Walsh: LDS elders showed seasoned political savvy on California’s Prop. 8
Rebecca Walsh
Tribune Columnist
Posted: 03/25/2009 07:23:01 PM MDT
At post-election rallies in California, protestors passed out IRS complaint forms.
The paperwork for reporting a tax violation by a nonprofit was already filled out — with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ name and address. People simply had to sign the bottom.
The Internal Revenue Service ultimately will decide whether the Mormon church crossed a line in U.S. tax law when it funneled at least $190,000 of its own resources and directed individual members to give and give often in the $83 million campaign to ban gay marriage in California.
I doubt it. South Temple and their attorneys are too careful for that.
Documents leaked to Californians Against Hate show in fascinating detail the calculated way Mormon spiritual leaders spearheaded Hawaii’s gay marriage fight 10 years ago. The handful of memos from then-Elder Loren C. Dunn to various members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reveal a political machine within a patriarchy of faith:
Richard Wirthlin, not yet a general authority, polled the relative popularity of Mormons versus Catholics. When results showed Catholics had a better image in Hawaii, Mormon leaders decided to stay in the background. They hired a Hawaiian advertising firm, McNeil Wilson, on a $250,000 retainer. They tacked on gambling and legalized prostitution to give the anti-marriage front group “room to maneuver in the legislature” and “broaden our base and appeal,” Dunn wrote. They searched for an “articulate middle-age mother” who was neither Mormon nor Catholic to be the face of the campaign.
The documents are old — mostly updates and memos dated between 1995 and 1998. And the church won’t say they’re real or acknowledge they were leaked.
“We are unconcerned about these documents,” says spokesman Scott Trotter. “The Church’s position on the importance of traditional marriage has been consistent over the years.”
There’s no reason to think the internal political organization built by Dunn and Wirthlin and others has been dismantled. If anything, the political fight to amend California’s constitution shows LDS elders have learned from their mistakes and honed their campaign strategy. Rather than financing the crusade themselves as they did in Hawaii, giving $400,000 in church funds, leadership decided to call on members nationwide for financing.
Californians Against Hate Director Fred Karger is trying to make the case that the Mormon church violated California’s Political Reform Act by obscuring the institutional money spent on advertising, phone banks and sending elders to the state to supervise and rally the faithful.
“They started this in 1988, putting together this plan to bring the church into a major role in opposing same-sex marriage,” he says. “You kind of have a boilerplate.”
Aside from financial disclosure discrepancies, the IRS is another matter. U.S. tax code prohibits churches and other nonprofits from spending “substantial” amounts of money on lobbying. Ultimately, IRS investigators will decide whether the Mormon role in Yes on 8 qualifies as substantial.
Watching from a distance, Salt Lake City tax attorney Bill Orton doesn’t think so.
“I can’t imagine that [church attorneys] Kirton & McConkie would miss something in tax law,” says the faithful Mormon and former congressman. “I would not have injected the church into [the Proposition 8 fight] to the extent that they did. But I don’t see that they’ve done anything unlawful. I don’t think the church is in any trouble whatsoever.”
Legal or not, the handful of documents Karger has posted at CaliforniansAgainstHate.com reveal the dual roles played by Mormon leaders. For faithful church members who still see the apostles as simple grandfatherly gurus of the spiritual, this is an awakening.
They’re also canny political hands.
walsh@sltrib.com