Source: New York Times, Salt Lake Tribune
Despite consistent expressions of confidence from their spokespersons throughout the campaign, Protect Marriage, the main group that promoted Proposition 8 in California, was convinced that they were losing just weeks before the Nov. 4 vote,
New York Times reports.
"We're going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money," the Times quotes Frank Schubert, chief strategist of the campaign as telling Prop. 8 supporters in late October.
Times reporters Jesse McKinley and Kirk Johnson write that the appeal was phenomenally successful:
The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.
A key role in responding to that appeal and throughout the campaign for Prop. 8 was played by members of the Salt Lake City-based LDS church, the New York Times reports, based on post-campaign interviews and documents its reporters dug up.
The key role did not come from the votes Mormons added for the measure, which passed this month with a 52% of the statewide vote. Rather, Mormons were instrumental in fundraising for the anti-gay marriage measure and in providing volunteers.
The Times analysis, which focuses on the pro-8 campaign doesn't mention it, but Schubert's plea is remarkably similar to one that came from the No-on-8 campaign at about the same time.
Although funds raised by the two opposing campaigns was vitually matched by election day, the No-on-8 campaign had faced a significant deficit early in November.
No-on-8 campaign officials held a press conference October 14 at which they admitted to being caught off-guard by a television advertisement blitz by Schubert's group.
"They have raised a tremendous amount of money, and as a result they have significantly out-bought us on TV," No-on-8 official Steve Schmidt said then. "Every time somebody sees one of our ads, they’ve seen two of theirs."
The No-on-8 campaign got its own influx of cash in the last weeks of the campaign, but it might have been too late to overcome advantage that the Prop. 8 group had built for itself with its campaigns.
But perhaps more important than the money that poured into Prop. 8 coffers from Mormons was the volunteer help offered by church members.
Johnson and McKinley report in New York Times that Jeff Flint, a strategist for Protect Marriage, the main group behind the ban, told them that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts:
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks ranging from "walkers," assigned to knock on doors; to "sellers," who would work with undecided voters later on; and to "closers," who would get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead, emphasizing that Proposition 8 was about marriage, not about attacking gay people, and about restoring into law an earlier ban struck down by the State Supreme Court in May.
"It is not our goal in this campaign to attack the homosexual lifestyle or to convince gays and lesbians that their behavior is wrong -- the less we refer to homosexuality, the better," one of the ward training documents said. "We are pro-marriage, not anti-gay."
Although it's not mentioned in the New York Times article, that influx of volunteers was highlighted in a complaint filed this week by opponents of Prop. 8.
Californians Against Hate, an independent nonprofit organization committed to shining the spotlight on hefty donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, on Thursday upped the ante against the LDS Church.
The group filed a complaint with California's Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), alleging The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints failed to report nonmonetary contributions that helped pass the measure, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Fred Karger, the advocacy organization's founder, wrote in a letter to the FPPC and attorneys general Edmund G. Brown Jr. of California and Mark Shurtleff of Utah that the church "has been highly secretive about its massive involvement in the campaign, but we managed to piece together evidence of some of their more visible activities done directly to communicate with California voters."
Karger told Salt Lake Tribune by phone from Los Angeles that he and others had been monitoring contributions to support this campaign since July 1. He alleges that their research shows 59,000 Mormon families ponied up more than $22 million to the cause, amounting to 77 percent of funds raised.
According to the New York Times, even the pro-Prop. 8 campaign group estimates that much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons.
But Karger is convinced that the cash contributions represent only a fraction of the value contributed to the campaign by members of the LDS church.
"I know what things cost," said Karger, a retired political consultant with nearly 30 years experience, according to the Tribune. "I'm convinced huge expenditures were made that, for whatever reason, went unreported - which is not in keeping with California law."
But LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a strong response, saying the church "fully complied with the reporting requirements of the California Political Reform Act," relied on advice from experienced California counsel and made no violations when it came to reporting expenditures.
The New York Times reporters found that the church had been very careful to shield itself from complaints like Karger's.
"No work will take place at the church, including no meeting there to hand out precinct walking assignments so as to not even give the appearance of politicking at the church," one campaign document obtained by the Times advises.
According to the Times, the Prop. 8 campaign was careful to avoid looking like a religious campaign even though it was run and financed almost entirely be religious groups.
Proposition 8 strategists said they had taken pains to distance themselves from what Mr. Flint called "more extreme elements" opposed to rights for gay men and lesbians.
To that end, the group that put the issue on the ballot rebuffed efforts by some groups to include a ban on domestic partnership rights, which are granted in California. Mr. Schubert cautioned his side not to stage protests and risk alienating voters when same-sex marriages began being performed in June.
"We could not have this as a battle between people of faith and the gays," Mr. Schubert said. "That was a losing formula."
But the campaign financed by all those Mormon contributors and primed for get-out-the-vote success by the canvassing of Mormon volunteers was not afraid to raise fears about gay people in its expensive and extensive advertising campaign.
[T]he “Yes” side ... initially faced apathy from middle-of-the-road California voters who were largely unconcerned about same-sex marriage. The overall sense of the voters in the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Schubert said, was "Who cares? I'm not gay."
To counter that, advertisements for the "Yes" campaign also used hypothetical consequences of same-sex marriage, painting the specter of churches' losing tax exempt status or people "sued for personal beliefs" or objections to same-sex marriage, claims that were made with little explanation.
Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.
"We bet the campaign on education," Mr. Schubert said.
The "Yes" campaign was denounced by opponents as dishonest and divisive, but the passage of Proposition 8 has led to second-guessing about the "No" campaign, too, as well as talk about a possible ballot measure to repeal the ban.
The Times report includes a quote from Schubert that's the sort of generous dig that comes only from a politico who has just run a succussful campaign against an outmatched opponent: "They had a lot going for them," Schubert said of his opponents. "And they couldn’t get it done."
Source: Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage | New York Times
LDS Church didn't report Prop 8 aid, group says | Salt Lake Tribune