Free Republic

California officials are planning to investigate whether the Mormon church gave an accurate accounting of its role in the campaign that succeeded in getting a same-sex marriage ban approved in the state. The action by the California Fair Political Practices Commission came in response to a complaint filed two weeks ago by a gay rights activist. Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate, accuses the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of failing to report the value of the work it did to support Proposition 8. Roman Porter, the agency's executive director, said Monday that the decision to open...

Another protest against Proposition 8 is planned for San Francisco tonight. The proposition approved by voters on Nov. 4 bans gay marriages in California. Tonight's event is being planned by One Love San Francisco. Organizers are getting the word out through social networking sites and e-mail. They hope to have a bigger impact than the rally last weekend had. They say it will be a non-violent civil rights march, designed to peacefully impact businesses along Market Street. The march and sit-in is scheduled to begin at 5:30 outside the ferry building. The last Friday night rally caused traffic nightmare as...

Before Election Day, national media handwringers forged a wildly popular narrative: The right was, in the words of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, gripped by "insane rage." Outbreaks of incivility (some real, but mostly imagined) were proof positive of the extremist takeover of the Republican Party. The cluck-cluckers and tut-tutters shook with fear. But when the GOP took a beating on Nov. 4, no mass protests ensued; no nationwide boycotts erupted. Conservatives took their lumps and began the peaceful post-defeat process of self-flagellation, self-analysis and self-autopsy. In fact, in the wake of campaign 2008 there's only one angry mob...

Supporters of gay marriage, frustrated over a ballot-box defeat in California, have channeled much of their anger toward the towering white spires of Mormon temples. For months, the Mormon church sought to portray itself as just one member of a coalition of Catholics, evangelicals, black Protestants and others supporting Proposition 8, a measure to stop gay marriage in California. Some opponents of the measure sought to dispel that in the campaign's final weeks, pointing to extensive Mormon organizing and the staggering amount of money donated by individual Mormons at the behest of church leaders in Salt Lake City. Since the...