but it seems to me that the mormon's would have threatened their tax exempt status by financially backing, so prominently, a political matter.

I mean, they didn't just preach that they thought gay marriage was wrong, they actively worked to defeat it.

The California investigation pertains to non-monetary, "in-kind" contributions from the LDS Church to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Religion.

You said "probe".

Please kill me.

Tax all churches.

Ten years ago the LDS in Utah almost wholly financed a ballot initiative in Alaska, that marriage was to be constitutionally restricted to being "between ONE man and ONE woman."

That may seem a bit ironic, given that the church for years studiously ignored the dominant polygamous communities in Hilldale Utah and Colorado City Arizona.

I can't help but wondering how many other states in the intervening decade have had their own marriage initiatives sponsored by the LDS? Here in Kansas we had one such measure that passed overwhelmingly in 2002. State law already prohibited such unions, so it was clear that the constitutional medddling had exclusively ulterior purposes.

There are three other reasons for the Mormons and other right wing groups to sponsor such initiatives. They provide a base for evangelism, for fund raising and for GOTV drives. Petition signers are not just requesting that an issue be put to a vote, but are unwittingly including themselves in data bases they might much prefer to avoid.

The vote for prop 8 showed that the majority of people in CA just do not want to sanction gay marriage. It does not matter who paid for the campaign. Votes matter. If civil unions are lawful that should surfice for now. The gay community can advance their own PR campaign to promote same-sex marriage. Marriage is very much a cultural phenomena, that has routes in the deep past. Insisting gay marriage be sanctioned is divisive and will just cause further antagonism with the greater heterosexual community.

Once again, "cultural" and religious marriage is totally irrelevant. The legal questions are all about the legal contract of marriage, a civil contract with many ramification and benifits tied to the state. No one is trying to, or could, force churches or other cultural organizations to give religio-cultural sanction to gay marriage.

What the voters of California said is that two people, otherwise legal and sane adults, are not permitted to enter into a civil contract with each other.

This is exactly the case where votes like this have to be questioned. The majority CANNOT be allowed to legislate away the rights of the minority. Thats why (amongst other reasons) the judical system exists.

The California State constitution guarantees minority rights. You can't legislate or amend away minority rights unless you remove this protection first. Do you think its reasonable to remove protection of minority rights?

I have personally sat in a pew in an LDS church and listened to a Stake President tell me and about 500 other voting age young adults that the lord wanted me to vote for George HW Bush in the '80 primary. The Mormon Church should never have had a tax exempt status and I think if anyone was paying attention neither should the Catholic church nor the Southern Baptist Convention. Every one of those organizations routinely tell their members how to vote and who to give campaign contributions to.

You can't have a free secular democracy and you aboslutely can't have freedom of religion if ANY church is allowed to meddle in politics. This needs to stop before we get to be a Christian version of pre-invasion Afgahnistan.

"The legal questions are all about the legal contract of marriage, a civil contract with many ramification and benifits tied to the state. No one is trying to, or could, force churches or other cultural organizations to give religio-cultural sanction to gay marriage."

If Civil Unions are equated in all legal aspect to marriage, then your problems with legal questions would all be answered.

"What the voters of California said is that two people, otherwise legal and sane adults, are not permitted to enter into a civil contract with each other."

Uh, NO...read what the Proposition said...MARRIAGE is defined as being between one man and one woman. It said NOTHING about

Civil Unions.

"This is exactly the case where votes like this have to be questioned. The majority CANNOT be allowed to legislate away the rights of the minority. Thats why (amongst other reasons) the judical system exists."

IF this were the case, I would agree...but it is not. If Civil Unions are legally equated with marriage in terms of rights and legal contracts, then your rights could NOT be abridged.

"The California State constitution guarantees minority rights. You can't legislate or amend away minority rights unless you remove this protection first. Do you think its reasonable to remove protection of minority rights?"

There IS no removal of protection of minority rights if minorities have the same rights, under different terminology, that married couples do. You simply wish to FORCE the redefinition of marriage. I submit that this can not and will not take place because of the fact that the institution of marriage has historical, traditional, and religious significance to the majority.

"Separate but equal" is not equal.

But as long as people like chiefpayne make arguments like this I'll say it again:

"If Civil Unions are legally equated with marriage in terms of rights and legal contracts, then your rights could NOT be abridged."

I was "Civilly Unioned" (see how silly that sounds) with my husband in 1982. We were married without a religious ceremony in front of a Justice of the Peace who united us in marriage. I have been married to my husband for more than 26 years. I am way more married to him than the millions of people who have stood before a Priest or a preacher to be married and who later contracted a civil divorce, very few of whom, I am willing to bet, went back to their Priest or preacher and sought a religious divorce.

""Separate but equal" is not equal."

The point made was the legal aspects. IF marriage and civil unions were equivalent under the law, then there would be no issue.

You can not and you will not get those who marry in churches to agree to gay marriage.

Now you CAN make the terminology civil unions across the board, even though those who do so in a church get married by a priest. THAT might work.

But you are not going to win in taking away the marriage label for religious marriages between a man and a woman. It just will not fly.