Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage

[joannatsf]

New York Times

By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
Published: November 14, 2008

SACRAMENTO — Less than two weeks before Election Day, the chief strategist behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called an emergency meeting here.

The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=all

[Kaweah]

In addition to supplying at least 40% of the money used to pass Proposition 8, Mormons apparently were almost all of the early door-to-door volunteers.