Dishonor Roll Released -- 741 Yes on 8 Donors Listed

NEWS RELEASE October 8, 2008 Contact: Fred Karger 619-592-2008

Californians Against Hate Publishes Updated Dishonor Roll of Over 740 Contributors of $5,000 and More to “Yes on Prop. 8”

LOS ANGELES, CA – Two days after the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign released its voluminous campaign report of all the money raised and spent during the previous 4 months, Californians Against Hate posted all its donor’s names, cities, business affiliations (when available) and contributions of over $5,000 on its web site’s Dishonor Roll:

http://www.californiansagainsthate.com/index.html

Since it lasted posted the names and dollar amounts on the Dishonor Roll back in September, there have been and additional 629 donors of $5,000 and more. The top 12 include the #1 donor to Yes on 8, The Knights of Columbus, the political arm of the Catholic Church out of New Haven, CT which gave $1,275,000 to end marriage equality in California. They are followed closely by the National Organization for Marriage located in Princeton, NJ which gave $941,134.80. Then John Templeton, Jr. of Bryn Mawr, PA at $900,000. He is the son of the late John Templeton who founded Templeton Funds, and just passed away this year at 95 years old. Then comes Howard “Howie” Ahmanson, heir to the Home Savings and Loan fortune, who upped his contribution from $600,000 on our last report to $900,000 as of October 1st.
The next 8 top association and individual donors who must really not like same-sex marriage either are in order:

American Family Association, Tupelo, MS $500,000

Elsa Prince, Holland, MI $450,000

Focus On the Family, Colorado Springs, CO $439,643.66

Concerned Women for America, Washington DC $409,000

Robert Hurtt, Orange, CA $300,000

Terry Caster & Family, San Diego, CA $293,000

Dorothy Nielson, La Verne, CA $150,000

Doug Manchester, San Diego, CA $125,000

Following these 12 are 8 more who gave $125,000 and $100,000. They are followed by 721 more donors of $5,000 and more, an unprecedented number of contributors of this magnitude to a California ballot initiative.

“I am guessing that these huge numbers represent the handy work of the Mormon Church, which made these contributions almost mandatory,” said Fred Karger, Campaign Manager of Californians Against Hate. “We got this information from a recent Wall Street Journal story, by Mark Schoofs, who was able to uncover the methods that were used to get the thousands of contributions by individuals or their companies to the Yes on 8 campaign:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122186063716658279.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Additional information on the mega- Mormon contributors can be found on the Mormons for Proposition 8 web site: http://mormonsfor8.com/

“It appears that at least 75% of the $25 million raised by Yes on 8 is from members of the Mormon Church. It is very disheartening to see the names of the hundreds of people from all over the United States who have given $5,000 and more who feel that strongly about same-sex marriage in California. It seems like there are so many other causes to give their millions of dollars to, where it could really help people instead of hurting them,” concluded Karger.
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