I have received an internal memo from the Mormon Church dated March 4, 1997.  This memo discusses strategies for what the memo calls “HLM” (gay marriage) in Hawaii and California (I assume that HLM refers to “homosexual legal marriage” but if you have your own preferred acronym, feel free to use it).

Like I said–this memo is devastating.  And it demonstrates that they have been planning this Proposition 8 referendum for more than a decade.

I’m in Seattle right now campaigning for Darcy, so this will be a quick post.  See more below.

Above is the first page of this memo.  It indicates, as you see, that the Mormon Church had been planning to coordinate with the Catholic Church to defeat “HLM” in Hawaii and California.  Below are images of devastating quotes from this memo.

This memo overtly discusses strategy for making sure that “HLM” doesn’t make any more progress than it absolutely has to:

Please note especially the last paragraph.  “There may have to be certain legal rights recognized for unmarried people…”  Take a look at what that implies.  The Mormon Church, if it had its way, wouldn’t even want to see gay couples have hospital visitation rights.  It’s not just about marriage–for them, it’s about making gays into second-class citizens.  Even hospital rights are a “concession” that have to be made to prevent full marriage equality.

The memo goes on to extensively discuss the fight that was taking place at that time for marriage equality in Hawaii, but comes back to California…

Yep, you got that right.  They were thinking of this in California way back in 1997.  They were saying, “referendum is expensive.  We have the money, but we don’t have the public face.  So let’s join with the Catholics, because they have a better reputation.”

The memo ends by describing a “cordial” visit with the Chairman of the Catholic Bishops Conference:

Like I said: there’s more where this comes from, according to my source.  But keep this in mind: as early as 1997, the Mormon Church was planning a referendum in California–using their money, but the public face of the Catholics.

So why am I going after the LDS church so much on this?  Because they’re trying to hide their money behind the Catholics to pass this constitutional amendment–and they deserve to be exposed.

Help defeat Proposition 8.  TAKE ACTION!

And in case you haven’t seen it:

This is a ad against Prop 8 that I and my brother thereisnospoon wrote, and a friend of mine edited, with a lot of help from our friends at Courage Campaign.  It has already made news in local Salt Lake City media–for good reason.

And speaking of the Courage Campaign:  here’s a video of one of their actions.  They delivered over 17,000 signatures opposing LDS Church involvement in California government to the LDS offices.

UPDATE 2:  Darcy Burner just wanted to chime in.  She says, “good luck in preventing the state of California from institutionalizing horrible, awful discrimination.”

Darcy Burner stands with us.  Stand with her.  I’m sure there’s a way to phonebank from remote.

When all is said and done, this is the bottom line.  If you vote for Proposition 8, you’re not voting against gay marriage.  You’re voting for a church taking over your government.

Continuing on with my previous post about email “feedback” I am receiving, one consideration stands out especially.  I have been accused of being disingenuous in my post on DailyKos that referenced the wedding of our own Brian Leubitz as a reason to vote against Proposition 8.

Surprisingly, some of the feedback I have received has indicated that a lot of moral crusaders out there don’t think that Proposition 8 will invalidate same-sex marriages that already exist:

Brian is married, and nothing will change that.

Of course, Proposition 8 will divorce Mr. Leubitz and Mr. Devine, undoubtedly against their desires.  And this is a very powerful argument, even for religious zealots.  This is one response I have received in response to the information that, yes, Proposition 8 will indeed constitutionally divorce currently married same-sex couples:

I do feel bad for Brian if his marriage is reversed. I was not aware of that. Legal rights aren’t meant for everyone, and that is obviously where we disagree.  Marriage, historically, has been meant to be for a man and a woman. Marriage itself, comes from religion.  And my religious belief is what I’ve indicated, between a man and a woman.

So yes, I could apologize to him, nicely, and say these are my beliefs, and I’m sorry that they contradict what you desire.

The “legal rights aren’t meant for everyone” part is especially charming, don’t you think?

Regardless of the theocratic bent of this individual’s worldview–which actually advocates that GLBT individuals be second-class citizens–it is very instructive that the idea of current marriages being broken against the will of the wed is something that even gives theocrats some pause when they see a specific example of it in action.

Its a message that we haven’t really seen from the No on 8 campaign, but I think it would make a very effective closing argument.  There are thousands of legally married same-sex couples out there.  They shed tears of joy when they finally got the chance to legally marry the ones they love.

A vote for Proposition 8 is a vote to forcibly divorce every last one of them.  Could you vote for Proposition 8 and explain to a heartbroken couple why you cast a vote to divorce them against their will?  Do you really have the heart to do that?  If you don’t, a no vote on Prop 8 is your only choice.

So, on the Big Orange I’ve been advocating for some more pressure to be put on the Mormon church, in hopes of exposing where the vast majority of the amount of money in support of Proposition 8 is coming from.

That makes a lot of people very angry.  And the email is hilarious.  Honestly.  Keep it coming, guys.

But no matter how much the Prop 8 campaign says that it’s really all about the children, we know that it’s really all about the theocracy.  And when you get hate mail, you get people who tell you as much because they’re frankly too stupid for talking points.  Case in point:

Morality is defined as “The quality of being in accord with standards of right or good conduct. A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct.”  Morality is typically established by religion. Christian and many other religions agree that God, Buddah, or Allah have determined that gay marriage is immoral. And that is why Mormons are trying to reverse gay marriage; it’s immoral by Christian definition, and America is predominantly Christian. If you live in Saudi Arabia, would you think it acceptable to have gay marriage,

when their religion and government doesn’t accept it?

