It's an outrage! Mormon church donated $2,864 to Yes on 8 effort

by Dennis WyattManaging Editor QUESTION: How much money did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints give to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign?ANSWER: Try $2,864.21. And that was an in-kind donation to pay for plane fare for some of its members.In a contest that cost both sides well over $80 million the Mormon Church put up only $2,864,21. Yet a large chuck of the No on Proposition 8 supporters who now want to challenge the church's tax-exempt status are demonizing the church. The No on 8 committee is now unleashing its lawyers to see whether the church violated its tax-exempt status.Forget the fact non-profits are allowed to spend up to 20 percent of their budget on political activities. They are prohibited from directly supporting candidates.Also, no one is going after the Catholic Church from the No on 8 camp even though the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gave $200,000 - almost 70 times the Mormon Church - to the Yes on 8 effort. That pales compared to the Knights of Columbus. The Catholic fraternal group put up $1.25 million or 436 times more than the Mormon Church.Why aren't the Catholics being targeted like the Mormons by those seeking revenge for losing at the ballot box? It's easy. The No on 8 forces that are foaming at the mouth vowing to damage the Mormons are bigger bigots than they claim the Mormons are when it comes to blessing same-sex marriage.It's a bigotry against Mormons that has nothing to do with the church's stance on gays, which, by the way, only excommunicates them from priesthood if they act on their homosexuality. While that may sound a bit odd in this day and age of Brittney Spears, Madonna and a host of other - everything-goes celebrities - there are human beings out there who don't go around acting on or defining themselves by their sexuality.The argument that the Mormons have no room to talk about marriages that deviate form the American norm - one man and one woman - because there are still some sects who aren't recognized by the church that allow multiple wives is akin to painting all gays with the same brush as John Wayne Gacy. It is completely wrong and unjustified.But wait. What about the $20 million in donations that came from individuals who happened to be Mormons? The more wild-eyed among the No on 8 people - the same who have been protesting at, and in some cases defacing Mormon temples, stake centers, and meeting houses - are guilty by association or that they are mindless robots like the followers of Jim Jones.Really. The "guilt by association" argument would make Sen. Joseph McCarthy proud. The second argument is mere madness. It assumes that all people of a group think alike unless, of course, they are all part of the group you belong to which is made up of independent thinkers who all managed to make the right views on the world. It is an insult to lump all Mormons together as mindless just as it would be to assume that a Catholic politicians such as Nancy Pelosi takes her marching orders from the Vatican.Those who use bigot-based logic have targeted the Mormons for years and across the spectrum of American life.Back in 1984 when Brigham Young University football went 12-0 in regular season and made an amazing come-from-behind victory over Michigan in the Holiday Bowl with quarterback Robbie Bosco literally limping for the last half and won the national championship, many in the media snickered at the idea that a "church school" should be voted as the No. 1 team in the nation.And the snickers came from publications such as the New York Times and Newsweek.Forget the fact the same media outlets had no problem if Notre Dame, Boston College, or Southern Methodist University were on top of the college football polls. They were never equated as "church schools."The No on 8 people need to get past their outrage, their own bigotry, and their Machiavellian approach to try and unleash the IRS on the Mormon church and simply fight the good fight.The lasting change that counts comes in working with your opponents for change. And that change probably is best accomplished by dropping all state references to marriage - man and woman, woman and woman or man and man - in California and calling all such legal partnerships recognized by the state civil unions and leaving the term "marriage" to churches where it came from originally.That, by the way, would be real change and assure separation of church and state -something that the No on 8 folks say they want.