Friday, December 05, 2008
Singled Out? Dons Evans is the spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) Temple in Mesa, Arizona and he was "surprised it is being singled out by protesters. He says the [marriage] amendments were also supported by the Catholic church and various evangelical denominations."
This appears to be the tactic the Mormon Church has decided upon- try to divert attention onto other religious or racial groups while downplaying the role of the LDS Church in the anti-gay marriage amendments.
What Mr. Evans was surprised about was a peaceful protest that was held outside the Temple last Friday during the Mormon's annual Christmas display lighting. Somewhere between 150 and 200 supporters of gay marriage held signs that said "Peace" and "Acceptance."
So what is the truth about the LDS Church's involvement here in Arizona?
The Arizona Secretary of State has placed PDF files of the campaign filings for the pro-Amendment group, "Yes on 102" and the anti-Amendment groups "No on 102" and "Arizona Together." I examined the report filed for August 14, 2008 to September 22, 2008. It is very easy to search each file by keyword, so I searched for the words "Phoenix," "Tucson," and "Mesa." According to Wikipedia, the population of these three largest communities in Arizona in 2007 is as follows:
Phoenix- 1,552,259
Tucson- 525,529
Mesa- 452,933
Mesa is the location of the Mesa Arizona Temple, completed in 1919 and has a very high number Mormon population. It has been reported that LDS Church leaders asked members to contribute money and volunteer time to the anti-gay marriage amendment- although since I am not a member, I cannot confirm this directly.
However, it is relatively easy to examine a community's support for the Yes or No campaigns. Let's examine how many people/families/businesses in these three communities gave to the campaigns, using the filed reports:
Town- Pro Anti
Phoenix 138 125
Tucson 333 289
Mesa 739 4
Mesa has less than one-third the population of Phoenix and yet more than five times as many people contributed to the Yes campaign. And a total of four (four!) gave to the two No campaigns. Note the disparity with the numbers reported for Tucson, the second largest community in the state. The overall ratios of Anti/Pro contributors is close for Phoenix and Tucson (87 and 90) and is very different from Mesa (.05).
I am not a statistician, but there is clearly something different going on in Mesa.
I didn't bother to look at the actual dollar amounts per contribution, but according to the campaign filings, one Mesa family and a Mormon-owned business based in Phoenix gave $100,000 each to the Yes campaign (as did the Crisis Pregnancy Center, although how gay marriage and crisis pregnancies relate to each other is very confusing to me).
And LDS spokesman Don Evans, who was so "surprised" that people would be protesting outside his Temple, he gave $10,000 cash to the Yes campaign.
So should Don Evans be so surprised? I don't think so. It is very clear to me that the LDS Church in Arizona had a major role, if not The Major Role, is fundraising for the anti-gay marriage amendment here in Arizona, despite whatever the leaders of that church claim.
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This appears to be the tactic the Mormon Church has decided upon- try to divert attention onto other religious or racial groups while downplaying the role of the LDS Church in the anti-gay marriage amendments.
What Mr. Evans was surprised about was a peaceful protest that was held outside the Temple last Friday during the Mormon's annual Christmas display lighting. Somewhere between 150 and 200 supporters of gay marriage held signs that said "Peace" and "Acceptance."
So what is the truth about the LDS Church's involvement here in Arizona?
The Arizona Secretary of State has placed PDF files of the campaign filings for the pro-Amendment group, "Yes on 102" and the anti-Amendment groups "No on 102" and "Arizona Together." I examined the report filed for August 14, 2008 to September 22, 2008. It is very easy to search each file by keyword, so I searched for the words "Phoenix," "Tucson," and "Mesa." According to Wikipedia, the population of these three largest communities in Arizona in 2007 is as follows:
Phoenix- 1,552,259
Tucson- 525,529
Mesa- 452,933
Mesa is the location of the Mesa Arizona Temple, completed in 1919 and has a very high number Mormon population. It has been reported that LDS Church leaders asked members to contribute money and volunteer time to the anti-gay marriage amendment- although since I am not a member, I cannot confirm this directly.
However, it is relatively easy to examine a community's support for the Yes or No campaigns. Let's examine how many people/families/businesses in these three communities gave to the campaigns, using the filed reports:
Town- Pro Anti
Phoenix 138 125
Tucson 333 289
Mesa 739 4
Mesa has less than one-third the population of Phoenix and yet more than five times as many people contributed to the Yes campaign. And a total of four (four!) gave to the two No campaigns. Note the disparity with the numbers reported for Tucson, the second largest community in the state. The overall ratios of Anti/Pro contributors is close for Phoenix and Tucson (87 and 90) and is very different from Mesa (.05).
I am not a statistician, but there is clearly something different going on in Mesa.
I didn't bother to look at the actual dollar amounts per contribution, but according to the campaign filings, one Mesa family and a Mormon-owned business based in Phoenix gave $100,000 each to the Yes campaign (as did the Crisis Pregnancy Center, although how gay marriage and crisis pregnancies relate to each other is very confusing to me).
And LDS spokesman Don Evans, who was so "surprised" that people would be protesting outside his Temple, he gave $10,000 cash to the Yes campaign.
So should Don Evans be so surprised? I don't think so. It is very clear to me that the LDS Church in Arizona had a major role, if not The Major Role, is fundraising for the anti-gay marriage amendment here in Arizona, despite whatever the leaders of that church claim.
