"Entirely under Priesthood Direction"
I took a few minutes today to glance through yesterday's trial transcript from Perry v. Schwarzenegger (transcript of the proceedings for Wednesday, 20 January 2010, of Perry v. Schwarzenegger (Volume 7, pages 1480–1741), and found a few things that caught my attention.
You may recall that during the campaign last fall, accusations were made that the Catholic Church and, particularly, the Mormon Church were bankrolling the "Yes on 8" campaign, nominally run by "ProtectMarriage.com" and, in addition, were significantly involved in operations. Those charges were vehemently denied by officials of both churches.
To no one's surprise, we can now establish that they lied. Much of yesterday afternoon's proceedings were spent examining a number of documents obtained during pretrial discovery relating to those questions of involvement. Herewith a few interesting paragraphs.
From an email written by Ron Prentice, head of "ProtectMarriage.com" to, if I remember correctly, members of the Catholic Bishop's Conference:
"The total projected cost for the [ballot] qualification effort has been set at 1.5 million. Thus far, 1.25 million has been raised and spent. The monies have come from four primary sources thus far: The Catholic community of San Diego, due to the involvement of Auxillary Bishop Cordileone, Fieldstead & Company, who pledged 50 cents for each dollar raised in January for the effort, Focus on the Family, and small gifts from direct mail efforts by ProtectMarriage.com." [p. 1612]
From another memo, this time written by a PR person with the Mormon Church:
"Since the first Presidency letter was read in every ward throughout California last month, I have been frequently asked what our [i.e., the Mormon Church's] role in Public Affairs will be in the Prop 8 campaign." […]
"As you know from the first Presidency letter, this campaign is entirely under priesthood direction – in concert with leaders of many other faiths and community groups forming part of the ProtectMarriage.com Coalition. [pp. 1622–1623]
The emphasis is mine, of course.
Finally, a bit from "Plaintiff's exhibit 2561", another document from LDS records:
"You may know that the Mormons have been out walking neighborhoods the past two Saturdays, with about 20,000 total volunteers."
Isn't it interesting how many Mormons were willing to volunteer to help restrict the rights of gay and lesbian people?
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on Thursday, 21 January 2010 at 14.09
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So very sad. The RC's are going to hang themselves – in this country, anyway. I'm blessed to be an Episcopalian.