Prop 8 Donors Fear for Their Lives…Yawn
With several groups and websites like “Californians Against Hate” and others listing the names and addresses of people who contributed to the Proposition 8 campaign, death threats and intimidation tactics are commonplace enough to inspire one man to file a class action lawsuit seeking protection from the government.
According to the Washington Times:
After giving $10,000 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign last year, Charles LiMandri began receiving some unexpected correspondence.
“I got about two dozen e-mails and hate phone calls,” said Mr. LiMandri, who lives in San Diego. “They were calling me Nazi, homophobe, bigot. I tried to engage people once or twice – I said that Proposition 8 had nothing to do with being bigoted, it was about preserving marriage – but people don’t want to engage on the issue.”
As a lawyer, however, Mr. LiMandri knew what to do with the e-mails.
“I collected them and turned them in to the lawsuit,” he said.
Those e-mails are now among hundreds of exhibits in a landmark case challenging California’s campaign-finance reporting rules, which require the release of the names, addresses and employers of those who contribute $100 or more to ballot-measure committees.
The lawsuit argues that those who contribute to traditional-marriage initiatives should be exempt from having their names disclosed, citing the widespread harassment and intimidation of donors to the Proposition 8 campaign.
Lest you think this is just a bunch of people being wimpy, intimidation tactics have come in the form of letters and e-mails to death threats, proponents say. One man, a Sacramento theater director, was fired after opponents of the initiative publicized his Proposition 8 campaign contributions.
“Anybody who’s in California knows that it’s very widespread,” said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, one of the biggest contributors to Proposition 8 and a joint plaintiff in the lawsuit. “Every donor has a story. I talked to a $100 donor the other day who had a note in his mailbox that said, ‘I know where you live and you’re going to pay.’
“These are just hardworking people who believe marriage is a union of a man and a woman and who never expected to be threatened in their homes,” Mr. Brown said.
Now, I don’t think this lawsuit will pass and in fact, I believe it would likely be dangerous if it were to pass because the more sunshine we have in our political system the better. But don’t you just think that in America today if the opposite thing were occurring with homosexuals seeking protection from death threats from Prop 8 proponents, that it would be a heckuva lot more likely to pass?
It would be a national emergency. We’d be subject to nightly news programs leading off with reports of weeping victims waving bloody notes. President Obama would call it “uhhh..uhhh…disgraceful and uhmmmm…uh…reprehensible” and hold a press conference right during my favorite show to announce legislation to protect these people. There’d be a Lifetime movie of the week starring Nancy Mckeon as a beleaguered woman who receives threatening notes in her mailbox. Tom Berenger could play the creepy Mormon neighbor. There’d be task forces and Senate hearings.
But now the shoe is on the other foot. So let’s all just ignore it.