‘Nuff said.  If you like theocracy, vote for Prop 8.  And if you actually believe in freedom of religion and the separation of church and state, vote against it.

Where are you campaigning this weekend?

Tomorrow, I’ll be participating in the California Young Democrats’ “Campaign Invasion” on behalf of Hannah-Beth Jackson in SD-19.

How are you helping?  There’s plenty to choose from.

Early voting opens in Nevada this morning…

No on Prop 8 needs more money and more volunteers…

Our contested Congressional and State legislature races could always use more help…

What’s going on in your area this weekend?  Any events or campaign activities you’d like to share?

As mentioned previously when Charlie Brown was a contestant, DailyKos runs a weekly feature called “hell to pay” wherein various candidates/issues are nominated for a fundraising drive.

This week, No on Prop 8 is one of the contestants, and we need your votes to win this.

Here’s a link to the contest.  Go vote it up!

That’s the bottom line.  As the Sacramento Bee reports, Tom McClintock is Epic Fail:

Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican in a Democratic-dominated state Legislature, is the only state lawmaker to fail to shepherd a single piece of legislation into law in the last two years.

Not that he seems to mind.

In all of 2007, he passed not a single bill.  And, according to the article, this year, he passed one, but it was vetoed by the VetoNator.

So…since Tom McClintock isn’t exactly a legislator, what does he view his job as?

“I came to the conclusion a long time ago that minority legislators have a choice,” said McClintock, who has served for 22 years in Sacramento. “One is to tinker at the margins and win very minor victories on unimportant matters and the other is to try to drive the public policy debate on major issues, sacrificing legislative victories for broader policy victories.”

See, McClintock doesn’t view himself as a legislator representing his constituents.  He actually sees himself as a conservative ideologue using a position in elected office to push a broader ideological agenda.  And it doesn’t matter what the office is, or whom he would technically represent.  What matters is that it’s an office he thinks he can win–which is why he’ll carpetbag hundreds of miles to a district he doesn’t even know.

Attention Mr. McClintock:  If you want to push a narrative, go work at the Heritage Foundation.  Go push public opinion at Fox News.  If you want to push the debate, there are plenty of places designed for just that where you can do that.  But do us all a favor, Tom, and leave the legislating and representing of constituents to someone who…oh, I don’t know…actually gives a shit about the job.

Voters in CA-04 have a choice.  That choice is Charlie Brown.

Sunday’s edition of the Stockton Record ran a story about the Jerry McNerney campaign’s “tracker” of his opponent, Dean Andal.  Now, as most of us know, “tracking” is the practice of bringing a videocamera to all of your opponent’s public events in the hopes of getting ammunition–either in terms of a “macaca moment” or something as simple as contradictions in the message of a campaign.

Well, as the article points out, tracking is an inevitable and uncontroversial aspect of political campaigning:

I don’t see the need for secrecy. But I did not observe any foul play, either. Neither did Brian Klunk, a political science professor at University of the Pacific.

“Campaigns have done ‘oppositional research’ just about forever,” Klunk said. “There’s a long lore of this.”

Not a lot of controversy here…but Dean Andal doesn’t see it that way.  Maybe that’s because Dean Andal is afraid of accountability and exposure.  Regardless, here’s what he had to say about tracking–from the very same article in the Stockton Record:

McNerney was tracked in 2007 as he campaigned, presumably by minions of his rival, Rep. Richard Pombo, possibly by other Republicans.

“I’ve actually told the few people we’ve hired, anybody who does that would be immediately terminated,” Andal said. “Because I don’t believe in it.”

Now it’s time to find out just how much Dean Andal means it.

Here’s a video of Congressman McNerney entering the debate in Tracy on Oct. 11th for the CA-11 Congressional Debate.

At about 10 seconds in, you’ll notice someone standing on the raised planter area with a videocamera.  Seems innocuous enough.  But who is that guy?

Here’s a still-shot that allow us to get a better look:

So who is that?  Honestly, it looks a little bit like John Franklin, longtime Republican campaign consultant and current campaign manager of Citizens for Andal.  Here’s John’s LinkedIn profile, and here’s his website gallery, which contains some more pictures of him.

So, it’s time for John Franklin and Dean Andal to answer some questions.  Is that indeed John Franklin tracking Jerry McNerney, and if so, will Dean Andal replace him as his campaign manager for the final home stretch of the campaign?

There’s a weekly feature from now through the election on Daily Kos that’s called “Hell to Pay”, in which a contest is held among candidates from the Orange to Blue ActBlue page.  The winner of the contest has a special fundraising drive held for them on DailyKos on Saturday night.  The winner can usually count on racking up donations into the five figures.

Calitics favorite and CA-04 Congressional candidate Charlie Brown is one of this week’s contestants.  Voting is open right now, so if you have a DKos account, go vote.

P.S. I absolutely love Dan Seals, the candidate in IL-10.  Personable, friendly, wickedly smart, very receptive to the netroots, and an all around good guy.  It’s a Chicago suburb that we should be able to win and hold.  I hope he wins next week.  But right now, let’s get Charlie Brown an extra boost and send Tom McClintock back down to my neighborhood to go lose an election for some other office.