It’s remarkable how well this sums up the last couple of months.

The Democratic Strategist has an interesting strategic analysis of where the “No on 8″ campaign went wrong this year, and how to do better next time.

It looks like Proposition 8 is going to pass.  (It is currently 52-48 in favor, with 95% of precincts reporting.)

This is a minor setback in an inevitable push forward.  We will all tell our children and grandchildren about the fight to legalize something they will completely take for granted.

This is not over.

The last word til the results are in, on Proposition 8:

Campaign finance records show that opponents of Proposition 8 had a slight lead in contributions as of Monday, having raised $37.6 million. Supporters of the ban on gay marriage had raised $35.8 million. Proposition 8 is the second most expensive ballot issue in the nation, second only to the presidential race.

According to the National Organization on Money in State Politics, a little less than $33 million was spent on campaigns to pass or defeat gay marriage bans in the 24 states where they appeared on ballots in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

In May the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, and same-sex marriage licenses have been issued since June 17.

According to a new field poll, 44 percent voters were in favor of Proposition 8, with 49 percent against.

Via The Democratic Strategist, the latest Prop 8 polls:

Now there are dueling polls on Prop. 8. A Survey USA poll on October 17 showed the initiative ahead by a narrow 48-45 margin. But last night, the Public Policy Institute of California released a poll showing Prop. 8 losing among likely voters, 52-44.

It does appear by all accounts that the momentum behind Prop. 8 may have peaked a bit early. Spending on both sides is heavy (over $20 million each), and roughly equal.

Based on what I’ve read on the big polling blogs about Survey USA’s track record, the PPIC poll is probably (hopefully!) more accurate.

I promised an update from my lawyer friends about why Proposition 8 won’t threaten churches’ tax-exempt status, and here it is (better late than never).  There are lots and lots of factors one could consider and tangents one could follow in discussing this, but the short version of why those ads put up by the Mormon church are misleading/wrong is this:

501c3 determination is a federal question, and is left to the IRS. The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act codified into federal law the idea that the federal government can never recognize a same-sex marriage as valid. Therefore, it’d be fantastically difficult for the church’s 501c3 status to be revoked over the fact that they don’t sanctify what are in effect legal nullities in the federal government’s eyes.

In other words:

Bottom line is this: churches that don’t support same-sex marriage absolutely do NOT risk losing their federal income tax-exempt status, which is the biggest benefit of becoming a state-sanctioned nonprofit corporation anyway.  (I believe the only way to jeopardize your federal tax exemption, actually, is to engage in campaigning/lobbying activities…so to the extent these Mormons undertake an initiative to oppose same-sex marriage, they may actually be doing more harm to themselves than if they just let same-sex marriage be.)

From what I’ve read online about the “source” for the Mormon ads, it seems the argument that churches might lose their tax-exempt status is actually based on this ban on lobbying/political activism.  So the Mormon church, if it is directly funding this campaign, could be risking its status as a nonprofit–but not because it doesn’t want to recognize gay marriage.  It could sit back and simply refuse to perform same-sex marriages and it would be completely unaffected by the expansion of civil marriage rights.

The Mormon Church has begun a campaign in California to pass Proposition 8 this November to outlaw gay marriage.  One of its main talking points is that churches that refuse to recognize and/or perform gay marriages will lose their tax-exempt status.  My initial reaction upon hearing this was that it could not possibly be true.  (The Catholic Church won’t hire women as priests, and it’s still tax exempt.  Also, many churches didn’t recognize/perform divorces for quite a while, and they’re still around.)  Somehow it seems that the separation of church and state keeps the government from meddling in church’s internal affairs the way it might elsewhere.  But then again, I’m no legal expert; maybe there’s something weird about CA law?

Google sent me to conservative/pro-family advocacy sites and blogs, so I emailed the question to some very smart friends with law degrees who have focused at various points on non-profit law and also have an interest in gay marriage (so would know the law well enough to know the consequences of its passage).  Both replied with something along the lines of: “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard; please stop that terrible rumor from spreading!”

They’ve promised to dig up some solid sources for me, so I’ll update this later.  But the bottom line is: Please do not believe the ads the Mormon Church is airing in California.  They are untrue and obviously designed to scare voters who would otherwise have no problem extending the right to marriage to committed gay couples.  The campaign is wrongheaded at best, downright sleazy at worst.

Vote no on Proposition 8 in November.

Update: Summaries of my friends’ legal insights are here.

Good news for supporters of gay marriage in California:  A recent poll shows that only 38% of voters plan to vote for the November ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage; 55% oppose the measure.

When the California Supreme Court ruled this spring that outlawing gay marriage was unconstitutional, many analysts suggested that the probability that the November vote could overturn the decision (by changing the constitution) was high.  Compared with Massachusetts, where procedural rules built in lots of time between its Court’s gay marriage ruling and a final vote to overturn it–and thus plenty of time for voters to see that gay marriages would not turn the world upside down–California allows a very quick turn-around.  Apparently it’s not going to matter.