Especially the latino democrats, they were almost all in support of it.
It’s definitely Demo vs. Republican. Check the latest Field Poll. Dems are 75% NO on 8.
Spaulding think of all of the Christian service that could be done with all of that money that has been raised for Obama and McCain’s campaigns!
Sometime people perceive issues or political movements as having long term effects and are willing to invest in them today with the hope that it is for the greater good. It’s a matter of freedom and personal choice that should be respected even if you disagree with a specific opinion.
So far every donation from the cities in my stake have been from LDS donors. However, oddly, the total number from our stake is very small (9), especially compared to the cities on either side of mine, which are each in the stakes adjacent to mine. They both have quite a number of donors most of whom are LDS, and yet we have two cities (with a ward in each) whose residents are on average as wealthy or moreso than either of those cities. Also, our ward coordinator, who has a fairly high income, hasn’t donated yet, nor has a wealthy former stake president who spearheaded the Prop. 22 campaign in our area back when that was going on. I just learned tonight that he is on a special assignment to coordinate pro-Prop. 8 activities in our area. Our bishop informed us last Sunday that our ward has only contributed 10% of what was expected so far.
I also just learned that the law firm hired by ProtectMarriage.com as their legal defense team, Alliance Defense Fund , will not hire Jews or Mormons for legal or even secretarial positions. Pretty sad that some of that money being donated by Mormons is going to an organization that discriminates against them.
LP, that is typical. Mormons are so quick to jump into bed (politically speaking) with Evangelicals and Fundamentalists when they have a position they all agree on. But the Mormons don’t realize that the Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are using them. From Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to James Dobson, Mormons are suckers.
Ken, Mormons aren’t oblivious to the fact that we are (in your words) being “used.” We well understand that those evangelical groups don’t particularly like us and don’t believe we are Christian or whatever they feel. The point is we agree on something and we’re acting together. If we agree on some things does that mean we should not work together on the things we do agree on? I’m not sure the LDS Church is a group that you should be coming after for not helping those in need.
It seems convenient that you attack them for not using this money for assisting those in need but you fail to acknowledge the amount of money that is donated on a regular basis for that exact purpose. Money that rolls in each and every month and has been coming in for years and will continue to come in for years to come. Its pretty disrespectful of you to present that attack while not telling the whole story.
Instead of pandering to evangelicals, we should be standing up for ourselves.
I cannot believe that we are allowing Ron Prentice to enrich himself with Proposition 8 money raised by Mormons. We may just have created another fundamentalist millionaire who despises us.
Thank heavens for the ACLU, which gets very little Mormon money but still defends us when Baptists and other fundamentalists discriminate against us.
norcal_t wrote: “…but you fail to acknowledge the amount of money that is donated on a regular basis for that exact purpose.”
Let’s look at cash donations. According to this PDF file published by the church:
http://www.providentliving.org/pfw/multimedia/files/pfw/pdf/75391_WelfareFactSheet2005_pdf.pdf
From 1985-2005 the church provided $169.6 million in cash donations. That’s great - doing something is better than doing nothing.
Average that over 20 years, and you find $8.48 million per year. Again, not bad.
I don’t want to get into a pissing match, but other churches do so much more on an annual basis.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church spent nearly $20 million in 2007 ALONE on hunger relief:
http://archive.elca.org/hunger/whatwedo/2007-WH-Annual-Report.pdf
The ELCA will do in 8 years what it took the LDS church 20 years to do.
Then again, the ELCA isn’t building a $2 billion shopping mall…
For those of you who would like to make comments that don’t deal specifically with the data gathering or interpretation as introduced in this thread, check out this link: What do you think about Prop 8 and this site?.
Thanks for being patient with us as we’ve been dealing with a spike in hits.
Ken, Thats great, but I think you may be misinterpreting the data. If you read the column on the left it talks about fast offerrings that memebers contribute each month in each unit to assist those in need. The humanitarian aid statistic you refer to on the right is not those donations. Members have an option what they donate as to where that money goes. “Humanitarian Aid” and “Fast Offerrings” are 2 seperate donations. This fact sheet does not show monies donated as fast offerings, but only those donated specifically to the “Humanitarian Aid” project. Those numbers do not account for all of the assistance provided on a ward level by members through their bishops and leaders.
BTW I found a more current one here: http://www.providentliving.org/welfare/pdf/2006WelfareFactSheet.pdf -Thought more current data would be more useful. Not at all meant to undermine anything you said, just so we can be up to date.
[...] to one Mormon pro-Prop 8 website, around a third of all individual donations in California are coming from Mormons. And in cities [...]
“Spaulding” what about the 660million of value of material assistance?
[...] 8 donations, although that number is expected to rise dramatically as more data is collected.4 The Mormons’ opposition to gay marriage is quite ironic when you consider their history. They [...]