From CNN:
Prop 8 proponents seek to nullify same-sex marriages

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

CNN LINK

I wish I had heard about this sooner…

Recently Fred Karger, founder of the group “Californians Against Hate”, filed a formal complaint (see it after the jump) with the Fair Political Practices Commission of the State of California (FPPC).

Last Friday, they sent him a formal letter indicating they would open an investigation.

Included in the charges Mr. Karger alleges are these:

· Setting up Church-sponsored and -run phone banks in Utah & Idaho
· Sending direct mail to voters
· Transporting people to California over several weekends
· Using the LDS PR machine to send out multiple press releases to promote their activities to non-members
· Walking the precincts
· Running a speakers bureau
· Distributing thousands of lawn signs and other campaign material
· Organizing the “Surge to Election Day” campaign
· Church leaders traveling back/forth to California
· Creation and maintaining of elaborate websites
· Producing at least nine commercials and four other video broadcasts in support of Prop 8
· Conducting at least two satellite simulcasts over five Western states.

All of these previously-unreported contributions by the LDS Church were on top of its massive fund-raising effort; the largest ever undertaken on a social issue ballot initiative in the US.

Oops.
(more…)

For several reasons, I finally took the Facebook plunge last Thursday, even though I have maintained this blog for almost 9 years in some form or another, am a member of both LinkedIn and Plaxo for professional reasons, and generally am not a big fan of “social networking” — preferring my solitude and my privacy to MySpace (maybe it was just the poor web design).

At any rate, I’ve become “friends” with some 70 people since then, including a very close friend from 25 years ago, Dr. Rob Killian. I have added his timely and interesting blog to the “blog roll”, which you will find to the right of this post. Give it a gander. Who knows what elucidating thoughts you might find.

The Los Angeles Times published a story today about California Proposition 8’s acceptance for deliberation by the California Supreme Court.

This paragraph gives me hope — and is not a stretch from what happened in this current instance 42 years later:

Although the court tends to defer to voter sentiment on initiative challenges, it has overturned popular ballot measures in the past.

In 1966, the California Supreme Court struck down an initiative that would have permitted racial discrimination in housing. Voters had approved the measure, a repeal of a fair housing law, by a 2-to-1 margin. Opponents challenged it on equal protection grounds, not as a constitutional revision.

Thanks to Bonnie for sending me the link for this. Keith Olbermann is a commentator on MSNBC. Here is his editorial/commentary on California’s Proposition 8:

It seems like things have not even yet begun to settle down after the California Prop 8 debacle last week (see article below), when Holocaust survivors get riled up against the Mormons for continuing to baptize their dead. See the CNN article HERE.
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And then yesterday Equality Utah held a press conference. Here’s a snippet:

“While we disagree with the LDS Church’s position on Proposition 8, we respect that their position is based on the guiding principles of their faith,” she said. “Throughout the campaign, while the LDS Church stated its support of [the measure], it also made repeated comments that the church ‘does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.’

“Just last week, Elder L. Whitney Clayton stated the LDS Church does not oppose ‘civil union or domestic partnerships,’ ” Pappas said. “We are taking the LDS Church at its word.”

Three of the bills would seek to secure equal treatment when it comes to hospitalization, medical care, housing, employment and probate rights (entitlement to insurance and inheritance upon a partner’s death).

A fourth, titled the Domestic Partner Rights & Responsibilities Act, would create a statewide domestic partner registry that would secure rights of insurance, inheritance and fair housing. A fifth would seek to repeal the second part of Utah’s own marriage-defining constitutional amendment, which Will Carlson, Equality Utah’s public policy manager, said “has been misinterpreted to avoid any recognition of gay couples.”

The part in question reads, he continued, “no other domestic union; however, denominated, may be recognized as marriage or be given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.”

Equality Utah executive director Mike Thompson asked the LDS Church to continue “its willingness to engage in political issues” by stepping in to help.

“Is the LDS Church willing to assign a member of its Presidency of the Seventy to lead church efforts to secure these rights, just as it did with Proposition 8?” he asked. And, he continued, “will the First Presidency draft a letter to Utah Latter-day Saints in support of rights and protections for gay couples . . . [and] ask for this letter to be read to all Utah congregations on a specified date,” as it did in California?”

Last night a few of we gay and non-gay, Mormon and non-Mormon friends gathered in downtown Salt Lake City to protest the insertion of the Mormon church into the “proposition 8″ discussion in California, which amended the state constitution to allow marriage only between “a man and a woman”.

Yesterday the church sent out yet another press release questioning why they should be singled out, since they were only part of a “coalition” and how shameful it is that people would protest at LDS properties for “being part of the democratic process”.

Huh? Since when are churches allowed to exercise democracy? I thought individuals did so. I don’t recall a “super delegate” with the LDS name on it.

The former bishop of the Utah Catholic diocese has also now chimed in — also via press release — questioning why the Mormons are being singled out. It sounds like he’s more afraid that the Knights of Columbus won’t get their “due” on the credit for pushing this through rather than that only the Mormons are being “punished”.

Here are a few photos I took of the crowd, which according to most press estimates was in “the thousands”:

Former Mormon and gay supporter Bruce Bastian puts his money where his mouth is: against LDS-backed California Prop 8. Read the Salt Lake Tribune article HERE.