Information
- Category:
- Organizations -
- Description:
- The separation of church and state has a qualification that no political endorsements of candidates or excessive lobbying and donations are given to ballot initiatives in exchange for tax-exempt status. The amount of money and the amount and type of effort seem to be a gray area.
The LDS church contributed a significant amount of money and effort (including alleged phone banks run from church property) to endorse PROP 8 in California via its network of church, media, and community outlets... (read more) - Privacy Type:
- Open: All content is public.
Basic Info
- Name:
- Petition IRS to revoke Church of Latter Day Saints tax-exempt status
- Category:
- Organizations -
- Description:
- The separation of church and state has a qualification that no political endorsements of candidates or excessive lobbying and donations are given to ballot initiatives in exchange for tax-exempt status. The amount of money and the amount and type of effort seem to be a gray area.
The LDS church contributed a significant amount of money and effort (including alleged phone banks run from church property) to endorse PROP 8 in California via its network of church, media, and community outlets... (read more) - Privacy Type:
- Open: All content is public.
Contact Info
Recent News
- News:
- Feb. 1st, 2009
The smoking gun. The Mormon church now admits to spending over $180,000 including 25 round trip airfares for lobbing efforts in October alone along with $96,849.31 worth of “compensated staff time” for church employees:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/top-officials-w.html
How can they now claim that the terms of 501(c)(3) tax-exeption have not been violated?
Nov. 30th
I've contacted a tax specialist and Equality California (http://www.eqca.org) for further assistance and direction.
Let us not forget that there are a lot of smart people working on the implications of Prop. 8 -- we're not alone. The are still constitutional and procedural issues which have not been ruled upon yet.
Nov. 13th
What's happening:
It's been a few days as I make calls and get an idea as to how best to deliver the petition with the correct documentation.
The San Francisco LGBT Center recommended the local ACLU office in SF. I had already left a message with an advisor stating the status of the petition; I'm awaiting a response. I can imagine they're a "little busy" over the issue.
I'll post here as soon as I have further information.
Nov. 9th
We're fast approaching 7,400 group members and 11,000 petition "signatures" in under 5 days. I think it's safe to say we've struck a nerve so I bumped the goal to 20,000.
Things left to do:
1. Continue membership awareness and petition support.
2. Determine origin and custody chain for the submitted documents (e.g. how and where the came into being). We need to defend any challenges that these documents didn't originate from the church but were created after the fact.
3. Get more professional representation involved. There's no point to this if we're headed in the wrong direction or are operating on false assumptions. Wasted energy and wishful thinking benefit no one.
4. Stay calm and focused. The worst thing you can do is lash out and fight when you've been punched hard in gut. Regroup your thoughts, remain civil, keep your eye on the real prize: freedom and equality. It wasn't an easy road for Ghandi or MLK, why should we expect anything different? The best things in life are the hardest to achieve.
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Nov. 6th
Here's the link to the petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/review-the-501c3-status-of-the-church-of-latter-day-saints-the-mormons
I solicited comments as I feel it's only a draft but 6 people signed it already.
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Nov. 5th
Given the news reports and web references to similar actions by the LDS church in the past it seems to come down to one issue when deciding a 501(c)(3) violation: how much money was involved and where it came from.
Given that the money came from the church membership and not the offices of the church, the question comes down to: are the church members a thin veiled proxy for the church and even if the check didn't have the LDS account number on it, does the nature of the relationship between churches and their members constitute a single entity? Fidelity to one's church is part of the affiliation and loyalty bond whereas most people would consider themselves part of "the body" of the church.
In addition, the messages from the pulpit, letters sent to church members, and phone banks calling asking them to vote a certain way and donate to the YES cause call into question the degree of lobbying permitted by IRS code. It would be interesting on how the prior case law decided the older complaints.
Californians Against Hate released figures Tuesday showing that $17.67 million was contributed by 59,000 Mormon families since August to groups like Yes on 8. Contributions in support of Prop. 8 total $22.88 million.
Why isn't this considered a form of money laundering?
The total spent on both for and against PROP 8 was over $74M. Imagine what could have been done with that money for real charity work for which 501(c)(3) status was intended to encourage. This has been the most expensive social initiative in history.
In addition there are allegations that the church ran phone banks from their property but shut them down only when confronted.
The ACLU and other civil rights groups are taking another angle: the initiative is invalid at face value.
1. The court petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group-- lesbian and gay Californians.
2. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.
The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters.
That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid.