Monday, February 2, 2009

Surprise, Surprise, the Mormons Lied

morality, mormon, lie, lying, prop 8, tradition, traditional, marriage, gay, homosexual, homophobia, fppc, california

From americablog.

In a Friday filing with California's Fair Political Practices Commission, the Mormon Church listed almost $190,000 in previously unreported expenses in support of last year's successful campaign to eliminate marriage equality in California.

$190,000. That's how much they now admit to spending.

The report, filed with the secretary of state's office, listed a variety of California travel expenses for high-ranking members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and included $20,575 for use of facilities and equipment at the church's Salt Lake City headquarters and a $96,849 charge for "compensated staff time" for church employees who worked on matters pertaining to Prop. 8.

It seems as if the complaint filed with the FPPC by Californians Against Hate was not as specious as the Mormons initially charged:

Up until Friday, the Mormon church had denied any direct financial support for the campaign beyond a reported $2,078 spent for bringing church Elder L. Whitney Clayton to California.

$2,078. Hmmm . . . That seems smaller somehow than $190,000. Let's see . . . yes, it is, $187,922 smaller in fact. Quite a lie, that one.

Church officials complained that Karger's complaint was full of errors and that the church had "fully complied" with California law.In other words, the Mormon Church had no intention of modifying their expense reporting until pressed by Californians Against Hate and the subsequent -- and ongoing -- FPPC investigation.

The Mormon Church deserves the scrutiny its been getting. The leaders have not been honest. Teddy poses the important question: what else is the Mormon Church hiding? We have to find out.

So, tell me Ruby, tell me Pearlysnot, tell me DNA, how are you going to spin this one? What are you going to say to excuse the lies?

2 comments:

  1. It's also interesting to note the Mormons who were reimbursed by the Yes on 8 campaign for their efforts:

    Expenditures made:

    http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1302592&session=2007&view=expenditures

    Lawrence Research (Gary Lawrence, Mormon pollster and Meridian contributor): $528,877.35

    Eagle Foundation (a Mormon PAC set up by Bart Marcois and David Parker): $135,912.76

    Glen Greener (former Salt Lake City Police Commissioner, Meridian contributor, and now a GOP operative and sometime Cali property developer): $50,236.42

    Sonja Brown (Protectmarriage.com communications director): $41,844.00

    Zion Multimedia Corp.: $2,000.00

    Rob Wirthlin: $768.18

    These kinds of campaigns are cash cows for the "grassroots organizers" and Prop 8 no doubt helped Gary Lawrence, Bart Marcois, David Parker and their LDS buddies to position themselves to be even bigger players the next time a similar initiative comes around. I've heard in comments over at my place that these guys were overheard gloating in the ward (church) hallway about the awesome lists that they now have in hand because of the Prop 8 effort.

    There could very well be other Mormons in that list of payees, but I've mentioned the ones I recognize.

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow. I had no idea about that. thank you. I do think that the main reason churches desire to engage in the political/legislative process is the money. There is huge money in the campaign business, and churches have historically had their hands kept out of the pie.

    hopefully, the IRS does its job and continues to keep them out of the political domain, because once churches are allowed free reign in the democratic process, democracy is done.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

I am attempting to use blogger's new comment spam feature. If you don't immediately see your comment, it is being held in spam, I will get it out next time I check the filter. Unless you are Dennis Markuze, in which case you're never seeing your comment.

Creative Commons License
Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverinhell.blogspot.com.