Wyoming

Mormon Legislators Introduce Raft of Right-Wing Bills in Wyoming

Submitted by Kyle on February 2, 2009 - 3:25pm

Ever since the passage of Prop 8 in California during the November election, there has been an effort underway to figure out just how much money the Mormon Church dumped into the effort. For weeks, the Church denied giving more than a few thousand dollars but last week, facing an investigation by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, the church reported nearly $190,000 in contributions.

On a related note, just last week AU reported on the influence that the Mormon Church has over the Utah legislature and now it looks like it might be expanding its reach into neighboring Wyoming, as the Casper Star-Tribune reports:

Mormons comprise more than 10 percent of the membership of the Wyoming Legislature, yet Mormon lawmakers are not known for voting as a bloc or working together to promote legislation.

That may be changing.

Mormons are taking a higher profile this session in promoting bills linked to controversial social issues including assisted suicide, gay marriage and abortion.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are the primary sponsors of bills dealing with all three topics, and a cadre of about eight LDS lawmakers have teamed up as the original co-sponsors of six related bills.

The Mormon legislators insist that their support of this raft of bills is just a coincidence, but the Star-Tribune reports that it may also be the result of targeted lobbying efforts from the WyWatch Family Institute:

Some of the LDS lawmakers said they were approached about getting more involved in social-issue legislation at meetings WyWatch held in months leading up to the session.

WyWatch chairwoman Becky Vandeberghe said her group recruits lawmakers to sponsor and support legislation based on voting records and responses to campaign questionnaires, not on religious affiliation.

"We honestly don’t look at religion," she said.

The evangelical group Focus on the Family Action is also trying to influence some of the bills.

LDS lawmakers say they agreed to sponsor the bills for a variety of reasons, including their religious beliefs.

Mormon lawmaker Rep. Allen Jaggi, R-Lyman, a co-sponsor of several social-issue bills, said he signed on to the measures because of his "Christian values" on issues including gay marriage and abortion, not because he collaborated with other LDS lawmakers.

The WyWatch Institute is the group that is currently pressing for passage of a marriage amendment in the state and is working closely with Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defense Fund to get it passed.

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Focus Works the Phones in Wyoming

Submitted by Kyle on January 21, 2009 - 12:47pm

Just last week we noted that Focus on the Family was getting involved in efforts to introduce a marriage amendment in Wyoming … and if there was any doubt that the organization is serious about getting it on the ballot, this ought to dispel that notion:

Focus on the Family Action of Colorado Spring has launched a telephone lobbying campaign trying to influence a gay-marriage bill in Wyoming.

The evangelical group has been making telephone calls to voters in key Wyoming senate districts.

The group is trying to drum up support for Senate Joint Resolution 2. The measure would let Wyoming voters decide whether to amend the state constitution to specify that the state won't recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

…

"Those phone calls are part of an effort to encourage and enable Wyomingites who care deeply about protecting marriage to contact their legislators," said Sonja Swiatkiewicz, director of issues response for Focus on the Family Action.

Swiatkiewicz said the calls began on Friday. She declined to disclose the cost of the effort or how many calls the group were being made.

…

The group's calls have been targeting voters in districts represented by some members of the Senate Education Committee. The resolution has been assigned to the committee but has yet to come up for a vote.

This follows directly on the heels of the more than a half-million dollars Focus dumped into the Proposition 8 fight in California which was then followed by an announcement that it would be laying off several hundred staff due to falling revenue.

Apparently the lessons from that effort have been lost on the powers-that-be at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado.

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Marriage Amendments Introduced in Wyoming and Indiana

Submitted by Kyle on January 13, 2009 - 10:13am

Yesterday was a busy day for anti-marriage equality advocates, with constitutional amendments being introduced in two states.

First in Indiana, where the Alliance Defense Fund, the Family Research Council, and the Indiana Family Institute joined state legislators in announcing their efforts to pass an amendment after a similar effort failed in 2007. As FRC 's Tony Perkins explained:

Legislators in Indiana, one of the minority of states that has yet to pass a marriage protection amendment, renewed their effort today by introducing a new amendment to the state's constitution. I was on hand today in Indianapolis as lawmakers vowed to put the Hoosier state in the column with the 29 other states that have taken marriage out of the hands of activist judges. An amendment was narrowly defeated in the General Assembly in 2007. This afternoon, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) joined me for a private pastors briefing in the Indiana Supreme Court Chambers. Mike has been a good friend and solid ally on this issue in the U.S. House, and with his help, Indiana churches stand to bring a victory for marriage to his home state.

After a House and Senate meet-and-greet with key Indiana lawmakers, I joined amendment sponsors State Reps. P. Eric Turner (R-Marion) and Dave Cheatham (D-North Vernon), Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute, our friends at the Alliance Defense Fund, and Pastor Ron Johnson Jr. for a press conference in the state Capitol on the importance of the constitutional amendment to the state.

And trying to make up for another effort that also failed two years ago, a similar group of legislators and Religious Right activists in Wyoming are gearing up to pass their own amendment, all while absurdly trying to insist that the effort is in no way motivated by any animus toward gays:

Sen. Curt Meier, R-LaGrange, one of the bill's sponsors, said Monday that the issue came to the forefront in the last election cycle, when voters in California voted to ban same-sex marriage. Meier said many Wyoming residents approached their lawmakers to find the status of the law in Wyoming.

Meier said the proposal to change Wyoming's constitution isn't motivated by any dislike of gays and lesbians.

"I really think what we're trying to do is protect the institution of marriage, and trying to make the family unit as strong as it can be for the future," he said.

A newly formed group called WyWatch Family Institute is lobbying for passage of the proposed amendment. The group's Web site describes it as a "group of Judeo-Christian families who have a goal to preserve traditional family values in the great state of Wyoming."

The group is getting advice from Focus on the Family Action, and the Alliance Defense Fund, said Becky Vandeberghe, chairwoman and lobbyist with the Wyoming group. Focus on the Family is a Colorado Springs, Colo.-based evangelical group founded by evangelist James Dobson, while the Alliance Defense Fund is an Arizona-based conservative Christian legal group.

"We're trying to protect the children, because when you have a same-sex marriage, you're denying that child either a mother or a father," Vandeberghe said. "And the family unit is very, very precious to us, and we want to make sure that every child has that."

Asked whether her group is motivated by any religious conviction that homosexuality is wrong or immoral, Vandeberghe said, "It plays a small part in it. But a large part is just wanting to protect traditional marriage."

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Connerly Announces Anti-Affirmative Action Campaigns in as Many as Nine States

Submitted by Ezra on December 13, 2006 - 4:07pm

Ward Connerly – who ten years ago spearheaded California’s successful ballot initiative to end affirmative action in education, two years later worked to end it in Washington state, and this year joined the effort in Michigan, where a ban on affirmative action also passed – announced today that he is exploring nine more states: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah. “Three down and 20 to go,” he said in a conference call this morning, referring to the number of states that have ballot initiative procedures.

Connerly was joined by Jennifer Gratz, a white student who sued the University of Michigan after being rejected for admission and who later led the ballot initiative to ban affirmative action outright. Gratz will join Connerly’s American Civil Rights Institute to work on the expansion of these bans. “We've always felt that if we could win in Michigan, we could win anywhere,” she said.

Despite the name of Connerly’s group, efforts like the Michigan ban have been opposed by major civil rights organizations. Connerly did pick up support from one major group: “If the Ku Klux Klan thinks equality is right, God bless them,” he said.