The Man Behind Proposition 8

by Max Blumenthal

Among the local ballot measures to be decided on Election Day, California's Proposition 8 is perhaps the most fiercely contested. Backers of the proposition to ban same-sex marriage in the state cast their campaign in apocalyptic terms. "This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon," born-again Watergate felon and Prison Fellowship Ministries founder Chuck Colson told the New York Times. Tony Perkins, the president of the Christian right's most powerful Beltway lobbying outfit, Family Research Council, echoed Colson's language. "It's more important than the presidential election," Perkins said of Prop 8. "We will not survive [as a nation] if we lose the institution of marriage."

The campaign for Prop 8 has reaped massive funding from conservative backers across the country. Much of it comes from prominent donors like the Utah-based Church of Latter Day Saints and the Catholic conservative group, Knights of Columbus. Prop 8 has also received a boost from Elsa Broekhuizen, the widow of Michigan-based Christian backer Edgard Prince and the mother of Erik Prince, founder of the controversial mercenary firm, Blackwater.

While the Church of Latter Day Saints' public role in Prop 8 has engendered a growing backlash from its more liberal members, and Broekhuizen's involvement attracted some media attention, the extreme politics of Prop 8's third largest private donor, Howard F. Ahmanson, reclusive heir to a banking fortune, have passed almost completely below the media's radar. Ahmanson has donated $900,000 to the passage of Prop 8 so far.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/democracy/106102/the_man_behind_proposition_8/