Dec 12, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

Editors’ note: This is the second of a two-part series looking at the role of the Mormon church in Prop 8’s passage. Part one is available here.

Sources involved in the fight over a measure banning same-sex marriage in California offered several explanations as to why the Mormon church was so committed to passing the state constitutional amendment, known as Proposition 8.

Dave Campbell, a straight political science professor at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in religion and politics, said, “it’s not a new thing” for the church to be involved in ballot measures on same-sex marriage. He noted that Mormons had expressed “fairly consistent opposition” to gay marriage even when the matter came up in Alaska and Hawaii during the 1990s.

However, the church was noticeably absent from the issue in 2004, when 13 state marriage amendments were on the ballot, he said.

California was particularly important for the Mormon church, Campbell said, because it recognized that “California is very much a leader in terms of what happens in the rest of the country” and there is “a fairly large” presence of Mormons in the state.

About 2 percent of California residents with a religious affiliation identify as Mormon, according to the church.

Campbell said the issue of same-sex marriage also speaks directly to Mormon theology. He noted that in 1995, the church issued “A Proclamation to the World” regarding the family, wherein church leaders “solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God.”

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and an executive committee member of the “No on 8” campaign, was raised as a Mormon and left the church in her early 20s. She said many Mormons backed Proposition 8 not because they could “articulate a rational threat” but because “that’s what the prophet says, and faithful Mormons really do not disagree openly with church leadership.”

“If they do — and many faithful Mormons did oppose Prop 8 — it’s an uncomfortable position to be in,” she said. “It’s not what good Mormons do.”

David Melson, assistant executive director for Affirmation, a gay Mormon group, said his organization supported the “No on 8” campaign while using its “limited resources as effectively as possible.”

Melson said Affirmation encouraged its members to donate to the “No on 8” campaign and participated in a roundtable discussion with campaign leaders. He noted that members of Affirmation living in California also participated in “get out the vote” efforts by going door to door.

But he said for the “old guard” of the church, same-sex marriage is “a doctrinal issue.”

“Anything that threatens their definition of marriage they take as a personal threat to them,” he said. “Now this seems a little bit strange coming from the group that sort of holds the patent on alternative family structures.”

Campbell said “it’s not implausible” that Mormons were involved in the fight against same-sex marriage in an effort to cast off its association with polygamy.

Joseph Smith, who founded the church in the early 19th century, instituted a form of plural marriage between one man and many women, and his successor, Brigham Young, advocated this practice. The church officially ceased its practice of polygamy with a manifesto in 1890.

Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, said he suspects that by getting involved in the Proposition 8 fight, the Mormon church was showing its effectiveness to other religions.

“They’ve always been a stepchild as far as other religions go,” he said. “A lot of other religions have never taken them seriously. To me, that was their big power play to show all these all other religions ‘we’re very involved in the campaign.’”

But Campbell discounted theories that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sought to gain support with evangelical Christians by backing Proposition 8.

“There wouldn’t be much gained from the perspective of the LDS Church in trying to curry favor with a movement that represents a different set of theologies,” he said. “The LDS church — they’re not politicians and they’re not really in the business of winning political favor for the Mormon church — they’re in the business of expanding the church and ensuring that its members thrive.”

Kendell also was skeptical that the Mormon church was trying to warm up to other religions, noting, “it’s no secret that evangelical Christians are suspicious of — and in many cases openly hostile to — the Mormon church.”

“I think Mormon leadership in some ways had to the hold their nose to be in the company of other denominations who ...